‘I’d rather be an unhappy boy than a kinda happy girl’

Seamus Enright

“Coming to terms is the easy part. It's getting the information to help support those choices is where it gets difficult,” says a proud Cavan mum of a transgender boy, who has called for greater awareness of gender dysphoria in young children nationally.

“Relieved,” is how the local mum described feeling the day her biological daughter approached her to say: “Mam, you do know I'm a boy?”
The mother is not named to protect the identity of her young son, who is of national school age. Completely supportive of her child, she chronicles his transformation from girl to boy as a “gradual” one.
“There was no actual 'outing' so to say,” she explains to The Anglo-Celt. 
Like many parents, in other circumstances, she confesses to being burdened by the fear of whether she is doing the best thing for her child.
“I have all the same thoughts as anyone else: 'Am I doing the right thing?', 'Am I hurting my child by letting them do this?'
“I think every parent, whether of a young transgender child or not, feels the same way. But in reality, what it boils down to is you'd do anything to make them happy.”
Having made the transition from a girl, she adds her son is now “happier, more confident, he's himself now!”
“I've always known there was a difference if I'm honest,” she says of her son, who from an early age was interested in “stereotypically” boyish things.

Awareness

But it's his personal awareness despite being so young that fills his mum with pride.
Having used a traditional boy's name outside of the home-place even before his mother knew of it, she explains: “I had kids knocking on the door looking for this child, and I was asking, 'Who?'.
But she beams: “I can't believe I've raised such an amazing child. I mean, I'm so conscious and aware of what people think. Whereas he just doesn't give a sh*t, and he'll tell you that. He came up with a line himself the other day, 'I'd rather be an unhappy boy than a kinda happy girl'. That's his little motto that he lives by.”
Conscious of not shying from the facts associated with her son's choice, she does accept the difficulties of the path being taken. “We both know that, and I'm preparing him for it.”

Diagnosed

Gender dysphoria is a condition where a person identifies him or herself opposite to their biological sex. While there is growing openness regarding gender dysphoria in recent years, there remains no place in Ireland where the disorder can be officially diagnosed. A total of 35 children were referred from Ireland to London for such assessments in 2016.
“We'll go over later this year,” says the Cavan mum, having secured a referral from a GP. The process is the step necessary to formalise the transformation, but is also aimed at ruling out any underlying mental disorders which may contribute to the child identifying as other than the sex and gender assigned at birth.
“We have people working on our behalf, doctors who we've gone to before and maybe didn't have answers then, but have since gone and studied up and themselves are more aware. So that's positive. Fortunately my child is so young that I don't have to be concerned with a lot of things to do with gender reassignment just yet.
“I have to say it's easier to talk to other parents about these things and follow the path they've gone down. Transgender Equality Network of Ireland are very good, they're amazing actually, but a lot of those involved in the network, their children are older, made their change in their teens and moved straight onto medication and surgery. We're years from that. For me, I'm more about my child's mental health right now, I want to show him he's not on his own.”

Supportive

The transformation in assigned gender will coincide with a change in school too, where the boy's mum has found teachers wholly supportive and accommodating of her son's choice.
“It is assuring. Even his last school were great, I can't fault them whatsoever. They were brilliant. He has never been bullied, he has never been an outsider, nothing like that.”
But she does worry what may happen as her son gets older, particularly when he enters secondary school. However she is hopeful that by that time there will be a wider national acceptance of gender dysphoria in Ireland.
“It's important people know they're not on their own. You can go online, read all the pages, or talk to doctors who then only refer you to someone else, but really there's very little information out there.
“It is happening in more and more families. Children are becoming more aware of themselves, more conscious of who they are. If we don't start making people aware that this is happening, then how are attitudes to it ever going to change? Think of the difficulties they face, the discomfort they feel.
I admit it, I'm afraid of when my son goes to secondary school that he'll be bullied. But the more people are educated about these changes now the better it will be for future generations.”