By APARNA BALAKUMAR.
Isabelle is 11. She is an Australian schoolgirl who was born a boy, and her story is the starting point for a startling documentary about transgender children that screens on the ABC tonight.
“If you don’t be yourself,” Isabelle says, “then you’re going to be miserable for your whole life.”
And she’s more than right.
For children like Isabelle, the process of adolescent self-discovery is a complex one. For some, it involves undergoing the process of changing their biologically determined gender– by definition or through medically transitioning.
It was just one year ago that Isabelle revealed the truth to her parents: she might have been born in a boy’s body, but in her heart, she identifies as a girl.
“I just said to my mum that I didn’t want to be a boy. I felt like a girl…I’m sick of living in this body,” Isabelle revealed on an ABC Four Corners report to air tonight.
And Isabelle’s mum, Naomi, is 100 per cent behind her girl’s decision. “We only have one job here,” she says, in a sentiment that should make every parent stand up and cheer, “and that’s to help her create a future that she can live with.”
Isabelle, riding her bike.Despite Isabelle and her family’s certainty of her transgender status, current laws ensure that accessing medical transgender treatment– should she seek it–will be anything but a simple process.
Top Comments
As someone who has lived with this issue their entire life, I can tell all the doubters out there, this is real and not dealing with it properly is a matter of life and death to so many of us.
The shame of being trans stopped me from coming out as a child and pushed me to live a life that was never complete, from the outside it appeared great, I appeared to be successful in so many ways but internally I wanted to die, I pushed it down as a kid because I knew what my parents reaction would be, exactly the same as many of you here, deny it, punish me and generally make my life a living hell, and I actually know this to be true now, after watching a special on 60 minutes in 2013 on this, my mother made the comment "those kids wouldn't know" this whilst I was sitting 3m away, I have never been so incensed, I have had to deal with this issue my entire life and that's all that she has to say, being trans isn't the biggest problem we face it's the ignorance and the isolation that are our biggest issues, that along with the slander that we somehow are perverts or that we are just doing this for sex, I for one can tell you, it's definitely got nothing to do with sex, in fact it has ruined my sex life and coming out killed my marriage, I had no intentions of transitioning but that didn't matter to my wife, the fact I was trans was enough, if it wasn't for all the bad things that come to mind when you think trans I would still be happily married to the girl of my dreams, now as I lay alone in my bed I beg the universe to make this all a bad dream but it's not, this is my life.
These kids aren't telling lies and they aren't making stuff up, this is their lives and it is hard enough dealing with this internally without having to deal with all the B.S. that comes out of everybody's mouths.
We need to support our children no matter what, and if you can't do that, you are a failure as a parent.
Kids are choosing to end their lives over this matter. Why wouldn't an 11 year old know what is going on with their body. Good on her. If i was her parent I would be very proud.