A Texas mother and father have dutifully obeyed their son’s directive he wants to be a girl, including dressing him as a female since he was four and holding a “gender reveal” party to publicly announce he is now their daughter.
The British tabloid Metro recounts the story about Julie and Daniel Hindsley, which included family photographs of the mother, father, their six-year-old son dressed as a girl and renamed Ella, and their older son, Grant, who is 11.
The Metro told how the couple came to believe their son is transgender, using the female pronoun to describe him in the report:
Julie, 33, and Daniel, 37, noticed that as their baby grew up, she was completely different to their eldest son, Grant, and loved playing dress-up in Julie’s clothes and makeup. Julie, who works as a nurse, and her husband Daniel, a lineman, thought Ella, now six, would eventually grow out of it and encouraged her to play sports such as baseball and tried to get her interested in her other toys.
However, when Ella threw her fists down in frustration, Julie knew that her child was transgender and took the family to counselling to try to find the best solution. Mum Julie said: “For our first gender reveal, we had all of our closest friends and family come together at a local restaurant that I worked at at the time. We had a cake pop stand and we bit into the cake pops to reveal the gender – it was bright blue inside.”
Ella told her mum she was a girl when she was just four years old. “I was so shocked that we were having another boy because everyone thought it would be a girl – including me. I knew there was going to be a lot of people disappointed but I was relieved because I already had a boy. Ella was born in April 2014 and was completely different from her big brother from the get-go.
“When she began talking and expressing herself, I realized there was more to it,” Julie said.
“We talked to her and asked if she would want to start first grade as a girl and she got super excited and said yes – the process of transitioning began at the end of last year,” Julie said. “In February, one of the nurses at her school said we should let her wear what she wants to wear. I took her shopping and she started wearing what she wanted.”
The parents said they started to use the pronouns “she” and “her” in March and their son chose the name Ella.
“This was around the time coronavirus hit so she got to transition at home which was really good for her,” Julie said.
Julie said she recommends parents wait until their child is at least two years old before revealing its gender because it could change.
‘We were in denial for a long time about it until we finally learnt how to let go of our son and accept our daughter,” Julie said.
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