AN Army officer based in North Yorkshire says she took the decision to reveal herself as transgender after deciding she was “living an act” while serving in Afghanistan.

Captain Hannah Winterbourne, 27, of the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers is the British Army’s most highly ranked transgender soldier.

She was born a boy and her feelings about gender started from a young age. But it was not until she was 23 and undergoing officer training at Sandhurst that she understood she was a woman, but her “body was wrong”.

Shortly after that, Capt Winterbourne was put in charge of her first unit, with soldiers under her command and decided it wasn’t the time to do anything about it.

"The point where I realised I was a woman but my body was wrong was around age 23 at Sandhurst. But I wrongly thought I couldn't do anything about it," she said.

"Then I went to my first unit. All of a sudden I've got soldiers under my command. I thought, 'This isn't the time to do it, I'll just bear with it'. But those feelings never go away."

But while on a tour of duty in Afghanistan, when living in a tent with seven other soldiers, the officer reached her decision.

She told The Sun: “In Afghanistan I was living an act. I was acting for everyone around me. There was no let up where I could not stop that act.

“In my part of the tent there were seven guys living on top of each other. Previously I’d relished my own time where I could be honest with myself. In Afghanistan I could not do that.

“So that was a nudge which eventually ended up with me coming out and changing myself and my way of life.”

When she arrived at a new posting in Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, she was living openly as a woman and has had some surgery and begun hormone therapy. She is now the transgender representative for the British Army.

Captain Winterbourne joined an army college for Armed Forces careers and was selected for officer training at 15. She was sponsored by the army to study electrical engineering at Newcastle University and then progressed to Sandhurst.

She feared what the reaction would be when she revealed her decision, but praised the military for being “very forward thinking”. She said discovered they have had a transgender policy since 1999.

She said: “It’s all really, really clear to help everyone in the entire process and lets everyone know what their responsibilities are, what’s expected of them. It’s just there to support the solder and allows us to get on with being soldiers rather than being transgender.”

Capt Winterbourne explains her transition in a YouTube video.