‘When I stopped racing I thought, who am I?’: Pippa York on leaving her old life behind

Pippa York says her new book, The Escape, is about ‘escaping working in a factory, escaping the real world, and escaping being born male’. Photograph: Jill Mead/The Guardian

Pippa York used to be Robert Millar, a stage winner and king of the mountains in the Tour de France and Giro d’Italia. Millar was also a podium finisher, in both the Vuelta a España and the Giro, a British national champion, and Tour of Britain winner. But Millar had also wanted to be a girl since the age of five, a secret that remained buried throughout childhood in Glasgow, the subsequent racing career, and beyond, into mid-life.

In her new book, The Escape, written in collaboration with David Walsh, the 66-year-old unflinchingly documents the long and painful process towards transition and the isolation, fear and loneliness that went with it.