THE wife of Big Brother star Luke Anderson says she was unaware during their first few months of dating that he had been born a girl.
Becki Anderson, 22, has been speaking about life with her husband before he started sex change surgery.
Luke, who had started life as Laura, was taking regular testosterone injections and living as a man while he waited for an operation on the NHS.
“He kept saying he had something to tell me for weeks and weeks but I just put it off,” said Becki, a team leader at the Beaufort Park Hotel in New Brighton, Mold, where the pair met when Luke joined as sous chef.
“One night we were watching a dvd and he came out with it.
“I was shocked but just kept asking questions and he explained everything to me. I had already fallen for him so to be honest it didn’t matter.”
The pair kept Luke’s gender swap a secret from colleagues, even when they married at the hotel two years ago.
“He used to bind up (his breasts) so nothing was on show,” said Becki. “He would never take it off. He would sleep in it.
“Just after he proposed he felt more comfortable to take it off and it was fine. I didn’t think I was lying in bed next to a female. He has always been a man to me. We don’t have any problems being a couple.”
About a year into their marriage, Luke went under the knife to have his breasts removed.
“I went with him,” said Becki. “He was so excited. The first thing he did was look down and he was so happy to see nothing there.
Unfortunately his recovery did not run smoothly.
Becki added: “Because nobody knew what he was having done we had to come up with an excuse to get the time off work.
“We said he was having a lump removed in his armpit so work gave him two weeks off.
“It was a big serious operation so he really needed six to eight weeks off.
“He went back to work and with being in the kitchen and lifting the stitches tore open.
“The scarring is so bad he has to wait for the skin to soften before he can have it put right.”
Becki said the next step for Luke would be to have a hysterectomy and phalloplasty operation to build a penis from his own tissue. They hope it will happen in the next year.
“I know he gets to design it, how big it is, how it looks,” she said.
“I think they take a skin graft from his thigh or arm to make it.
“He can’t wait to have it done. It will mean he is the same on the outside as he is on the inside.”
Becki revealed they are planning to start a family and she wants to carry two babies.
“As Luke cannot father children, they are looking into the use of a sperm donor.
She said: “We have got a lot of friends who have offered to help and we do appreciate it but we would rather use an anonymous donor from a sperm bank.”