Ariana Lauder is an all-or-nothing person. She walks around like she owns the show, with bright coloured dresses, perfectly manicured nails and sky-high heels.

Her beautiful and vibrant attitude isn't just an act either. At 29-years-old she's living and breathing her new life like she's a giddy young teenager all over again.

'In the first 30 seconds that I meet someone, it's usually ‘do you still have a dick?'” says the transgender female after I gently brought up the subject of her transition. 'So there's pretty much nothing I haven't been asked already.”

Ariana, who was born as Craig, and started transitioning from male to female in February 2017 after years of feeling like she was in the wrong body.

She says she started out just living as herself on the weekends and introducing small things into her daily life, like leaving her nail polish on when she went to work, wearing more makeup and feminine clothing. Then in December she was put on hormone replacement therapy.

'I used to party and live in a fantasy for two days and then I'd be forced back into reality,” she says.

'On Sunday morning I'd be doing the dishes or vacuum cleaning and still be dressed as a female with last night's make up still on. I would cry when I had to put male's underwear back on for work.

'It got to the point where I didn't want to breathe anymore, I wanted to live. I shut myself out from everyone and everything when I lived male, as I felt I wasn't really living- Although I had all the toys a boy could want like cars and tools.”

During this time she went through thousands of female names on Google and for each letter wrote down the ones she liked and slowly dwindled it down to Ariana.

'I picked Ariana because it was a normal girl's name, not an abnormal name, and I just liked it.”

The way society sees transgender people is as if it is a syndrome, she says. Due to more and more younger people experimenting with who they want to be, people often don't take her seriously.

'I want to be just like you,” she says, as she points across the room at me. 'If I could wake up tomorrow and be just like you, I'd be perfect, I'd be fixed. I just want to be a real girl.”

Ariana says another misconception that people have is that because she is transitioning, her sexuality is as well.

Transgender is someone who feels like they are in the wrong body, whereas Transsexual is someone who changes their gender and sexual orientation. 'I still like girls, that hasn't changed, I just didn't feel comfortable in my own body” says Ariana.

On several occasions she has also tried to be a part of LQBTI+ groups, but they normally don't accept members over 25.

'This is because society thinks that if you're an adult coming out as gay, transgender or whatever, you should have your shit sorted and only children have problems. But that's not how it works.

'The reason I'm transitioning so quickly and was put onto hormones so quickly is because I knew what I wanted.”

She says she walked into the psychiatrist day one, dressed like a girl - clean shaven and wearing a cute white top and jewellery. 'I was going in how I wanted to live.”

Fashion is a big part of it all. She knows all the brands and she knows where to get the deals.

'I go op shopping every Thursday morning,” she says. 'It's fun and an expression of colours.”

She says when you was a male she was stuck to mostly black clothing and her partner at the time chose all her clothes. Transitioning to female has given her the freedom to have fun and be playful in the way she presents herself.

'I feel like a teenager again, where I can try outrageous clothing and experiment with different things.”

Another first time for her is applying for jobs as a female. When she was a male, she did all the trades jobs such as forklift driving, courier driving, agriculture, building and labouring. You name it, she would have done it.

'It's so easy to get a job as a male, but I could never hold down a job because I was never happy.”

At the moment she is doing a bridging course in computers, with the plan to study Beauty Therapy/Cosmology next year. She says many people have mentioned that she could easily get back into a trades job, but that's not what she wants. Instead, she wants a clean slate.

'I would still be considered a male and treated like one,” she explains. 'People say girls can do anything - and they can - but when you've lived a hard-core male lifestyle your whole life where you felt trapped, you want to live as a stereotypical girl.

'I don't want to bring any of my male life into it, so pretty much on paper I'm a high school dropout.”

She says she's looking at café work or even working at a fast food place. 'As long as I get a job that makes me feel feminine,” she says.

'I just want to be one of the chicks.”