A British mother has revealed how her son and daughter both told her they wanted to swap gender, within weeks of each other.
From a young age, Beth and her husband Ross noticed their children were different.
When Russie was five, he liked to play dress-ups with girls and Aly, three years younger, preferred to kick a football with the boys, reports The Sun.
Russie suffered bullying and depression during his teen years and was threatened with expulsion after running into the girls’ toilets.
“I did not choose this for myself. I wish there was a way that I could not be this way,” he told his parents.
“I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not.”
However, it was Aly who first came out as transgender.
A week before her 15th birthday, Russie asked her if she “liked girls” and she told him she believed she was transgender.
With her brother by her side, she told her mother, “I’ve figured out what’s going on with me. I know that I’m transgender.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a boy. I never told you this, but when I was little, I would go to sleep and wish that I’d wake up a boy.
“Every time we did the wishbone at Thanksgiving and I won, I would wish that I was a boy.”
Aly began gender reassignment after high school, including an operation to remove her breasts.
A month later, Russie told his parent he was also transgender and after counselling, also decided to go ahead with the sex swap.
Now 20 and 17, Russie and Aly, who are now known as Rai and Gavin, couldn’t be happier.
Beth told Cosmopolitan, “People ask me what I’ve lost, but I don’t feel that I’ve lost anything. I have my son and daughter the way they should be.”
