Transgender: a mother’s story | Susie Green | TEDxTruro

Susie Green shares the inspirational story of her transgender daughter, who told her when she was four that she should have been born a girl. Susie is the CEO of Mermaids, a charity that supports gender variant children, young people, and their families. Susie became involved with Mermaids when she needed support for her daughter, Jackie.

Susie has expanded the charity’s capacity and funding, as well as developing the services it offers. She campaigns for the provision of more services and respectful media representation of transgender people.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

20 years ago, my life took on
a wholly unexpected direction.

I was sat watching television
with my then four-year-old son.

And he said he needed
to tell me something.

And I said, "Fine, yeah, what is it?"

And he turned to me and he said,

"Mommy, God's made a mistake,
and I should've been a girl."

I was terrified,

but also, it explained so many things,

so many things.

But a bit like Monopoly, I jumped
straight from fear straight into denial

and told Jack that it was fine
to be a boy and like girly things,

but that didn't make him a girl,

and he looked at me,
and he dropped his eyes,

and he didn't say anything
else that day anyway.

So what I want to do is walk
you through the process

that has filled the last 24 years
of both my life and my child's life

and hopefully explain our journey.

So from Jack to Jackie.

So how did this eight-pound baby "boy" -

and, by the way she hates this picture,

she says it makes her look
like a member of The Village People -

(Laughter)

turn into this 24-year-old young woman?

She likes this picture;
she says it makes her look hot.

Well, Jack was my first child.

I thought I knew what to expect,
but really I started to notice

that as soon as he got mobile
and could express himself,

he was gravitating towards things

that you would see
as stereotypically female.

But I wasn't bothered.

That didn't, you know,
that didn't faze me at all.

As far as I was concerned,

children should be allowed to play
with whatever they want,

even if it doesn't fit this norm.

And at the childminder's
when I went back to work,

Jack's favorite outfits
were the tutu and Snow White costume.

And again, that was fine.

But not for Dad.

So, Jackie's dad struggled,
and he blamed me.

His thoughts were that because I allowed
the Polly Pocket and the My Little Pony,

that I was facilitating and encouraging.

And I disagreed. And it caused tensions.

What I had come to the conclusion with,

over the sort of years
until she was about two,

was that I had a very sensitive,
quite effeminate little boy

who was probably gay.

But Jack's dad did not approve
of our child's effeminate behavior,

and it created such tensions
that we ended up in couple's counseling.

We went to couple's counseling,

and what they said to us
as parents that we had to agree,

no matter what it was
that we agreed upon we had to agree.

At that point, Tim decided
that I must agree with him, apparently,

and then all the "girl toys"
or "girly toys" as such

were taken away and put away,

and Jack was made aware
that this was not appropriate.

And suddenly, a confident,
happy little boy

became quite quiet, withdrawn,
very clingy, and tearful.

I didn't like it,
and I didn't think it was right.

And really for me, the point
at which I really put my foot down

was about a few weeks later, I think,
and my mom phoned me

and said, "What's going on with Jack?"

and I said "What do you mean?"

She said, "Well, I phoned
a couple of days ago

to ask what Jack wanted for Christmas,

and he took the phone
out of the room, and he said,

'Can you buy me Barbie Rapunzel?
but can you please hide it

because if Mommy and Daddy find it,
they're going to take it away'"

And I realized that I was shaming
my child and their toy choices,

and the toy embargo stopped.

But I went to my GP

because I was lost,
and I did not know what to do.

And she raised her eyebrows, and she said,

"Oh, that's interesting."

Which wasn't really very helpful,
because I was hoping for some direction.

And then, she wasn't the first,

and she certainly
wouldn't be the last person

to tell me that it was a phase -

it's quite a long one, by now,
wouldn't you say? -

and that she would grow out of it.

But she didn't.

And what happened
was she kept reiterating,

"I'm a girl, I'm a girl,
I'm really a girl."

Six years old, she asked me
when she could have the operation

to make her a girl.

And it was really hard for me as a parent
to watch the devastation when I told her

that she had to wait
until she was a grown-up

before that could happen.

What that identified for me
is that I had to do something,

and I couldn't keep ignoring this
and pretending it wasn't happening.

And so I did some internet searches.

And I put in "My son wants to be a girl."

And it came out
with a number of different sites,

but I think about tenth on the listing
was a site called "Mermaids."

So I clicked on that,
and there was a phone number.

And I made a really
quite pivotal call for me,

and I spoke to Lynn,

who was a founder member
of Mermaids, the charity.

I think I cried through
the entire conversation

because it was such a relief
to finally talk to somebody

who understood what I was going through,

and to point to similarities
regarding their children and my child.

It gave me hope.

At seven years old, Jackie
was referred to Tavistock,

which is the NH's clinic

that supports children and young people
with gender dysphoria

and received a diagnosis
of gender dysphoria.

Oh, really? Not a big surprise.

And at eight years old, unfortunately,
her dad and I separated.

But what this did for me
was gave me much more freedom

to be able to give Jackie expression.

The Tavistock said that allowing her
girl clothes in the house was helpful,

and said that she needed to remain
in male persona outside of the home,

and that was fine.

And I remember our first
shopping trip for girl clothes.

And we went into the store, and I said,

"OK, so over there,
there's the girl clothes.

You can go and get a couple things,
anything you like.

And the look on her face
was indescribable.

She was so happy.

And she went pelting off,

and she came back
about two minutes later,

and she had two dresses
- she couldn't decide.

And she was holding them up,
and she was just beaming,

and she was just like,

"Which one? Do you like
this one best or this one best?"

and doing a twirl.

And I just thought to myself,

"Oh my goodness,
is somebody watching me now,

thinking 'this mother with this little boy
with dresses, what is she doing?'"

And then I looked back
at my child in front of me,

and I looked at her face and I thought,

"You know something,
I can't care about what strangers think.

The most important person to me
is right there in front of me right now."

At 10 years old, we went on holiday.

So we had three weeks
where Jackie lived as Jackie -

girl pronouns, girl names,
girl clothes for the entire time.

And what that really pointed out to me

was how much lighter, how much happier,
how much more cheerful my kid was,

just like, literally,
from getting up to going to bed,

and it was at that point

I decided that actually forcing my child
to live as a boy in school

was the wrong thing
because I was sending her that message

that somehow wanting and needing
to be a girl and express herself as a girl

was shameful - that it was
something to be hidden, secret.

So the last year of primary school
was her absolute best year of school ever.

So she grew her hair,
she wore the girls' school uniform,

and school said that they noticed
an entirely different child

from the one from the previous year.

And the kids were amazing!

I remember the headteacher saying to me

that she'd overheard a conversation
between two of the little girls

and one girl said to the other,

"Why is Jack growing his hair
and wearing girl clothes?"

And the other girl went,

"Oh, didn't you know?
He's got a girl brain in a boy body."

(Laughter)

And the other little girl went, "Oh, OK."

(Laughter)

And that was it.

Unfortunately, some of the parents
weren't quite so open-minded,

and we had to get the police involved
when we had a mother,

when she was collecting her own child,
who is about the same age as Jackie,

leaning out of the window of her car
and shouting abuse

at my 10-year-old daughter
walking home from school.

By this time, Tim had come around.

He had seen more and more that this
wasn't something that was a choice,

this was just a part
of who our daughter was,

and he was now supporting, and frankly,
she wraps him around her little finger.

But we were now preparing
for secondary school,

and the Tavistock
were fully onboard and helping,

but from the minute
she walked in the door,

she was annihilated.

Absolutely annihilated.

And within two weeks,
she took her first overdose.

I spent the next three years
on suicide watch.

And I look back,

and I don't know how I got through that,
but I don't know how she did either.

To add to all of this, puberty.

So at twelve years old,
she started going through a male puberty,

and it was horrific.

She began cutting herself.

And we were absolutely desperate

and faced with an NHS at that time -

it's different now -

who wouldn't prescribe
any medications to pause puberty,

no matter how badly
a child reacted to those stages.

I went back into research mode,
and I found a doctor in America

who was working with children
with gender dysphoria,

and who would prescribe
totally reversible blocking medication

that pauses puberty.

If taken away, puberty resumes,

but it gives children like my daughter
the time and space to live and be,

without their bodies changing.

I know he looks like Indiana Jones,
but he really is a proper-proper doctor.

And he's Dr. Norman Spack, and he works
at the Boston Children's Hospital,

and he is a world-renowned expert,
and he saved my daughter's life.

I have no doubt about that whatsoever.

In the midst of all of this,
school was up and down.

Eventually we found her a school where
she went to school eight miles from home,

and nobody knew her
as anything other than Jackie,

and that sort of settled down.

But the effect on her education,
on her life, was profound.

She had had seven overdoses
in three years,

all related to transphobic
abuse and attacks.

And one of her best friends

was the hate crimes coordinator
from West Leeds,

so it might give you a bit
of an indication of what she went through.

But at 16, my daughter
underwent gender reassignment surgery.

And now, the next bit,
I'm going to let her talk to you.

(Video) (Music)

I was born in the body of a boy,
but I had the mind or the brain of a girl.

I think I was five years old
when I said to my mother, like,

"God made a mistake, I shouldn't -
This isn't me. I'm wrong."

I think I was like seven
when I started growing my hair,

and I started to wear the girls' uniform.

My school itself, they were really,
really good about it, really helpful,

and so were a lot of the students.

If anything, like, I found
some parents were not as accepting.

I was walking out
of the school gate to go home,

and for a good two,
three weeks consecutively,

she would like hang out of her car window,
and shout abuse at me, this mother.

I could feel, like, hate.

And then I got into high school,
which was a nightmare.

The story of me spread like wildfire.

My first day, like the first day
in school, into my high school,

I was in my "form" group,

and some kid who I'd never met
opened the door to my form room

and he was just like,
"Oh, is that freak in here? That freak."

I got spat on, and I got beat up,

and it really does hurt to think back
at how cruel people could be.

I find it quite empowering
that I've gotten through it.

And then I got ask to Miss England

and I was like "I must be actually ...
attractive? Oh my God!"

It gave me a real boost that I needed.

It's part of my story,
but it isn't my whole story,

because, as I said,
I'm a sister, a singer, actress, model,

all kind of things
before I am a "trans person."

I hate that, like why do I need a label?

Why can't I just be a woman?

Everyone has the right to live
their life how they want to

and be who they want to be,
so why is it different for me?

I'm proud of everything I've gone through,

and I wouldn't change it now.

It's part of my makeup. It's in my DNA.
I'm a girl and I always have been.

(End of music) (End of video)

I can't watch that, I have to look down,
because it still affects me.

I'm now CEO of Mermaids,

so I'm running the charity
I contacted so many years ago.

This gives a little bit of an indication
of the demand, and how it's rising,

and what we are facing,
in terms of young people coming foward.

And the good thing is that parents
are now listening as well.

But you can see the difference.

Society maybe is becoming more accepting

at the same time children
and young people across the country

are still being treated like Jackie was.

This is from a 2017 Stonewall survey.

51% of trans children are bullied.

One in 10 receive death threats.

84% self-harm compared
to 10% of the population.

And 45% of them attempt
suicide at least once.

Being transgender
is not a mental health illness,

but society's prejudice,
discrimination, and hatred

lead to anxiety and depression.

Now, this is her now.

And you can see, she's maybe
a little bit of a diva as well,

I don't know where she gets that from.

Bottom line is she's happy.

And isn't that all that matters?

Thank you very much.

(Applause)