To the casual observer, this young couple look just like any other teenagers in love. But pretty Katie Hill and her boyfriend Arin Andrews share a unique bond - they were both born as the opposite sex.

Katie, 18, spent the first 15 years of her life as Luke, son of a Marine colonel, while Arin, 16, was born a girl called Emerald who excelled at ballet dancing and won beauty contests.

Both struggled with their sexuality all through their childhoods and were teased and bullied but their lives were changed when they both began hormone therapy and later met at a trans support group in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and instantly fell in love.

Katie said: 'All I saw was a handsome guy. We're perfect for each other because we both had the same troubles growing up.

'We're both size five, so we even swap our old clothes our mum's bought us but we hated.

'We look so convincing as a boy and a girl, nobody even notices now. We secretly feel so good about it because it's the way we've always wanted to be seen.'

High-school student Arin undergoes testosterone shots to give him the more masculine shape he's craved his whole life.

Meanwhile high-school graduate Katie, 18, has finished her female hormone course - oestrogen shots - which helped her to develop natural breasts with no silicone implants.

Katie, who has legally been a female since she was 15, believes she was born with naturally high levels of oestrogen and was teased as a boy throughout school for having small AA-cup breasts.

Katie added: 'Even from age three, I knew deep down I wanted to be a girl. All I wanted was to play with dolls. I hated my boy body and never felt right in it.

'I kept my feelings a total secret growing up and was petrified of what people in our tiny Christian town would say. Now Arin and I can share any problems we face together.'

Arin recalls a similar experience and says he knew he was a boy inside from his first day at school, aged just five.

Arin realised he wasn't alone after reading about Katie's transition from male to female in their local newspaper. The pair eventually met in a local trans support group and hit it off.

(Read by Emily Cheng. Emily Cheng is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

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(Agencies)