Almost two months ago I moved to Sydney to work as part of the Guardian Australia’s video team. Such an upheaval is always going to be stressful but I expected being trans to make it even more complicated.

Travel, especially by air, always has the potential for unexpected physical contact. Luckily, I’ve yet to encounter a full body scanner, which I’m sure would be more awkward for security than me. And I made sure to fly via anywhere but Dubai. Since being gay is illegal there, I assume gender variance could have landed me on trial for witchcraft and/or wizardry. The incriminating evidence would have been the testosterone I was carrying, for which I still had to obtain an Australian import certificate.

On arrival at Sydney I prepared to explain my certificate to border control. But I was simply waved through after ticking the right box on a form.

None of the trans-related aggravation I anticipated in moving 10,000 miles away has really transpired. It helped that I could turn to a sprawling online community for advice. Was I likely to encounter any hostility? Is the type of T that I inject licensed in Australia? Where does Sydney’s queer community hang out?

I’m still putting together an answer to that last question. While the practicalities have been a doddle, I am still occasionally homesick for LGBT London – the places I could go to feel safe and unquestioned. I always say being trans doesn’t define me, and that’s true, but moving away has taught me not to take a loving community for granted.

I was riding a Sydney harbour ferry the other day when I realised that I felt like a queer peg in an ostensibly very straight world. Being queer – how I broadly describe my gender and sexuality – is great, but it can be isolating, especially in a new place. There’s an unconscious security in knowing that you can relate, on some basic level, to the other people next to you at the bar or the bus stop. Being gender variant, there is a slight distance that’s hard to describe; not hostile but also not benign.

It’s equally hard to describe why going for a drink with another trans person is relaxing in a way that other kinds of going for a drink aren’t. I hadn’t realised quite how vital these interactions were until they stopped.

So, with a place to live, a job to do and a bucket list of climbing and hiking compiled, my next priority is finding that queer community where people can relate to where I’m coming from and yet it’s the opposite of a big deal. I knew those places in London. I hope they exist in Sydney.