A JUSTIN Bieber lookalike who started life as a girl hopes his rap single will help end transphobic abuse.

Singer-songwriter Jordan O’Gorman was born as a girl named Hannah but aged 14 announced he wanted to live as a boy.

Over one life-changing weekend, he cut his hair, swapped skirts for trousers and turned up at school on Monday introducing himself as Jordan.

Now 18, he has written and recorded a rap song with the charity Fixers titled Just Be Me, in which he urges people to stand up to transphobic and homophobic abuse.

The Northern Echo:
Jordan when he living as Hannah, aged 12

“I felt like I was trapped in the wrong body,” said the teenager from Peterlee, east Durham.

“I wanted to go and play football with the boys instead of playing with dolls.

“I’m a huge fan of Justin’s. As I grew up he was my inspiration. I plastered his posters over my walls and desperately wished I could be just like him.

“As I got older I bought my first baseball hat which is the same as Bieber’s and tried it on in my bedroom. I longed to be able to go out dressed like this, like how I truly felt inside, but I was worried about what people would think.

“It was really hard going through puberty. My body was changing and becoming curvy and men, who I don’t fancy at all, were starting to look at me differently. I had to tell someone.”

Jordan’s mother Claire O’Gorman, 37, has supported him throughout.

She said: “I’d always known Jordan was different. When he told me that he thought he could be transgender I was shocked but I knew something was coming. He’s still my child and it doesn’t matter what gender he is, as long as he’s happy.”

Jordan is booked in to have testosterone therapy and hopes to have his breasts removed and undergo gender re-assignment surgery.

He has suffered bullying, being called “she/he”, which he said was “hard to deal with”; and hopes his song will help combat prejudice.

“Nobody should ever have to feel singled out in life. That’s the message I’m trying to get across.”