I know exactly when.
I was four.
And I was watching Barbie and the Pink Shoes.
And I was like ‘I want to be a ballet dancer.’
And then when I started doing ballet, that’s when I was like ‘I want to be a girl.’
I shut her down.
Because I think it wasn’t that I wasn’t ready for it, I was really scared.
Hi, I’m Ellie, and I’m nine years old.
When people ask me if I’m transgender I say ‘Yeah, I am.’
But I just normally want to think that I’m just, a girl.
At the age of four, she started to identify as a girl.
My answer to her was, ‘no, you were born this way, and it’s okay to like pink and
it’s okay to wear costumes and things like that, but you were born a male.’
And that was before I was educated, that was before I did my research and understood what
it was to be transgender.
We went into Best and Less, Mum was going to the boy’s aisle when I started crying
and begging her to go to the girl’s aisle.
And she walked a little bit further to the boy’s aisle and I had a really, really bad
breakdown.
It was more around the age of seven, after that incident at Best and Less after she threw
herself on the ground and we watched documentaries about trans kids, was when she said ‘Oh
Mum, that’s me.’
That was kind of the start of, I really need to do my research.
(Eli playing the tambourine.
Eli.
Oh you’re clever.
Say ‘Hello, Eli.’
Hello!
Eli…)
In 2019, I started asking mum if I could change my name to Ellie, she was actually really
happy about it.
But at first she was kind of confused.
But then she done a lot of research and she was really supportive and really happy that
I’d made that decision.
And I think that I made the right decision, as well.
We went shopping and she got to choose what she wanted for her birthday, which was a pink
fairy dress and an Elsa or Anna doll, I can’t remember.
And she was the happiest little person.
It’s really hard to explain.
Seeing that joy in your child’s face.
I’ve never really seen it, I have four children and I’ve never really seen a child look
at me like that and be so grateful for being heard.
I’ve gotten bullied for my decision, but mum taught me that, don’t let anyone get
in your way.
I was really scared of what the rest of the family would feel and would say, what society
would say.
I know all the judgments that people think because I’ve thought them.
We were actually part of the Queensland Children’s Hospital, the gender clinic there.
They helped us to understand a lot more about gender.
When a trans child or adolescent is on that journey of discovering their identity or affirming
their identity, I would probably say that the single most important factor is to have
their family travelling on that journey too.
We see a little over 600 children and adolescents and their families right across Queensland.
But what we find with young people that we meet who have strong supportive families behind
them, it has a buffering effect on some of those experiences in the school yard or out
in their communities.
In terms of supporting trans children and adolescents to flourish, I really do feel
that it takes our entire community.
When I first wanted to be a girl, I thought that it was just me that was like that.
But then across the way, Mum started meeting people like me, tonnes of people like me,
and even across the world.
And then I realised, I’m not the only one.