Blayde Forbes’ first high-heeled steps into cross-dressing were tentative, but now the teen is hitting his stride.

The 16-year-old has no preference when it comes to pronouns and considers himself “very fluid”.

“It doesn’t bother me, I can go by anything. If someone was to come up to me, I would be happy with ‘he’. It doesn’t affect me. Some people, it needs to be one specific thing.”

Blayde became aware he was different at a young age, watching classic movies.

“I would look at the outfits girls were wearing, and I always thought it was really extravagant, and I wanted to dress like that.

“Then I got to about 12, and I realised that’s exactly how I wanted to dress, but I didn’t know how to start dressing like that,” he said.

“So I used to sit in my bedroom, and one of my friends gave me this bright, hot pink lipstick and I used to sit in my room and put it on, and then anytime I left my room, I would wipe it off, but it stained. So I would think I was hiding it, but then I had this big pink stain around my lips.

“Then I slowly started to wear more and more things, and then at one point I started wearing heels out and about, and then I slowly progressed.”

Blayde takes great care when getting ready in the morning, spending two to three hours perfecting hair, make-up and outfit, except when it’s a school day, and he has to wear the Waitaki Boys' High School uniform.

“I’ve had many people say that anytime I’m wearing the uniform I look very depressed.

“When I first started (at high school), we weren’t allowed to wear earrings and we had to have our hair tied up, but they’ve relaxed a little bit.”

He doesn’t mind school, and said the teachers are “incredible”.

“They’re really, really supportive and caring about everyone.

“The students can be, not the best, but they’re not horrible enough that you can’t get through it.”

Blayde is gay, and when he came out to his mother one Christmas, at about age 14, she told him she had known since he was three. She was “very chill” about it, he said.

“My stepdad was a little bit different. It took him a while to come around, but he’s dealing with that in his own way.”

Blayde was born and has lived in Ōamaru his whole life. When not at school, he works at the Harbour Street Collective Cafe.

He has friends who have struggled living in the town, but finds most people to be accepting. 

“Especially where I work, we get a lot of different kinds of people that come in . . . and they don’t care - as long as you give them coffee, they don’t care.”

There is an elaborate process involved in getting ready in the morning, and Blayde said some days it is one of the only things that keeps him going.

Setting his hair in vintage hot rollers has taken some practice, but he has found a style which he has now perfected, and it brings him “so much joy”.

He buys most of his clothes from second hand stores, and has a favourite in the Victorian precinct, called Mockingbird Lane.

“I’m very lucky. There’s this woman who is, she’s very special to me, she’s not my mother but I call her Mum . . . and it’s where I get all my clothes from.”

He said the hardest part of cross-dressing was beginning.

“I used to walk around my bedroom in high heels and a little bit of lipstick . . . and then slowly, down the hallway, and then into the lounge, and then one day, one of my friends was throwing a birthday party, and it was a shopping trip to Dunedin, and I just thought, ‘you know what? I don’t know anyone there, I’m just going to wear some high heels’.

“I started walking around, and then it was like, ‘why not just start wearing them around Ōamaru?’, and then it just slowly progressed."

Blayde considers himself “incredibly lucky” to have found the “most caring and supportive and funny” friends.

He has no feelings about negative comments towards LGBTQIA+ on public forums, such as Facebook, and said he finds them entertaining.

He also has no message for people who feel the need to make them.

“I honestly don’t care enough, I have bigger things to worry about. You’re allowed your personal views, it doesn’t bother me.”

That’s not to say he doesn’t have bad moments.

“I think we all have down days - sometimes when someone will make a comment and it will actually get to me, and I think, ‘why do I do this? This is so much’. I must look insane walking down the street in a vintage dress, and high heels, and I must look incredibly bizarre to other people’. 

“Then I think about it again, and I think, well it makes me happy - and I think that’s the most important thing, to be happy and be around people that make me happy.”

Plans for the future are loose, Blayde is waiting to see what happens.

Transitioning to a female is not something he is considering at the moment. He is comfortable as he is, “being what some would probably consider a drag queen, even though I’m a real person”.

“I don’t know. I’m very eccentric, but I don’t feel the need to. I’m happy at the moment.”

Blayde watches friends struggle with their mental health, and said it is hard not being able to do anything. He finds it helpful talking through things with his school counsellor, but knows that might not be for everyone, and is, of course, only available to those at school.

“I’m lucky I don’t struggle with it, but there’s just not that much help, mentally, for young people. I hope that changes.”