Inspirational mother explains challenges of raising a trans child (VIDEO)
A mother has opened up about the challenges facing parents of transgender children.
Jodie Patterson – a mother of five – talks about the challenges and hopes for raising her transgender son in a new video from Cosmopolitan.
She says she noticed signs that her 7-year-old son – who likes to be called Penel – was very different from an early age and that something “really, really heavy” was happening to him.
Ms Patterson reveals Penel exhibited an “intense reaction” to his body whenever she had tried to bathe or dress him.
In addition, she also said he would show strong preferences or objections towards girls clothing.
“One day I remember pulling Penelope aside… and asked what is really wrong and why are you so upset. And Penelope said, ‘Because everyone thinks I’m a girl, and I’m not.’”
However, rather than challenge her son – who was only two-years-old at the time – she says she accepted him for who he is.
“And I said, ‘Oh baby it’s fine. However you feel on the inside is great.’ And the two-year-old said, ‘Mama, I don’t feel like a boy. I am a boy.’”
Ms Patterson – who is a successful businesswoman – goes on to say that until this happened to her, she never thought she would be able to handle it the way she has.
“A lot of the things I thought I’d never be able to handle, you get it together really quickly when it’s your kid,” she said.
Watch the full video below:
Earlier this month, a mother in the UK shared a touching poem she had written to her 8-year-old trans daughter.
To show her support and acceptance of her daughter, Lorna McGuire wrote her daughter Paddy a beautiful poem about a caterpillar becoming a butterfly to help them both come to terms with the change.
She says she wrote the poem to “make sense of my feelings and the whole situation, and to put them down on paper”.
