ISSUES
: Sexuality and Gender
Chapter 2: Gender identity
16
My trans daughter
Sharon has a teenage daughter who is transgender. She describes
how Nicki was born in a male body, but felt from a very young age
that she should have been a girl.
“W
henmy child Nick was
about two, I realised
that he wasn’t playing
with toys that I expected a boy to
play with. He was interested in dolls
and girly dressing-up clothes.
“At that age, it doesn’t really matter.
You just think they’re trying lots of
different things, so I never made a
fuss about it.
“But when he was four years old,
Nick told me that God had made a
mistake, and he should have been
a girl. I asked my GP what I should
do. He told me to wait and see, and
that it might just be a phase and go
away. But it didn’t. It got stronger.
“One day, when Nick was six, we
were in the car and he asked me
when he could have the operation
to cut off his ‘willy’ and give him a
‘fanny’. His older cousin had told
him about these things.
“I spoke to a friend who’s a
psychiatrist. He said I should
contact the Tavistock Clinic [now
The Tavistock and Portman service
for children and young people with
gender identity issues].
“He also told me that the medical
term is ‘gender dysphoria’. When
I looked it up online, I found
Mermaids, a charity that helps
children with gender identity issues
and their families.
“I also spoke to my GP again, who
referred us to the local mental
health unit. The person at the unit
had worked at the Tavistock and
knew about gender identity issues.
“He was brilliant. It was such a
relief to talk to somebody who
understood what was going on. I’d
blamed myself, but he reassured
me that it wasn’t my fault. We were
then referred to the Tavistock Clinic.
“The team from the Tavistock came
to Nick’s school and talked to the
teachers. They helped the teachers
to understand that Nick wasn’t
being difficult, and that this may or
may not be a phase. When a child
is this young, you just don’t know.”
From Nick to Nicki
“Nicki desperately wanted to be
female all the time. When she was
ten, we feminised her name from
Nick to Nicki at home. The following
year, Nicki started secondary
school as a girl.
“The school was very supportive,
but because she moved up to
secondary school with her peer
group, everybody knew.
“In the first week, she was called
a ‘tranny’ and a ‘man-beast’.
She was spat on and attacked in
the corridors. Within her first six
months of being at that school, she
took four overdoses.
“We then pulled her out of school, but
after a few months she decided to
go back. Each year, the bullying and
isolation got worse, and Nicki started
harming herself. At the beginning of
year nine, I transferred her to another
secondary school, but unfortunately
the kids there found out.
“At that point, I withdrew her
from school completely, and the
education welfare office found her
a place at a Specialist Inclusive
Learning Centre, which is a unit
for children who can’t cope with
mainstream schooling for various
health reasons.”
Going through puberty
“When Nicki started puberty,
I wanted her to get the type of
treatment that’s offered in The
Netherlands, where puberty is
blocked before major physical
changes take place.
“I felt that if she was going to
change her mind about being a girl,
she would have done so by now.
The Tavistock Clinic wouldn’t give
her hormone blockers.”
The Tavistock and Portman follows
British guidelines, which at the
time suggested not introducing
hormone blockers until the latter
stages of puberty. Since January
2011, the age at which hormonal
treatment may be offered has been
lowered from 16 to 12 under a
research study being carried out by
