Sometimes I was Finn, sometimes Chris, but mostly Max – and never Yvonne. Only other people used my birth name. My family, friends, teachers. I don’t know where I’d picked up these boy names. I was three or four years old at the time, and those names were pouring out of my mouth like a paper out of a cash machine. Exactly as ordered. My parents remember it too – they never tried to contradict me. They thought it was just a “phase”, a “toddler’s craze”, and somehow even “cute”. The same was true of my taste in clothes and my preferences when playing. Pink stuff, glitter and jewelry? Give me a break! A story that was often told at coffee parties with grannies and aunts under the heading, “Typical Yvonne!” described how little Yvonne could still barely walk and was wearing a dress with a big lace collar. The collar kept blowing in her face, which made her so angry that she tried to tear it off with her hands, accompanied by hysterical screaming. From then on, little dresses with collars were taboo.

So my childhood was not a case of dresses and dolls, but rather of being always boyish and ready for a fight. I was such a typical tomboy.

A voice in your head whispers the truth to you. It gets louder and louder. But you’re just too young to listen to it. You don’t understand what it’s about and what’s different. It’s just those loud voices inside of you that scream something other than what’s supposed to be true. There is always this conflict inside of you: outwardly you are a girl, inwardly a boy.

In the delivery room, you get tagged right away with either the pink or the blue label. In a way, it’s a good thing, as there’s no confusion. But I was labelled wrong. Labelled pink, although I actually belonged in the blue corner. I’m not a father yet, but I can imagine what this day must have been like for my parents. Of course they told me all the stories about my birth. How proud and happy they were then. And then that special moment in the delivery room: is it a boy or a girl? The question of all questions - because in the 1980s these 4D ultrasound devices didn’t exist yet. “As long as it’s healthy,” parents always say. But unconscious and therefore unexpressed hopes play a role. What if the newborn girl should have been a boy? But I had a little vagina between my legs. So my label was fixed. Yvonne was born!

My middle name could have been “ambivalence”. There was the happy, funny, popular kid with the loud mouth. And next to it always was the lonely, questioning, searching kid with the lump in his throat. The happy and popular child was always visible, the sad one I learned to conceal for a long time. The stage of my life was arranged for it. The scenery lacked for nothing. In fact I grew up extremely privileged. We even had a holiday home in Spain, our own small yacht and a sports plane. A remarkable achievement from my dad, who came from a very humble background. He had fought his way to the top without outside help and founded a successful kitchen and staircase construction business. My father is certainly not an easy man, but I find his energy and determination remarkable. As a child I enjoyed his strength and presence. He was no windbag, unlike many a father in my circle of friends.

In general, the assignment of roles at home was quite conventional when viewed from the outside. All the men in my family are macho level 3000, whereas my mother is a woman through and through. A real “chick”, but in the best sense. Beautiful clothes, long hair, jewelry and makeup. She can’t even walk on flat shoes anymore because she’s always worn heels. My mum is the most feminine being I know, but she never wanted to make me into a copy of herself. When she noticed my aversion to frills, gli