Some life changes arrive slowly. Chloe Kelly’s arrived through a phone filter. In October 2023, at 45, she tried a
gender-swap FaceApp expecting something strange and unconvincing, much like the gender-swap program that had
disappointed her at London’s Science Museum back in 2000. Instead, her heart raced, her breathing went shallow, and
she kept going back to the images, in the bathroom at work, and again on the sofa at home. What she saw, she says,
was something she had secretly hoped for all her life without realizing it. What followed was a transition lived at
speed and in public. After weeks of sleepless nights and online research, she told her GP first, then her wife on an
unplanned Friday morning, then her parents, and eventually everyone else through a Facebook post. She spent months choosing the name Chloe, searching through the most popular baby names of 1978 until she found one that felt right. For anyone wondering about “Lucy,” that was originally just a placeholder name she used online, but it began to stick on social media, hence her Instagram handle: @lucyseekelly. Faced with a long NHS waiting
list, she turned to private care on Harley Street, and this November she travels to Thailand for surgery. Along the
way she has written about identity, femininity and transformation on her Substack.
There has been joy and grief in equal measure. Chloe has spoken about the thrill of rediscovering fashion, from
Debbie Harry to Stevie Nicks, and about learning makeup through trial, error and the occasional mascara wand to the
eye. She has also spoken about mourning the girlhood she never had, the lingering question of whether she passes,
and the moments of dysphoria that can still catch her off guard. Her relationship with her mother has grown into the
closeness of mother and daughter, and she is clear that her journey is about being herself rather than meeting
anyone else’s ideal. Today Chloe is separated from her wife, who she says is still her best friend (they both like
boys), and she is dating, travelling and writing. Her solo travel journey through Europe and Asia from October 2025
to January 2026 is becoming a travel memoir, Girl:Avanting - Solo Travel Adventures of a 47-year-old Trans Woman,
and she has already finished a novel, Trans-Atlantic. Her motto at the moment is “wander and wonder, live with
kindness and joy, look up at the stars but look out for the lampposts.” It is with that spirit, and with a lot of
honesty, that our conversation begins.
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