Finally, what I’d known in my heart for years, my head now knew. As a little boy, he was kind and thoughtful and loved having girls as friends, but there was often crying at night and sheer terror every time school holidays ended. I tried to understand what was going on but couldn’t get through.

I always asked how he was or if he was happy, but my little boy was always ‘fine’. Now, it all clicked, and I felt unbelievably sad and guilty that I had not recognised what my son was going through. I realised my wonderful son was going to be taking hormones and changing gender, and I managed to ask if he was going to be dressing up as a girl, a stupid question, but I was at a loss to understand everything.

He said yes and I panicked inside, picturing him in a skirt and being laughed at and even beaten up. He said he wanted to be ‘elegant’, and I cried, knowing this was to begin a journey that would change all our lives.

I started with the NHS Website and found Ruth, a young pretty woman who revealed her own story of transition from male to female. I knew my future daughter could do this, and I had to be there for her. I found more common sense, honest websites with contacts that could help me and my path was set.

I contacted GIRES (Gender Identity Research and Education Society) and talked to a wonderful man called Bernard Reed, whose own daughter had suffered horrendously during her own transition. He and his wife Terry have crusaded tirelessly ever since to get fairness, support and understanding for the transgender community, and he became my mentor and my hero.

He talked to me about being strong and reading all the information and research GIRES had to offer, and most importantly, he taught me to see a future, a bright future, for my daughter, in which we would share coffees and talk about hair and make-up. Although my mind was finding it difficult to see ahead, I started to see a goal we could aim towards and I told myself, ‘I can do this,’ and my child could become the woman she always should have been.

My counsellor also told me about the Beaumont Society who do great work with trans people and their partners. I talked to the President, and she told me about the website and the events they ran even though their age group was somewhat older than my daughter’s, they welcomed our membership with open arms, something I will always be grateful for, and I’ll come to that later.

A lovely lady at the Gender Trust told me about FFLAG and Sparkle. Grimsby Pride was also coming up in September. This was one hell of a learning curve, but I was getting there. I also joined a Facebook page but felt vulnerable with my details out there, preferring to meet two parents with children my daughter’s age, as many parents already had Mermaids as their support, and our over-20s age group was sadly lacking.

So my daughter continued her journey, wanting to be called Hannah, being feminine at home and androgynous when out and about. It was a strain keeping up the pretence, and we could see that it was very difficult for Hannah to be seen as someone she didn’t want to be.

Hannah had sent all her forms off to be considered by a Gender Identity Clinic, and nine months after that conversation in March she was told there was at least a three-year waiting list to even see a consultant. This was extremely distressing for Hannah, seeing her features change and living with a reflection she detested and those quiet times she sat in her bedroom were constantly worrying and too much for us to bear.

If we were to go private, it was not going to be cheap and if the GP would not do shared care, we would have to pay for the hormones and the blood tests, too – it was a big decision and one I realised many parents in this position couldn’t do, living with the prospect of their young ones considering suicide to take them out of this agony. I was lucky enough to have a good job and the means to do it, and we decided that for Hannah’s sake and ours, we should go down the private route.

The visit to the private Gender Clinic in London followed soon after and, as the appointments were set up to get her towards prescribing hormones, we knew we had to allow Hannah to emerge properly and we had to be prepared. I purchased a great book called ‘Trading Places, When Our Son became A Daughter’ by an American mum called Jane Baker. This book was so inspiring, not only covering the process she and her daughter went through but providing common sense facts too.

My close friends and work colleagues I chose to tell directly and share Hannah’s article, as did my husband (but he took a little longer, not easy for a man to broach the subject in general conversation but he got there). They were all fantastic, and my friends asked me why I hadn’t told them sooner. I can truly say I hadn’t been in the right place, but now I was, and I would fight for my daughter’s tooth and claw.

Now Hannah was on hormones and beginning her new life. She changed all her documents, and we finally did clothes shopping that wasn’t in Charity Shops or online. Shop assistants were really friendly and wanted to share Hannah’s story. We also had that coffee and talked about hair and make-up exactly as Bernard from GIRES said we would. We had come a long way and still had more hurdles to jump, but we were in a good place.

Now, her journey changed direction. Hannah had arrived, and she decided she would be an advocate for transgender people. She wrote and got replies from charities who wanted to know more about transgender issues and how they could be better at understanding their needs. With Lincolnshire NHS Social Care students, she has made a difference to their curriculum in how to deal with transgender people in care and has spoken at their conference. With charities like Homestart, Barnardo’s, MIND and Yorkshire MESMAC, she influenced their policies and training. She still works with Stonewall in schools to make sure policies are not just pieces of paper and she now works for a wonderful organisation in Yorkshire that supports vulnerable people and regularly talks on local radio in support of transgender people.

As parents, we are so proud of our daughter, and I have the opportunity to help parents of young people as individual as ours to get them through what can be a very difficult and lonely time and to work with Hannah to provide helpful and useful contacts for their child to make through their own media platforms.