TRANSGENDER – At the peak of his unhappiness, Sascha Bailey was so desperately low that he contemplated taking his own life.
But internet chatrooms convinced him there was another way out of his despair: he could transition into a woman.
He Wanted to be a Barbie
Sascha’s vision was to become ‘like a real-life Barbie‘, with pneumatic curves and long blonde hair.
The Question he was Asked
Had the 29-year-old son of the renowned photographer David Bailey and his model fourth wife Catherine spent a lifetime believing he was trapped in the wrong body?
So Depressed
He insists not. Instead, thoughts of becoming a woman began to emerge as the art curator endured a volatile and difficult marriage, becoming so profoundly depressed that he was barely able to get out of bed.
‘Transitioning was a way of killing myself without dying, because I was so unhappy with my life,’ he says, talking exclusively to the Mail. ‘I thought that if I could do this one thing it could change everything, I could reinvent myself as an entirely new person.’
What Doctor Did to Him
So convinced was Sascha that this was the right course of action, and so anxious to hasten the process, he saw a private doctor who confirmed he was transgender and wrote him a prescription for female hormones as a prelude to gender affirmation surgery.
How he was Nurtured
Yet 15 months on, Sascha sits before me, not as a woman but as the handsome young man he has always been. Nurtured by his family and the love of a new partner, 32-year-old photographer Lucy Brown, he has been pulled back from the brink of a life-changing and — he now believes — potentially ruinous decision.
To say he is deeply grateful is an understatement. Indeed, his enormous relief is the reason that, with extraordinary candour, he is opening up about this deeply personal subject, determined to use his experience for what he believes is the wider good.
He is easy company, with a disarming smile, but you can still sense his vulnerability.
Gender Dysphoria
‘I feel there’s a huge problem with over-diagnosis of gender dysphoria,’ Sascha says. ‘Obviously it is very real for some, but I think there are a lot of people who, like me, aren’t actually trans, they’re just incredibly unhappy and transitioning is a way of making themselves into a new person which they believe will fix everything.
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‘This new person won’t have the old problems or the old societal expectations. But of course that’s not really true.’
Sascha knows that by speaking out so boldly he may be a target for trolls. ‘But no one can say it’s not my lived experience,’ he says. ‘I am only speaking from the heart about something I know.’
All of this, of course, feels a very far cry from an upbringing steeped in glamour.
Sascha’s father David, now 86, counts famed beauties Catherine Deneuve and Marie Helvin among his ex-wives, and he has a portfolio of extraordinary fashion and celebrity portraiture.
Sascha’s mother Catherine — to whom David remains married today — is also a celebrated model.
