Get the latest gossip

Sascha Bailey - son of iconic photographer David - describes how close he came to becoming a woman and fears for other young people like him: 'Society has a gun to its head. You're either for children changing their gender, or you are transphobic'

Sascha Bailey was so desperately low that he contemplated taking his own life. But internet chatrooms convinced him there was another way out of his despair: he could transition into a woman.

So convinced was Sascha that this was the right course of action, and so anxious to hasten the process, he saw a private doctor who confirmed he was transgender and wrote him a prescription for female hormones as a prelude to gender affirmation surgery. 'I remember Ronnie Wood told me to tie people's shoelaces together at some event, and the shoe designer Manolo Blahnik kicking me, which was well deserved, as I had pulled someone to the floor as a result,' he smiles. The photographer (pictured in 1984 with former wife Marie Helvin) has come to define the Swinging Sixties with his iconic black and white images of pop stars, models, politicians and royalty

Get the Android app