CW: self-harm. This episode contains a single description of self-harm scars from 42.05-42.25.

On this episode of the GenderGP podcast, Marianne and Helen are joined by the mum of a trans child. She shares her story of the challenges they’ve faced, the journey they’ve been on together, and the brave child at the heart of it.

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 Links:Giving trans youth a voice with Dr Anna Carlile | The GenderGP Podcast

The NHS MUST listen to trans youth impacted by failures | GenderGP

We help teenagers who have nowhere else to turn

 The GenderGP PodcastFighting For Care For My Trans Child

Helen Webberley:So hi everyone. I'm here today with Marianne as always. Hi Marianne. And I have a mum of a trans person here with us today called Lindsay. Hi Lindsay.

Lindsay Game:Hello.

Helen Webberley:Welcome to the GenderGP podcast. Really, as I always do, I'm just going to hand it over to you. Tell us who you are. Tell us a little bit about you and your family and what's been happening really.

Lindsay Game:Okay so my name's Lindsay. I've got a 10 year old son who is Danny and he's transgender. He transitioned at the age of five, so quite young. We've been with Tavistock and Portman now for four years. And Dan is now at the stage of wanting to be on hormone blockers. He's been sort of asking for these for about a year now. And it's been such a hard journey for all of us. I think the support that we've had has been quite minimal and it's, it's been a really lonely journey as a parent. So my objective really is to give an honest chat about what it's been like for us, and hopefully pave the way to change things for the future for these young children that are going through this.

Helen Webberley:Oh, well, thank you. Thank you for joining us to tell us your story. So you say he was five when he came out. Can you tell us a bit about what happened, how people will say, "goodness gracious, that's young".

Lindsay Game:I know.

Helen Webberley:But we all know that that's what happens. So (inaudible) tell us all about Danny.

Lindsay Game:So definitely not a bolt out of the blue. Danny was always a very beautiful girl, beautiful blonde curly hair. I always dressed her. She's my first child. You know, my first daughter, I always dressed her in beautiful dresses, pigtails, and she hated it right from a young, young age. She used to pull her pigtails out. As soon as we'd get home, she'd take her dresses off and put on her football kits. She was always a very sort of boisterous girl, always climbing trees, getting dirty in the mud, even as young as I'd say under two, when I used to take Danny to toddler groups, Danny would always choose the boys things to play with. So he would always dress up as a builder. And I just, you know, accepted Danny for who Danny was, didn't think anything of it. The older he got he used to comment when he was about four, about sort of look at my winky and things like that. And again, I didn't think much of it. I just thought, you know, he's got cousins that are boys and they were really close and open about things. It was when I remember thinking and having a chat to Danny's dad,