54 killed in storm horror
FLOODS and landslides caused by storms in Vietnam have killed at least 54. Rescuers were yesterday searching for 39 people still missing, with more than 30,000 homes flooded. SMILING broadly in her new school skirt and with her long blonde hair in bunches, eight-year-old Tegan Dyason says she is the happiest girl in the world.
That’s because since the start of the 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, the equivalent of P5 in Scotland, as Tegan, she now wakes up every day smiling and has made “a million and 60” friends.
She said: “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 said: “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 added: “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. She said: “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 downside. “I’m always tripping in my new black shiny shoes. They proper kill me,” she said.
Wearing a “dream big, sparkle more” glitter top, the Yorkshire lass hugs her unicorn teddy, Lily, as she talks about her decision to become a girl.
She said: “For as long as I remember I’ve felt trapped in a boy’s body. Everything’s better as a girl. I even feel smarter.”
Michelle, whose 11-year-old son Josh started senior school this year, said Tegan had wanted to wear girls’ clothes from three years old and has been transgender since she was six.
The mum said she wants to share Tegan’s story to show other parents it is “not just a phase”.
Michelle, who split from the children’s dad three years ago, said: “Putting a boy’s uniform on for school broke her. 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