I'm Rebekah.

My name is Jamie Bruesehoff,

and I'm married, we have three children: they're 10, 8 and almost 3 years old. So,

I write a blog called 'I'm totally that mom'. In the past few years, my blog has

really become more focused on our journey with a transgender child. So, Rebekah has

always been gender non-conforming. As young as two or three, she gravitated to typically

feminine things. She loved pink and sparkles and all things girly and that was fine with us.

This is a soft blanket that I have,

and it says Benjamin on it. So, we put it with my Benjamin box.

As her gender non-conformity

intensified, we started to notice some distress around things like being grouped with boys

at school or in activities. So, by the time she was seven, all of this kind of hit a crises

point and her anxiety was crippling, and her depression was becoming life threatening,

and we were at a loss.

There is a picture of me. I don't look so happy.

We were faced with a 7-year-old kid, who wanted to die.

One time she punched out the screen in her second story window

and tried to jump out.

The hardest part of all this was

when I didn't transition and I was not happy and it didn't feel right.

So, we sought the support

of a gender specialist and so through conversations there, Rebekah came to tell us, 'No, this

is definitely me. I'm a girl. I'm a girl in my head, in my heart.'

I felt like I was a girl because

I liked the colour pink and I liked girls clothes and how they wear their hair and stuff.

At the time, it was the

happiest I'd ever seen her, frolicking through the girls section of the clothing store, picking

out clothes and seeing what she liked. She was just a different kid. It was like a cloud lifted.

It feels good to have like a sister instead of a brother,

since I already have a baby brother and I think a big brother

would just be too much for me.

When I see pictures of Ben, I just

think of it as part of my past and now I'm me.

When she told me I didn't believe

her. I was shocked. I was like: 'I don't believe you, that is not true'.

Rebekah really doesn't like thinking about the medical side of this.

She doesn't want to develop into a man.

So, medically transitioning involves a lot of different steps. And every transgender

person chooses their own adventure. For Rebekah, the first steps will be puberty blockers,

which will pause puberty and prevent her from going through male puberty and developing

secondary male characteristics like facial hair and a deeper voice and an Adam's apple

that are irreversible. The next step would be cross hormones. So, Rebekah is a natal

male and so she would take oestrogen to develop and go through female puberty. As far as surgery,

she hasn't indicated a desire for that, but that is a decision she gets to make down

the road anyway. That's not something she would do before she is 18.

I'm always worried about the reaction with Rebekah,

both in the community and the church, and the world.

I'm very worried about how the world's going to treat her, because I see lot of ugliness

in the world on a regular basis.

So, this is a picture I put up on my blog Facebook page

that went pretty crazy viral. It started out with some

really wonderful comments and lots of affirmation. But if I keep scrolling here, so I've got

this one: "This is embarrassing... first she is what? 10, I think I read K . At 10

she isn't mature enough to make this decision. This decision was forced on her by her parents.

This is a form of abuse not recognised. Parents forming their child into a social media spotlight

seeking their 15 minutes of fame. I do honour her courage to stand in front of people and

speak what she feels due to the forced dialogue of her parents. This whole transgender issue

is a mental illness. But it's "cool" because you have parents forcing their kids

into it.' We haven't had anyone in our community, in our families say that we're

pushing this onto her. We have had that through social media and through my blog and that

kind of thing, who go as far as to say this is child abuse, and we should have our children

taken away, and that we're sick, and we need mental help, and everything else. And

luckily, every major medical organisation says otherwise, and every medical professional

we've seen says otherwise, and so we feel pretty confident that we have the best resources

we can and we've supported her the best way we can and that we've gotten the support

we needed as parents.

Our hopes for Rebekah's future

are that she gets to be who she is, as boldly as she wants to be.

And that, you know, folks are going to accept her for who she is and I guess at some point

that being transgender is something that she can advocate for, but isn't going to be

a limit for her in terms of who she is and who she wants to be as an adult.

I want to make a difference in the

world by speaking out and spreading hopeful messages.

'Hi, my name is Rebekah, I'm a transgender girl. I've been living as myself since I was 8 years old and now I'm 10.'

This is who I am. My friends don't

even believe me when I tell them that I'm transgender. I'm just a girl.

I want to send the message of 'you're not alone'

and 'you're safe' to other transgender kids.