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Claire – not her real name – was a perfectly happy child. She tended towards boyish pursuits, like soccer and taekwondo, but so did her mother, Sarah (also a pseudonym). So Sarah thought little of it. Her tomboyish daughter took after her.
But her mental health plummeted as she became an adolescent: Sarah’s carefree girl was gone, as was the close relationship between mother and daughter. Just before Claire turned 18, she announced that she was transgender.
“I would never have envisioned it,” says a shocked Sarah.
Claire experienced bullying from extended family members and at the private school she attended during primary school, so her parents moved her to another school.