‘It Was Like Christmas’: Mother Celebrates Son Using Female Pronouns At School

A North Carolina mom went on national television to talk about her young son, who now identifies as a girl, and how delighted her son was to tell his class at school that he had a new name and pronouns.

The mother and father of “Ava” appeared on CBS’ “This Morning” with correspondent Susan Spencer to the gushing introduction, “Meet Ava, an exuberant, happy nine-year-old. Perhaps it’s a bit mind-bending to learn that she was born, by all appearances, a boy.”

“Even before she could talk, she gravitated towards all the girly toys, and colors, and when she could talk she would say, like, ‘I wish I was a girl,” Ava’s mother told “This Morning.”

“Her parents admit it was hard to process,” Spencer began in the video of the story. “Their then-son, begging in tears to wear a dress.”

“I feel like I’m an open-minded person, but when it’s your son, asking to do this,” the father told Spencer. “I think I wasn’t thinking about her feelings at the time … I was just thinking about, how are people gonna react to it.”

“You were afraid, a little bit afraid for her,” his wife prodded.

“Yeah. And I still am afraid for her,” the father agreed.

“You know, if we continue to say no, you have to live as a boy, she would continue, she’s young, I’m sure she would have done it,” the mother contended.

“We didn’t want to be her first bully,” she declared, as Spencer nodded understandingly. “We wanted to support her.”

Spencer sat with the child, asking, “You like fashion?” When the child answered “yes,” Spencer pressed, “What do you like about it?”

“Just the way you can express yourself with it and how creative you can be with it, “the child answered.

“It was just very clear the difference in her once she was allowed to present as a girl,” Ava’s mother said. “She went from being shy and anxious to — everyone remarked, ‘She was so much more confident, she just seemed happier.’”

“And so, Ava became Ava in the second grade,” Spencer stated.

“She had to walk into her classroom and identify that, you know, she had a new name and pronouns. And she was so excited. It was like Christmas,” the mother said.

Spencer asked Ava, “So now, are you who you think you should be?”

“Yeah. 100%,” the child answered.

Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, said to Spencer, “We want to see all of America protecting children from all gender-affirming care. … I think that adults transitioning is a totally different thing than children transitioning. Children don’t know what they’re going to be when they get older.”

“Explain to me why that is a decision that should be made by the state?” Spencer argued.

“The state makes all types of decisions around our children,” Schilling answered. “You have to be 21 years old to smoke cigarettes; you have to be 21 years old to drink; you have to be 18 years old to get a tattoo. But we’re gonna let children get cross-sex hormones?”