12-year-old child cuts hair and changes name after realizing “he wasn’t meant to be a girl”

A 12-year-old child, who was born as a girl, has changed his name and appearance after realizing “he was born in the wrong body.”

Gabriel Buttress was born a girl and named Charlotte, but as he got older “he soon realised he was not meant to live life as the gender he had been born into”.

His mother, Melanie Palmer-Scaum, 35, who lives in Hessle, East Yorkshire, said: “About two years ago we were in this shop looking for girls’ clothes and he said ‘I don’t want to shop here mum.’

“He has four brothers so I thought it might be to do with that but then he said he wanted his hair cut short.”

She added: “As soon as the clipper touched his head he had the biggest grin on his face and that was when I had a little bit of an inkling.”

According to the mum-of-six, Gabriel had always been a bit of a tomboy, but she did not put that down to him being trapped in the wrong body, until she received a text from him in February.

She said: “Gabriel texted me from his dad’s house. He said ‘do you know what LGBT is?’

“And I didn’t know what it was. He said ‘well I’m one of them’, and I asked him if he meant he was trans and he said he was. Even though I had an inkling I was still a little shocked and it took me a couple of days to get my head around it. It was a shock and it took time for it to sink in and for me to get used to calling Gabriel a him.”

Melanie said her son lived happily as Gabriel at home but going to secondary school proved to be problematic.

She said: “He had a few people ask him ‘are you a boy or a girl?’ but he just didn’t have the confidence to come out at school and his anxiety got really bad.”

As a result, Gabriel ended up locking himself in the bathroom four weeks ago. This made his mum reach a decision for his wellbeing.

She said: “I said to him that he didn’t have to go back to school and that he can be a boy 24/7 at home. I said that I would home school him and he was so happy.”

Ever since, she said Gabriel is on top of the world and is becoming more and more confident. This culminated in him officially becoming a boy by burning a bra and changing his name to Gabriel, the name of one of his favourite YouTubers.

Gabriel’s next step is to undergo a hormone blocking procedure before he reaches puberty. He is already on a waiting list at a gender clinic in Leeds. It’s hoped it will stop puberty before it starts, allowing him to transition into a boy.