I have always loved to write. When I was little, I remember thinking that English exams were a treat: an opportunity to sit down and play with words, to tip my imagination on to paper.

As an adult, I have had the privilege to write for some of the biggest media outlets in the world, starting with this one. I was 23 years old and fresh from a 20-week journalism course when the Guardian’s online sports desk took a chance on me in 2006. I like to tell myself they never regretted it.

Anyone who has written for a living, though, knows that some days the words come easier than others. Finding the right ones for this piece has felt like hunting for moths in thick fog. So I shall fall back, three paragraphs too late, on the advice tutors gave me on that journalism course. When in doubt, begin with the version of the story you would tell a friend if you ran to meet them at the top of a hill and only had one breath.

I am transgender.

I know that sentence will come as a shock to many people. Even after struggling with gender dysphoria – a sense of discomfort with and dissociation from the body that life dealt me and the expectations that go with it – for almost my whole life, it took me the best part of three‑and‑a-half decades to be able to say it out loud.

There it is, though, in black and white. I have written my last article under the name Paolo Bandini. From now on, it will be Nicky.

It’s OK to find this confusing. It’s OK if it takes time for people who know me or have followed my work to remember the new name or that I use for myself the pronouns she and her. It would be hypocritical of me to expect other people to instantly digest information that took me countless hours of therapy and lived experience.

Transition is a journey and a slow one at that. I came out to the most important people in my life three years ago, not with any declaration of intent but with buckets of tears and a panic attack. A part of me hoped that talking about dysphoria might finally chase it away. Another part expected the world to stop.

But the world did not stop, not even on the many days when I wished it would. Nor did my dysphoria. The choice felt stark – give up on life or find a new way forward. Eventually, I chose the second path, moving to a new city where I had space to start over. I experimented with the ways I present myself and spoke to psychiatrists. It took a million tiny baby steps to start to get comfortable with myself.

Coming out at work, though, has required something more like a leap of faith. Sports journalism is not always a welcoming place for people who are not straight men. Nor, indeed, are the sports with the greatest audiences and corresponding media attention.

I am not aware of any transgender sports writers or broadcasters currently working in the UK (if I’m wrong, please let me know). And while no individual should ever feel compelled to discuss their sexuality unless they want to, it remains astonishing that there is not one openly gay footballer in the top four divisions of men’s football in England.

The Women’s World Cup offered a glimpse of an alternate reality, in which queer protagonists could stand to the fore. Perhaps we will look back in years to come and see that tournament as a turning point for LGBTQ+ people in football.

But we are certainly not there yet. It was only a few weeks after the World Cup ended that the person behind The Gay Footballer account on Twitter – who claimed to be a player in the Championship – cancelled their plans to come out publicly, writing: “I thought I was stronger. I was wrong.”

All I ask is for respect and kindness – for me and for transgender people in general.

I do not know the footballer in question, nor can I disprove the suggestion that it might even have been a hoax. But I can certainly empathise with any public figure who prefers to walk a path that keeps them from becoming a diversity lightning rod – for criticism or for praise.

As listeners to the Football Weekly podcast already know, I’m a laugher not a fighter. I would much prefer not to be writing this and to exist in a world where my transition did not require any comment. But since we do not yet live in that world, here I am. All I ask is for respect and kindness – for me and for transgender people in general – at a time when those commodities seem to be in ever‑shorter supply.

If you are reading this as someone fond of my work, then please rest assured that in most ways I remain the same person as before. Being trans has no impact on my capacity to analyse a football match, nor my commitment to the work that I do.

I will be back this season with my regular Serie A roundups for the Guardian and hopefully plenty more besides. As a freelancer, it would be remiss of me not to encourage you to follow my Twitter account.

One way or another, I will be writing and talking on other forms of media. After all, if there was one thing better than English exams as a kid, it was making “radio shows” on my friend’s fancy tape deck, which could record voice clips as well as copying songs on to a blank cassette.

Times have changed, technology has changed and I have changed. But storytelling remains my great passion. I look forward to continuing to share them with you as Nicky.