Trans woman who uses ‘dead name’ at work and leaves personality ‘at the door’ hopes surgery will help her feel complete

A transgender woman who still uses her “dead name” at work and “hangs (her) personality up at the door” is hoping facial feminisation surgery will help her “finally feel complete”.

Nell Nelson, 35, an administrator and drag performer who lives in Finchley, north London, came out in 2019 to her partner and friends, but is yet to come out to her parents or colleagues.

At her day job, she continues to go by Chris, her “dead name”, and “hangs (her) personality up at the door”.

She believes her “self-consciousness” has made her turn down opportunities. Despite working on a TV show about her life with Oscar-winning actress Olivia Colman and her husband Ed Sinclair’s production company, Nell is reluctant to play the lead, feeling she doesn’t “have a face for TV”.

Nell has set up a GoFundMe to raise money for the surgery, which includes a brow bone shave, forehead reduction and lip lift and costs a minimum of £12,000 in Turkey.

She feels anxious about the procedure as it will mean she can no longer “hide (her) true self” from her family and colleagues, but hopes it will “make (her) life finally feel complete”.

“I have disliked or had an uneasy relationship with my face and general appearance all my life, and always wanted to change something and didn’t really know what it was,” Nell told PA Real Life.

“I quickly discovered that hormones can do a great many things in terms of your body and a bit in terms of your face, but they ain’t going to change my whopping jaw or my big meaty brow bone.

“Your bones aren’t going to change.

“I want it to make my life finally feel complete.”

In 2019, Nell was a sex worker and performed as a drag queen under the name Sue Gives a F***, and she believes these experiences played a key role in her coming out1 as trans.

“Sex work got me doing the whole cross-dressing thing and that was my first time exploring femininity outside of wearing wigs and basically a clown performance and all the stuff that goes with being a drag queen,” she explained.

“Drag is a gateway drug to coming out as trans, but it’s hard to relate it to your identity or your sense of personhood.

“Actually doing sex work was the first time where I’d ever thought maybe the femininity that I was involved in could have anything to do with me, rather than just being a character.

“It was also the first time anyone had really fancied me, in a way, so that was kind of weirdly validating.”

When Nell began to realise she was trans, she met her partner, Monzur, 25, on Grindr, and he was incredibly supportive of her journey.

She added: “My friends were great, I had absolutely no qualms.

“I’m a massive oversharer on social media and stuff like that.

“I actually started making a podcast about it, about transitioning and about dating and sex while being gender non-conforming.”

However, she has yet to tell her parents, who live in Cyprus, or her office job colleagues and, as far as she knows, they have not come across her podcast.

“I go by Chris, my dead name, in the workplace and when I see my parents,” Nell explained.

“I kind of hang up my personality at the door at work, so when people are calling me ‘he’ or ‘Chris’, or any of that, I just don’t really notice, because I’m like,you know what? I’m not really here, this isn’t part of my narrative.”

On how she would feel if her family discovered her identity through her podcast or this article, she said: “Well, it’s interesting because they have had multiple opportunities to find out.

“They read the press release about my television show, which mentioned sex work and being trans, but they (my parents) did not ever mention it to me.

“It’s always been the way – they found gay things on my laptop as a teenager but still were shocked when I came out!

“I think their capacity to not know makes me not at all worried that they will find out, or if they did find out anything, they would shut that down in their brain.

“I think they are not going to talk about it until I make them.”

In 2022, Nell self-referred herself to TransPlus, the first integrated gender, sexual health and HIV service commissioned by NHS England, and is currently exploring options such as hormone therapy.

Nell is certain she would like to have facial feminisation surgery, as at the moment she feels “stuck” and has found herself “turning down certain opportunities”.

For example, she has been working on a television show called Transgressions, commissioned by South of the River Productions, founded by Ed Sinclair and Olivia Colman, which is based on her life.

However, she is “reluctant to play the lead role” because she feels she doesn’t have a “face for TV”.

She added: “The surgery might make mirrors a little bit kinder, and I hope it’ll just make me feel more like me.”

To have the surgery, which includes a brow bone shave, forehead reduction, and lip lift, in London, it would cost Nell more than £17,000.

The cheapest option is in Turkey at £12,000, which includes a fat transfer.

The deluxe option, which provides a bespoke service, is in Marbella and would cost £30,000. This would be Nell’s ideal option, and she has had images produced by a clinic called FacialTeam to see what the surgery could achieve.

The recovery time is around a month, during which Nell’s face would have to be bandaged.

To help reach her goal, Nell set up a GoFundMe last month which has raised more than £2,000 of its £20,000 target.

“It’s deeply, deeply cringe to ask people for money, and I’m so uncomfortable with the whole thing, but I have realised people are so generous, which is quite shocking and humbling,” Nell said.

However, she cannot help but feel “nervous” about having to then come out to her colleagues and parents.

“My chief hope is to not compartmentalise myself – part of the reason for going to the office as Chris is I just feel like I look so obviously like a man,” Nell said.

“No one has ever thought I’m anything other than that.

“So at that time, I’ll just tell everyone what is going to come back into this office is going to be a monster.

“Then after that, what is going to emerge from that monster is probably going to have a new name.”

Nell is “dreading” telling her parents, but thinks they will come to understand eventually.

She explained: “Coming out as gay was one thing, and then starting doing drag was another thing.

“Coming out, my mum did not respond to very well, but since then, she’s gone on a journey, and for a long time, she was making my drag costumes.

“So this will be another journey that she’ll go on and I think she’ll rise to the challenge.”

To donate to Nell’s GoFundMe, visit www.gofundme.com/f/sues-facial-feminisation-surgery-fundraiser.