When he was 12, Australian Patrick Mitchell began the process of becoming a girl after he was diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a condition in which one’s gender identity doesn’t match with biology.
Then he turned 14, and he wanted to be who he had been before treatment.
“I started developing like a girl would — which was the thing that I wanted at that time. But now that’s no so helpful,” he told the Australian version of “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired in September.
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“You kind of have an image of what being a boy and being a girl is like, but when you actually experience it, it’s very different,” he said. “I realized that I could be happy without completely changing who I am.”
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“I began to realize I was actually comfortable in my body. Every day I just felt better,” he told Woman’s Day.
His mother, who had played a major role in helping him transition from male to female, said her son brought up the issue.
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“He looked me in the eye and said ‘I’m just not sure that I am a girl,’” Alison Mitchell explained.
Her son has stopped using the estrogen hormone he had been taking, but the breasts he grew while taking it have remained so far.
One doctor said that Mitchell’s experience should be a cautionary tale for parents trying to do the right thing for their children.
Pediatrician John Whitehall said he disputes conventional wisdom that there are large numbers of gender dysphoria cases in Australia.
“I think we have to acknowledge there are a lot of children who are confused about their gender identity. It is a normal phase that they would go through. It’s not uncommon to be confused. The good news is, they’re going to grow out of it. Don’t mess them up,” he said.
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He noted he has “grave” concerns over prescribing estrogen to transgender teens because “there is no proof that this is going to work.”
Whitehall said parents should think logically, not emotionally.
“You think their emotional problems are going to get better by giving them estrogen. … That’s called optimism. It’s not called scientific method. The whole thing is experimental in that sense,” Whitehall said.
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Alison Mitchell said the transition from male to female seemed to be what her son had been headed toward for years.
“When he was young, 3 and 4, he would dress up in girls’ clothes and at one stage he did say to me could he be taken to the doctor to be made into a girl,” she said.
But once teachers started referring to him as a girl at the start of the current school year, Patrick Mitchell knew that wasn’t him.
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