INSPIRATION

a girl at home and, as puberty approaches, decides that he no longer wants to hide who he really is.

Jackie started living as a girl at home after her parents sought advice on the NHS. She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at seven and in the last year of primary school, Jackie proudly walked into class as a girl.

Most of her classmates quickly accepted her, and Jackie’s wider family also embraced her new identity. But Susie says: “I remember calling my brother to tell him and he said, ‘I know it sounds weird but it feels like I have lost somebody’. He said he felt a sense of loss. And I said, ‘She is the same as she has always been’.”

Susie remembers the “indescribable” look of joy on Jackie’s face the first time she was told she could shop in the girls’ clothes section.

But growing up, Jackie faced cruel abuse from adults and children alike.

Susie, who advised ITV on the Butterfly script, says: “When she was 13 years old

MOTHER OF TRANSGENDER CHILD

she was walking home from a friend’s house and got beaten up by two 40-yearold guys. She had an egg cracked on her head by a girl in the middle of the street.

“It was daily abuse. One boy spat full in her face. She was walking down a corridor with a teacher and another kid called her a ‘tranny’ – and the teacher did nothing.”

Police got involved when a mum at the school repeatedly shouted abuse at Jackie.

Jackie began self-harming and attempted suicide seven times as she struggled to cope with the abuse and the trauma of going through puberty as a boy from the age of 12.

Susie says: “I would go through her room and pull out all the paracetamol. An mo

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