It made me sick to go to school in a boy’s uniform.. I’m a million per cent happier as a girl
COURAGE OF TRANSGENDER GIRL , AGED 8
SMILING broadly in her new school skirt and with her long blonde hair in bunches, eightyear-old Tegan Dyason says she is the happiest girl in the world.
Because in this new school year she has at last been allowed to say goodbye to being a boy.
Last term, while she was still known as Tom and had to wear her hated boy’s uniform, she spent most days crying in the playground and had no friends.
But after starting Year Four as Tegan, she now wakes up every day smiling and has made “a million and 60” friends.
She says: “Life is really amazing as a girl and I’m a million per cent happy.”
Taking that first step through the school gates as Tegan took courage.
Tegan says: “I was so excited about going to school as Tegan, I was up at 3.45am and my uniform was hanging up in my room. But when my mum started doing my hair in bunches, I started crying because I got scared I’d get bullied.
“Then in my head I thought: ‘You know what – I’m just going to go to school and blow my mind off !”
At the gates Tegan had another wobble as she remembered Tom and how “he would cry every day”. She adds: “But then I walked through the gates and I thought, ‘I’m just going to go for it’.”
Mum Michelle took Tegan to school, squeezing her hand to comfort her while feeling sick with nerves herself.
But she needn’t have worried. “It was like, ‘It’s Tegan, the new girl in school... Hiya’. The kids didn’t bat an eyelid.”
One mum even asked Michelle: “Where’s Tom?” And when Tegan got to her class, one girl leaned over and whispered to her: “You look nicer this year.”
Tegan sees just one tiny downside. “I’m always tripping in my new black shiny shoes, they proper kill me,” she admits.
Wearing a “Dream big, sparkle more” glitter top, the West Yorkshire lass hugs her unicorn teddy called Lily as she talks about her decision to become a girl.
“For as long as I remember I’ve felt trapped in a boy’s body,” she says. “Everything’s better as a girl. I even feel smarter.”
Michelle, whose 11-year-old son Josh started senior school this year, says Tegan had wanted to wear girls’ clothes from three years old, and has been transgender since she was six.
The mum says she wants to share Tegan’s story to show other parents it is “not just a phase”.
“Putting a boy’s uniform on for school broke her,” says Michelle, who split from the children’s dad three years ago. “She wanted to play with the girls. She didn’t want to play rough and tumble.
“She used to walk around with a tea-towel on her head pretending it was hair. As soon as he could he played with my makeup and jewellery.
“I remember when Tom talked into a plastic phone saying he was going to marry One Direction. I used to laugh thinking, ‘This kid’s more girly than me!’
“There was the tantrum in Asda when he was three over a little summer dress with big strawberries on that he wanted.
“Every Halloween Tom always wanted to be a witch, as it was the only time he could go outside dressed as a girl.
“He started nursery at four, walked in and put a princess dress on from the fancy dress box. I just stood there slightly embarrassed.
“Last year Tom went to a Halloween disco dressed as a girl and won best dressed girl. Then on World Book Day he went as Rapunzel. I had to let him otherwise he’d flatly refuse to go to school.”
Michelle had even thought of Tegan as a girl before she was born. “In all honesty,
when I was pregnant. I thought I was carrying a girl,” she says. “When the scan at 20 weeks showed it was a boy I was shocked. “But I was happy with two boys.” Early last year, the school called to tell her that Tegan (then aged seven and still known as Tom) was upset because someone had called her gay. Michelle says: “She broke down and said, ‘I’m not gay, I want to be a girl.’ “I realised then, it’s not just a phase, it’s real, very real.” So Michelle took her daughter to the doctor, who then referred Tegan to the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust’s gender identity clinic in Leeds. “It sort of snowballed from there,” says the mum. ”She was so adamant that she was a girl.” Tegan’s first appointment was in August last year. And in April this year, she started living “fulltime as a girl” at home and in public . However, she was still dressing as a boy at school after it was decided that
she would wait until the start of the new school year last month to return as a girl. “It’s a very lengthy process with a child psychologist,” says Michelle.
“It’s a long, long process...there’s no medical intervention until she hits puberty.
“People need to understand this is not just a phase that they’ll get over: this is her life.”
She says that the school has dealt with her daughter’s situation amazingly well.
Some of the teachers have even taken courses on the subject.
Michelle says: “Tegan is in a watch-and-wait process. Nothing is medically done, it’s a matter of watching her live her life as a girl.
“Josh took it better than me, he’s always seen her as his little sister. They love each other to bits and he’s dead proud of her.”
Josh says: “It made me sad that Tegan would not be happy because she couldn’t be who she really is.
“She’d always come crying to me and my friends. I would rather she was my sister than my brother.
“My brother was annoying but my sister isn’t. ”
Michelle admits the process has not all been plain sailing.
“I sobbed in the playground on the last day she was Tom,” she says. “At first I felt as if I was losing a son.
“Watching Tegan going to school on her first day as a girl was very emotional. I had a sense of dread and fear.
“But what happened was incredible. She was accepted instantly.” The mum added: “Some people might think she’s not old enough to make the decision, and ask if it’s the right thing to do.
“But when she goes to the clinic and they tell her at any time you could turn back to being a boy, she cries in fear, thinking they’re going to make her a boy again.”
Michelle’s parents have also been very supportive, with granny embracing the change and knitting mermaid blankets for Tegan.
Now Michelle cannot imagine her younger child being any other way.
“The day Tom took off the school uniform he was gone for good,” said Michelle. “I don’t remember Tom now. It’s really bizarre. Now she’s my wonderful daughter. My little diva.”
Tegan has a message for anyone who feels as she does: “I used to feel lonely but not any more. Just go for it, because it’s you who wants to be someone, and you can be.”
I always felt trapped in a boy’s body. Everything is better as a girl TEGAN DYASON STARTED THE NEW TERM AS A GIRL