The seven-year-old loves watching Edmonton Oilers games with his dad.
His mother describes the family as “rednecks” in northern Alberta and says she tried to persuade and manipulate him to identify as a girl, the sex he was assigned at birth, “hoping it would go away.”
It took a long time for her to accept what he was telling her, she says.
He’s too young to start taking puberty blocking medication. But waiting until he turns 16 isn’t an option, says his mother, as irreversible physical changes come with puberty.
She says the family may have to choose between leaving Alberta to access puberty blockers down the road, or staying and watching the boy confront a higher risk of suicide and mental health challenges.
“That really hurts my heart to think about my kids growing up without their cousins and their grandparents,” she says of moving.