A seven-year-old girl is teaching the internet an inspiring lesson in tolerance and what it means to be transgender.
In a video diary called Avery Chat, Avery Jackson – or AJ – says: ‘Being transgender is a hard thing, but you can be who you want to be. I’m proud of who I am because I’m transgender.’
She describes herself as ‘your average, everyday transgender girl’ who likes climbing trees, pretending to be a ninja or someone from a game and playing with her brother.
‘When I was born, doctors said I was a boy; but I knew in my heart I was a girl,’ she says.
But although she always knew she was a girl, Avery was afraid of telling her parents because she feared they would not love her anymore and even throw her out of the house.
‘Finally I had to tell my mom and dad I was a girl, because it was so frustrating, I could not hold it in,’ Avery remembers.
‘It was so hard to not be who I really was and have them treating me like a boy when I really was a girl.’
Her parents supported their girl through her transition, as AJ’s father Tom explained in an essay written for the New York Times’ series Transgender Today: ‘My wife and I decided that we would much rather have a happy, healthy daughter than a dead son.
‘In the time since her transition, a spunky and confident little girl has emerged.’
His wife, Debi, echoed the sentiment when she gave a moving speech last year in which she told the story of how she and her husband found out their child was transgender.
AJ also recounts what happened when she told her parents she was a girl: ‘My mum and dad brought me to doctors and the doctors said it would be all okay, as long as they let me be a girl.’
But while AJ's friends at pre-school were okay with her transition, their parents were not.
‘They though it was contagious, like transgender pox or something,’ she says.
‘I decided to quit pre-school because it was better to lose all my friends than to keep pretending.
My new friends know me for the girl I am in my heart and brain.’
And at just seven years old, she already has the perfect answer for people who tell her she does not use to the right bathrooms: ‘Who cares about my body parts? I don’t ask what’s in your underwear!’
Watch the video below.
No comments:
Post a Comment