It was a secret Eli kept until he was 8 years old. "He would scream, like we were hurting him when we tried to put a dress on him." recalled Grace, his mother. That was when Eli was an 18-month-old baby girl already rejecting anything female. Now, Eli's mother and Eli are sharing their story with CBS New York. Eli still remembers being a baby, and rejecting putting on a dress. "Oh, I remember that," he said. "It was like torture." Now Eli is 11 years old. He is, by all accounts, a happy, active boy who never doubted he was born the wrong sex. Eli said to CBS New York. It was hard to keep that secret for 8 years though, "It was kind of hard because I hadn't really told anyone ever," he said. "He said, 'I have a secret, and the secret is I don't want to be a girl. I think I'm a boy,'"Grace recalled. "...I thought, 'I don't know what we're going to do, but we're going to figure it out."' CBS New York reports that it was a less clear path for Ryan, now a 21-year-old man. He, too, was born female, but never felt like one. He didn't understand his feelings at the time. Then he learned about what it meant to be transgender on the Internet, and it began to make sense. "It was a relief to know what exactly I was or am," he said. Ryan's mother said at first it was hard to accept. "It's a scary thing to think about," she said. But she came around. "I was glad my son is able to become the person he needed to be," she said. Experts say the kind of family support both Ryan and Eli are getting is of great significance. Without it, many transgender kids suffer from anxiety, depression and high rates of suicide. "We see a lot of kids with a lot of mental health concerns, and we also see that those mental health concerns really reduced when the family is on board," said Jean Malpas of Ackerman Institute for the Family, a non-profit research organization to CBS New York. Grace said for her it went from a situation that felt really confusing and difficult to one that she now celebrates. "We feel so lucky to have him." she said. Which word can best describe Ryan's feelings before he turned to the Internet?
Confused. Angry. Relieved. Confident.