UK Transgender Teen Enters Miss England Pageant

Jackie Green, 18, recently told the UK press that she is in the process of entering Miss England -- an annual beauty pageant for females between 17 and 24 years old. Green, who used to go by Jack, is the UK's youngest transgender person after receiving a sex change in Thailand when she was just 16, the Sun reported in a Jan. 14 article.

"I went to the Britain's Next Top Model show in London and was really surprised when scouts came up to me," Green said. "Miss England is a prestigious competition. I'd love to win. I've as good a chance as anyone."

Green dreams of becoming a professional model and says she wants to raise awareness about bullying and transgender issues. The teen has experienced severe bullying in the past and has tried to take her own life five times.

She is currently in the part of the pageant where the public votes on who they want to see in the semi-finals.

Green knew she wanted to be a female since she was four and by the time she turned 10 she had grown her hair long and wore a girl's uniform to school. When she was 12 Green's mother brought her to a U.S. hospital so Green could go under hormone treatment and to help pay her �28,000 sex-change surgery, Green's mother re-mortgaged her home.

"I can never thank my mum enough, she saved my life," Green said.

The conservative right wing website, Free Republic, reported Green's story and many of the site's readers left hateful and bigoted comments.

"He tried to commit suicide five times? Guess he can't do anything right," one commenter said.

"It's tragically depressing to see a child mutilated beyond recognition like that," another reader wrote. "The mother is a fiend for feeding upon their child's illness to the point where they'd willingly engage in such a thing. Mental disorder indeed - one that only a completely inhumane society would nurture rather than attempt to cure. All involved will be judged for permitting this to happen."

In a Jan. 8 article EDGE reported that a basketball player from a Ohio became the world's tallest transgender person at 7-feet tall.

Lindsay Walker, formally known as Greg, dropped out of college at the age of 21 to purse her new lifestyle. With the support of her family, Lindsay, now 25, has been taking female hormones and dressing like a woman. She is currently saving up for a gender reassignment surgery and plans to have the operation by the end of the year.

"I was smart and always had girlfriends and loads of girls chasing me," Walker said. "But it somehow didn't feel right, almost like it was a charade."

"Then one day it just clicked and I knew what I had to do. I started wearing women's clothes and later turned to female hormones to suppress the testosterone in my body."