MUM ON CHILD
FROM the age of three, Jeneen Schofield’s only child made the same Christmas and birthday wish: “I want to be a girl.”
While family snaps show the tot in a Liverpool football kit, Jeneen says her toddler, born a boy, soon sensed he should be living life as a girl.
And last year, at the age of seven, her wish came true when her name was officially changed by deed poll – to Luna.
She started wearing a skirt to school and got a new passport too as one of Britain’s youngest transgender children.
Today her proud mum opens her heart on the life-changing events and defies critics who believe her decision to let Luna choose her gender was premature.
NHS worker Jeneen, 37, tells of the moment Luna, now eight, was “set free” and talks of her “grieving process” as she let her little boy go.
The mum says: “Luna was asking when she could be a girl soon after her third birthday. I brushed it off as a phase and told her to stop being silly.
FOOTBALL
“But she kept asking. My family felt she was too young to make the decision to be a girl, but I didn’t want to tell her how she felt and knew this wasn’t going away.”
Luna’s story comes as figures show the number of gender dysphoria children in Britain doubled in the past year.
Referrals to England’s only specialist clinic for transgender children have risen nearly 100 per cent in four years.
Last year 2,590 children were referred to the Leeds-based Gender Identity Development Service, where Luna visits.
Jeneen tells how Luna always shunned “football stuff ”, preferring to play with dolls and dress- up. At five she was allowed to “socially transition”. Jeneen adds: “Before then she’d worn princess dresses to the local shop with me, or at home. On her fifth birthday she spent the day at Disneyland Paris in a dress. She couldn’t have been happier.
“At the top of every Christmas and birthday wishlist was to be a girl. It was hard to accept what I was seeing.”
Luna had only been at school a few weeks when Jeneen asked to speak to her teacher. She explains: “It was World Book Day. I explained Luna wanted to go as Alice in Wonderland and I asked if she thought there might be more to this. The teacher agreed, saying she noticed Luna always being the mum or sister when kids played dressing-up.
“Suddenly I was so scared about how it might cause problems for her. I sat in my car and cried my heart out. I didn’t really know what trans meant. For weeks I was petrified Luna would have a loveless life full of people hating her.”
But Jeneen says YouTube videos of parents of trans kids talking about their situation – plus resources downloaded from Mermaids, the trans- support charity – helped her realise Luna could find happiness. She adds: “The more research, the more I realised transitioning didn’t mean the end. Luna could have a happy life and find love as a girl.”
But this month NHS psychologists said children are allowed to live as the opposite sex too soon. They say letting
We bought Luna some girls’ clothes and it was like she had been set free JENEEN SCHOFIELD MUM TELLS OF GENDER SWITCH
kids as young as six “socially transition” could do long-term harm by forcing them to choose too early.
Two top doctors also advised caution. Social psychologist Dr David Canter said: “No one should be assigned the label transgender before puberty. If the child is unhappy then the reasons should be explored without assigning labels.”
Consultant psychiatrist and TV doc Raj Persaud added: “A careful medical assessment is needed to understand what is going on. Only then can decisions be reached.”
But single mum Jeneen insists it would have been wrong to let Luna live a lie. And she stresses: “One thing I was sure of was how I’d certainly never encouraged Luna to be a girl.”
In 2016 Jeneen took Luna to Liverpool Pride, where Mermaids had a stall. They met a family with a trans child a year older than Luna. Jeneen recalls: “She had started to wear girls’ clothes and seemed so happy. I asked Luna if she wanted some normal girls’ clothes, rather than princess dresses, and she was so excited.”
So she took Luna to Primark where they bought three dresses, a pair of pink jeans and some bobbles. “Seeing her