TV stars Carrie and David Grant reflect on ‘beautiful’ moment their child came out as trans
TV stars Carrie and David Grant reveal three of their kids are trans or non-binary (Nick Harvey/WireImage)
TV stars Carrie and David Grant have revealed that three of their children are trans or non-binary, and admitted that understanding their identities took a lot of “little conversations”.
In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph, the couple explained that their four children – all of whom are neurodivergent – have a “smorgasbord of different needs”.
The couple are parents to Olive, 28, Tylan, 21, 17-year-old Arlo and Nathan, who is 13.
Tylan made headlines after starring as Brooke Hathaway in Hollyoaks, the soap’s first full-time character with autism.
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 the biggest achievement.”
Carrie, who represented the UK at the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest as part of Sweet Dreams, and was a vocal coach on Fame Academy, explained that the couple had “thought about this subject [of gender identity] up ahead” and had “talked about it” before their children came out.
David, who was part of the 80s band Linx and has worked with the likes of the Spice Girls and Take That, said that he and his wife plan to pass on their knowledge of understanding queer and neurodivergent children in their upcoming book A Very Modern Family.
“The stuff that we learn, when we are working with our children, works for us. It works for other people… we wanted to pass some of that on,” he told the newspaper.
Carrie revealed that Arlo was the first to discuss his gender identity, when he came out at the age of 10.
“Arlo just declared in the middle of dinner one night: ‘Everyone, I just want to tell you, I’m a boy. My name is Ian’,” Carrie said.
“And the two older children just went, ‘Ian’s a terrible name. Your name has to be something better than that’. David and I looked at each other in amazement, the response was so beautiful.”
Carrie admitted that, while she understood trans identities quickly, the concept of being non-binary was “outside my knowledge base”, and she didn’t fully understand when Olive came out as non-binary.
“I didn’t take it on board. I said, ‘Oh, lovely. Nice for you, darling.’ [As if] they just said they like chocolate or something.
“It wasn’t until Tylan said, in 2020, ‘I’m non-binary and these are my pronouns’, that I went, ‘Now, hang on a minute, what does that mean?’ And that’s the point at which, for me anyway, I jumped in and just kind of went: ‘OK, I need to really understand this’.”
Carrie added that understanding LGBTQ+ identities can happen with lots of little conversations.
“It’s about creating an environment where children feel comfortable, to be able to speak about this,” she explained.
Carrie has previously spoken about being a parent to trans and non-binary children, saying that if she accidentally misgenders one of them, she will apologise and “move on quickly”.
In an interview with The Sunday Times in 2021, she said that when she realised she was “the only female left in the family”, she thought, “OK, I need to grieve that and move on.”
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