We live in a rural Queensland town. Our local community is supportive of our whole family, including our daughter who is an 11-year-old transgender girl. When she was a toddler she wanted to wear dress ups and be a girl. She had older brothers and there were lots of boy things around, but she didn’t want to be like them. We hadn’t known anything about transgender people, and until we met our daughter, we might have been sceptical of stories about transgender children. But here she was being her authentic self and insisting this was who she was. 

 

We did lots of research and saw our GP who connected us with the Queensland Children’s Hospital Gender Service. The whole way along the health professionals and social workers didn’t push our family or daughter to be anything other than who she wanted to be. They told us to wait and see and follow her lead. She has been very clear that she is a girl. She wanted to grow her hair long, wear the girls uniform, and then later change her name. She loves dancing and performing and is just like any other girl. Our rural school community support her and she has good friendships with girls at school. Our child is being authentic, she was not influenced by anything and we have never pushed her. 

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Even though our daughter has been seeing the specialist children's gender service for 7 years now, she has been caught up in the Queensland ban on gender affirming care because she hasn’t yet reached puberty. 

 

Since we heard the news about the ban, it has been very nerve wracking for us as parents. We are anxious. All our daughter wants is to be like any other ordinary girl. How can we tell our child, ‘Oh no sorry you have to go through a male puberty’? She has been known to everyone as a girl since she was little. How can we take that away from her? It would be absolutely cruel. She does not know how to be a boy, she doesn’t have anything boyish in her. 

 

If our daughter had to go through a male puberty she wouldn’t leave the house. Fitting in, not standing out, and being like the other girls is so important to her, we don’t know how she would live with herself. It would be the loss of a child.

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We’ve always lived in this community, our kids have all gone to school here, we’ve worked and have businesses here. People in our town know our daughter and care about her. But we are now faced with having to leave this town so that we can find healthcare for her. 

 

As parents, we will do anything to keep her safe and happy. We’d save, sell and do anything to get her the treatment, even if our family was left with nothing, because it so important. As parents we will always look after her, we’ve made that promise to her.