Trans woman ‘portrayed as a drag queen’ by magazine

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A PinkNews.co.uk exclusive

A trans woman who was featured in a women’s magazine has said she has been “destroyed” after it published “lies” about her.

Chrisie Edkins told PinkNews.co.uk she expected the feature, in weekly magazine Closer, would be a “heart-warming” story about her struggle for acceptance as a trans woman.

Instead, she claims that the magazine fabricated quotes from her and dressed her up to look like a transvestite.

The story said she had starved herself to look like Victoria Beckham and was obsessed with the former Spice Girl.

Edkins, who was referred to as “he” throughout the feature, “starved himself [sic] by eating just five Hobnob biscuits a day in his quest to squeeze into tiny miniskirts and and dresses like his idol Posh”.

Edkins said: “Ninety per cent of what they wrote is a load of rubbish. If it was a nice story, I wouldn’t mind. All I wanted to do was help other people in my situation. But I didn’t want to be portrayed as a drag queen or a transvestite.

“I didn’t starve myself. I’m not saving up for a sex change. I didn’t say that. I didn’t even say I was taking female hormones to stop my facial hair growing. Hormones don’t make your hair stop growing, they only thin it. I wouldn’t say that.

“They photoshopped me to make me look muscly and even lied about my clothes size.”

She added: “They used my partner’s first name. She hadn’t even told her parents she was bisexual. I made it very clear I didn’t want her name mentioned in the magazine.”

Edkins was paid £500 for the feature but said she did not care about the money, having turned down twice that amount to appear in a similar publication.

She said: “People like me, we go out trying to help others but our lives get destroyed. I’m already getting dirty looks at the school gate when picking up my daughter. It’s totally destroyed me.

“People don’t want their kids near me now, they look disgusted. At the end of the day, what kind of parent does this make me look like?”

Closer magazine said: “We published the story in good faith and we’re sorry if Chrisie is upset.”

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