“My first recollection is about six years of age, way, way back,” Laidley said.“Now I am 55, so what is that, 49 years, God.“It was a long time ago and I carried it through my youth and teenage years and then I played footy, played cricket and things like that, and nearly gave them all away.“Then luckily (I) made the state schoolboys (team) back in Perth and thought ‘Well, I am pretty good and let’s just see where this goes.’“It was really difficult to know that I felt so different on the inside to what was on the outside and then, given that I started playing league footy when I was in high school, to have this persona, and some called me the Junkyard Dog back in the day, it was so far removed from the person I really was and that was very difficult and it took its toll. “I felt like I was walking around with a boat anchor on my head for many, many years, but I was too scared, ashamed, embarrassed to go and find out about it, but I knew there was something different about how I was feeling.”Laidley opened up about her struggle with her identity on Triple M footy on Friday saying she had lived a “very compartmentalised” life up until 2017 when she was finally diagnosed with gender dysphoria.“Gender dysphoria is the medical condition for people who their gender identity is not congruent with how they feel on the inside (to) what is on the outside,” she said. “Gender dysphoria, it causes a great deal of white noise 24/7 and overtakes your thinking and overtakes your ability to live life normally.“So to play and to coach and to have a young family and to do all of those things, to be honest I don’t know how I got here, but I am, and I am very glad.”Laidley, whose transgender journey became public in 2020, said she was at peace now living her authentic life after more than half a century.“Absolutely, I am absolutely at peace. It has taken 55 years to get here,” she said.“As much as there has been a hell of a lot that has been written and said, and I have not had much, zero, opportunity to say anything because of different reasons, before everything became very public I had been living as myself.“And I was very happy with that.“Some of my family is still finding it a little difficult but we are working on that.”Laidley, who provided special comments for Triple M on Friday night’s match between the Western Bulldogs and Hawthorn, ruled out returning to footy in a coaching role at this stage.“It is certainly in my blood, there is no doubt about that and I have a passion for it,” she said.“I am not ready yet to do anything like that.“I am really enjoying just being back in the AFL family and using it as a social platform for me and just reconnecting with a lot of people, just so they get to know the real me over the next period of time, because the person they have got to know over the last 35 years, I have always kept barriers, I would never let anyone get too close to me.”She said she was proud to be a role model for the transgender community.“The further I live my life and the more people who come up and get in touch, and just from me being my authentic self and living in peace, it has given people more hope and acceptance and as a transgender community that is all we want,” she said.“We just want to be supported and not judged and if that has to be me, I am happy to do that for this generation of transgender community and the generations that will come after me.”Laidley has her autobiography due for release in late August with Harper Collins and is filming a documentary on her life with Eddie McGuire’s JAM TV company. The insightful Triple M interview was sensitively handled by Luke Darcy, Nathan Brown, Mark Howard and Damian Barrett.
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