{"id":586523,"date":"2026-04-05T06:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586523\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T06:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T06:35:13","slug":"changing-genders-wasnt-going-to-change-how-i-felt-about-kate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/586523\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Changing genders wasn’t going to change how I felt about Kate’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kate and Marti Winkworth always tackled life’s up and downs together, so when Kate realised Marti was miserable as a man, she encouraged him to make the change he needed to.<\/p>\n

Whether it’s romantic, platonic, heartbreaking or surprising, our Love Stories series is about love in all its forms. Share yours with us.<\/a><\/p>\n

‘A soft and gentle’ love sparked curiosity<\/p>\n

Kate: In 2006, my mum said to me, ‘you need to get back on the horse, I’m going to set you up an online dating profile’.<\/p>\n

So, she started chatting to Martyn and set up a date.<\/p>\n

This was in the UK where we are both from.<\/p>\n

I had a clue really early on, about three or six months into the relationship, I could just tell Martyn was different.<\/p>\n

One of the things that attracted me was how soft and gentle he was as a man and I quite liked that.<\/p>\n

There were things that he would talk about that I just knew, that’s not a masculine world.<\/p>\n

Like, I’d get home from work and there’d be an outfit that he’d bought me as a gift.<\/p>\n

Most blokes would go, ‘here’s a pretty dress’ and give it to you.<\/p>\n

But Martyn would have the shoes to match, the lipstick to match and even a hair accessory and then some stockings to go with it. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Marti Winkworth (left) underwent gender reassignment surgery in 2014. (Supplied: Marti Winkworth)<\/p>\n

Martyn would often say, ‘girls are so lucky they get to wear these clothes with such nice fabric’.<\/p>\n

Those are things that girls think about; this is not how men think.<\/p>\n

And then one day I thought, I’m going to test the theory.<\/p>\n

I got this ball gown that was a huge size, and I brought it home and I hid it.<\/p>\n

We’d been drinking, and I said to Martyn, do you want to put on this dress?<\/p>\n

He put it on and he was so happy.<\/p>\n

Marti: I think I knew I wanted to be a woman when I was six years old.<\/p>\n

I was the youngest in the family and my sister dressed me up for some reason.<\/p>\n

I think that’s when the penny dropped.<\/p>\n

But it wasn’t until I was about 15 or 16 that I saw on the front page of a newspaper that a man had transitioned to a female.<\/p>\n

And they showed a photo and thought, oh my God, that’s real.<\/p>\n

This is going back in the early 80s.<\/p>\n

But if I’d gone to the doctor and told the doctor about it then, I would have been locked up in a white straitjacket, because it wasn’t really heard of back then.<\/p>\n

So, I just pushed it to the side and got on.<\/p>\n

I had a long rugby union career and joined the British Army, and I did all the boy things.<\/p>\n

Mr & Mrs Winkworth<\/p>\n

Marti: In 2009 we planned to come over to Australia for a bit of a recce to sort of see where we were going to live when we moved there.<\/p>\n

We came up to Brisbane here to see a long-term friend of mine.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Kate and Marti Winkworth have been married for almost 17 years. (Supplied: Marti Winkworth)<\/p>\n

I was going, ‘Hey, Kev, I want to propose to Kate and I’m looking for the right moment’.<\/p>\n

He said, ‘I’ve got it sorted’.<\/p>\n

We went out to Ipswich, into a field and saw a hot air balloon.<\/p>\n

We’re up in the balloon watching the sun come up over Brisbane.<\/p>\n

And Kate said, ‘so what do you think of your birthday surprise?’ because she thought she had planned this surprise for my birthday with Kev.<\/p>\n

Then I turned around to her with the ring, and I said, ‘well, talking about surprises’.<\/p>\n

And her face just lit up.<\/p>\n

I know we’re biased, but to me our wedding was one of the nicest days out because we did it all ourselves with family and friends.<\/p>\n

So, if you can imagine a quintessential English afternoon tea party.<\/p>\n

I had two groomsmen and Kate had five bridesmaids.<\/p>\n

We did it in our back garden and we had 45 of our friends and family come along.<\/p>\n

Plans for a baby<\/p>\n

Kate: The reason why we moved to Australia in 2010 was so we could have a nice outdoor lifestyle for children.<\/p>\n

So, we were trying to get pregnant but I had (undiagnosed) Hashimoto’s disease, so we were trying and trying and trying and it just wasn’t happening.<\/p>\n

But I could see how miserable Martyn was as a man.<\/p>\n

Marti wasn’t asking it of me \u2014 I was the one pushing him into changing gender because I could see that he needed to do it.<\/p>\n

I wanted him to be happy \u2014 I mean, we knew there’d be struggles ahead.<\/p>\n

It’s not a cheap and easy journey to go through gender reassignment surgery, but it was worth it for happiness.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Marti Winkworth says she realised at a young age that she wanted to be a woman. (Supplied: Marti Winkworth)<\/p>\n

So, I said we’ll just put sperm on ice and then you start your journey.<\/p>\n

And when I said that I remember Marti’s face, this sense of relief.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, I had quite a lot of medical assistance to overcome my Hashimoto’s and it took 18 months to fall pregnant.<\/p>\n

So Marti officially changed gender just a few weeks before our baby was born.<\/p>\n

And the minute she changed, it was like a whole new Marti, like life made sense and she was a lot happier, a lot more content.<\/p>\n

Marti: It’s been very much our journey, not mine.<\/p>\n

Me changing genders was not going to change how the way I felt about Kate, that was easy for me.<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for her, because ultimately she worked it out about me.<\/p>\n

But if Kate turned around and said, no, I don’t want you to change, then I wouldn’t have changed.<\/p>\n

She is my soulmate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kate and Marti Winkworth always tackled life’s up and downs together, so when Kate realised Marti was miserable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,286995,134,286993,5815,17357,242789,2581,286992,286994],"class_list":{"0":"post-586523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-changing-genders","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-gender-reassignment-surgery","13":"tag-ivf","14":"tag-love","15":"tag-love-stories","16":"tag-marriage","17":"tag-marti-winkworth","18":"tag-soulmate"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}