“I’d rather have a living transgender daughter than a dead son.”

                These were the words spoken by the mother of Josie, who at the time of filming was a nine-year-old transgender child who wanted to go through female puberty and sex reassignment surgery to become more “like the other girls.”

                Josie’s story is a compelling one.  Born a biological male in 2001, Vanessa’s child, named Joey, was in the habit of throwing devastating fits by the age of three years.  After the diagnosis of depression, Joey began drug therapy for a variety of issues including depression, anxiety, sleep problems and Tourette’s syndrome.  Vanessa describes multiple medications Joey was prescribed as being administered in a regimen to her three-year-old child.

                Vanessa did not correlate the symptoms her child was displaying with his desire to dress up in girl’s clothing until a fateful visit to their doctor.  Near the end of an ordinary appointment, Joey lifted his shirt and began to pretend to breastfeed a toy doll.  The doctor told Vanessa her child “may have gender identity disorder.”  After questioning the doctor and subsequently searching for information online, Vanessa agreed.  Desperate to help her child, she allowed Joey to begin dressing as a girl.  Joey’s hair grew into long blonde curls.  When Joey returned to school dressed as a girl at the age of six years, a firestorm began with the other parents at the school at Joey’s school at a military facility in Japan.

                Having transferred back to the U.S., Joey’s parents petitioned the court and changed Joey’s legal name to Josie.  Things went along until Josie reached the age of nine years and began to worry about the signs of pre-puberty in her body.  At one point, Josie stood in the shower with nail clippers in hand, apparently summoning the courage to rid herself of the undesired male genitalia on her body. 

               The emotional pain experienced by Joey, his mother, and his step-father on their path to acceptance of Joey’s desire to become a girl is laid bare for all who watch the videotaped interview.  As a mother of two children, I wondered how I would have reacted if Joey/Josie had been my child. 

Please click on the YouTube video link below to meet Josie and her family. 

Watch for a surprising conversation between Josie and her mother at around fifteen minutes into the twenty-one minute video.

http://youtu.be/epDPui27QZQ

               

Lehmiller, 2014.  Pgs. 117, 130-136.