Susan Smith, whose name has been changed to protect her child, said she gave birth to a male but the child began identifying as a girl soon after turning two. “First I thought it was really cute. It was like, ‘oh no no honey, you’re a boy.’”
But her child became increasingly insistent. Smith, who is separated from the child’s father but shares custody, said she struggled with how to respond. “I was kind of questioning, is my kid doing this for attention? What is going on?”
Then one evening, after her child surprised her by asking when their penis would fall оff, Smith sat the child down. “I told them, ‘Sweetheart, you were born with a penis, so you’re a boy. You will always have your penis, therefore you’ll always be a boy.’”
A few nights later her child woke her up, visibly upset. “It was along the lines of ‘Mom, I don’t want to be a boy,’” said Smith. “And then it went to almost shouting: ‘I’m going to cut my penis оff, I want my penis оff.’”
“This has been so hard on my kid,” she said, her voice shaking. “My kid then started talking about dying. At four, they didn’t feel that the world wanted them to be a girl. That they were no good.
“My kid was asking me, ‘Mom, does it hurt to die? How can I die, where would I go when I die? Mom, now that you know, when I die, grow me in your belly but grow me as a girl, not with a penis. Because now you know.’”
www.theguardian.com
