A dad-of-two has come out to his children as non-binary after they saw pictures of him on a phone wearing a dress - and didn't recognise him. Dave Moore, 40, decided to reveal his hidden truth of 35 years after attending the Bristol Pride parade on Saturday.
The IT consultant from Cardiff admits spending the majority of his life in "horrific" pain whilst "hiding" his gender identity. His children - a five-year-old son and an eight-year-old daughter - were aware that him and his partner Alex Andersz, 35, were attending the event.
But Mr Moore did not originally plan on telling them about his own gender identity. Following Pride his kids saw pictures of him in a dress on a phone and didn't realise it was their dad. It prompted Dave to tell them he is non-binary. He said: "They wanted to know how pride was and Alex asked if they wanted to see her make up and started showing her photos of the makeup she did for Pride.
"She was skipping through the photos on a phone and there were photos of me there in my outfit-which was a dress. My daughter was looking at them but she didn't twig at all." Mr Moore sometimes dresses in feminine clothing, and identifies as non-binary-using the pronouns he/him. Later that day, Mr Moore decided to open up to his children, showing them the photos of himself again and telling them it was him.
He said: "My daughter just kind of giggled, and she's like 'Oh my God, you look like a girl!' We talked a bit about what non-binary meant and how I didn't quite feel 100 percent like a man all the time.
"The best bit about it for me was when I was about to put them to bed I asked whether they wanted a bedtime story or if they wanted to see more photos of me, and they both wanted to see more photos. They responded really well.
"My daughter wanted to shout it from the rooftops. She wanted to go and tell her friends in school and I was like 'you need to be a little bit careful'. This is a scary thing to do, I am very conscious that it's a really scary time to be non binary."
Mr Moore had always been conflicted as to how to express his identity to his children and his family. He explained: "I debated whether this was something I could completely hide from them, whether we kind of gently introduced them to it, or whether I just dressed like that in front of them from an early, age so that they're completely normalised for it.
He continued: "And, you know I could never really come to a conclusion. I don't regret not doing it earlier, I think it was probably the right time to do it." Mr Moore added that he plans on continuing to speak openly with his children and wants to attend future pride events with them.
He said: "I want to set an example for my children, I want to be a positive non binary role model for them."
