Mum of three non-binary kids on how to act if you accidentally misgender someone
Carrie Grant with her second-oldest child, Tyland Grant, in 2019. (Mike Marsland/WireImage)
Carrie Grant, mum to Hollyoaks star Tylan Grant, says that when she accidentally subjects one of her three non-binary children to misgendering she will apologise and then “move on quickly”.
Grant’s second-oldest child, Tylan Grant, 19, is an actor who plays Brooke Hathaway in British soap opera Hollyoaks.
Grant, who is autistic and plays Hollyoaks‘ first full-time character with autism, came out as non-binary in December 2020.
He said at the time: “Coming out to people has been probably the biggest achievement, coming out as non-binary, that’s probably been one of the biggest transitions in my life and also the biggest achievement.”
Grant’s parents are Carrie and David Grant, the vocal coaches from Fame Academy. The pair made a cameo in a Hollyoaks episode last year as prospective parents for Grant’s baby, as part of a storyline that saw Grant pregnant but not keeping the baby.
Grant’s siblings are Olive, 26, and Arlo, 15.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Carrie Grant said that when she realised she was “the only female left in the family” at the end of last year, she thought: “OK, I need to grieve that and move on.”
She is similarly pragmatic when it comes to accidentally calling her children by the wrong name or pronouns, known as misgendering, saying she and her husband, David, sometimes slip up.
“I sometimes misgender them, apologise, and move on quickly,” she says. She also shared the story of when Arlo changed their name aged 10, and the subsequent exploration of gender and sexuality that Arlo had.
“It was very funny,” Grant said. “They announced to the whole house, ‘I am a boy’ and said ‘I want to be called Ian’.
“Everyone said, ‘Oh my God, not Ian!’ No one batted an eyelid at the boy thing but everyone objected to the name Ian.”
Arlo is now 15, and is non-binary. “They would say they are a demigirl,” Grant said.
“Arlo has gone through, ‘I want to be a boy’, then it was, ‘No, I am not a boy, I am a lesbian’. The lesbian thing remained but the gender thing changed. Arlo is now a demigirl, someone who does not feel female.”
