Name: Living a Transgender Childhood Documentary
Uploaded: 2025-07-05T15:37:50.000Z
Duration: 19 min 34 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

and fairytales in a world you've made all your own.

Except that is not especially true for this young child.

So you know you know better not to do that, right?

Her name is Josie Romero, and for as long as she can remember, Josie's been trying to break free from a nightmare that few children will ever know.

To help Josie, her mother Vanessa is prepared to go to lengths most parents could not imagine.

I was in such a desperate state to get my child okay.

Their story begins in 2001 when Vanessa gave birth to a son, Joey.

He was the center of a loving, blended family with stepfather Joseph, an Air Force engineer, and later an adopted baby sister, Jade.

But the family scrapbook doesn't show the problems Joey was having by age three.

Glass shattering, piercing, yelling, crying fits.

Doctors also prescribed medicine for anxiety, ADHD, and Tourette syndrome.

There were 14 different medications, 17 doses a day.

My child was broken, and there was something really wrong.

But there was something else about Joey, something Vanessa never thought was a problem to discuss with doctors.

Her son seemed to prefer his little sister's toys and clothes.

If we'd go into the store, Joey would already start heading over to the little girl's clothes, even just for socks, anything.

And I'd say, no, we're here for you, not your sister, and start dragging my child over to the boy's socks or T-shirts or whatever.

Vanessa didn't see a connection between Joey's obsession with dress-up and his behavioral problems until a routine physical changed everything.

They were wrapping up the visit when the doctor noticed the way six-year-old Joey was playing with his toy.

Joey lifts his shirt and starts breastfeeding the doll.

And the doctor said, I think your child may have gender identity disorder.

And the doctor said, you know, like transgender.

As you may have figured out by now, Joey is Josie, born a boy, but now living as a girl.

When you were little, did you feel like you were trapped in the wrong body?

How old do you think you were when you started feeling like that?

Back then, the family was living on a military base in Okinawa, Japan, far from any specialist.

But Vanessa learned more about the condition from online support groups.

It seemed to just click, so she decided to try something radical, buying her child a new girl wardrobe.

So we went over to the girl's section Joey led, and I followed.

He started carrying it, wouldn't even put it in the cart, you know, wanted to hold it.

Her son began dressing as a girl at home, but now it wasn't a game.

Joey said, OK, you can't say he anymore, you have to start saying she.

And that may be where parents watching this go, what's going on over there?

You know, the kids ruling the roost, that's where it tips over into something that they don't understand.

That's understandable, because I would have too.

Even Vanessa's husband was having a hard time accepting the change in his child.

We went to this photo studio, and Josie's looking through all the dresses, and she looked at me and pretty much asked, Daddy, is this OK?

And at that point, all of this became a reality for me.

No longer did I have a son, and I had to put all my feelings aside to embrace my daughter.

What I remember is my dad giving me thumbs up, and I felt like I was going to cry.

After that, they say a profound change happened to their child.

No more tantrums, no more sleeplessness, no more medication needed.

And a few months later, they decided to take another leap.

Send their child to school on the military base in a dress.

She's no longer having these fits and no longer screaming and crying.

So I thought, the teacher's going to love this.

Did you think to yourself, you know what, she could have been herself at home and just gone to school as Joey?

Initially, when we first started, then I was like, yeah, that'll work.

But then when I let her out, I wasn't going to shove her back in.

I felt proud of myself that I turned into a girl.

It doesn't matter what they say, they can do whatever they want.

I'm just going to do what I think is right.

Because of the controversy, the military moved the Romeros back to the U.S., to Tucson, Arizona.

They decided to homeschool Josie, and she began seeing a psychologist who supported the decision to let her live as a girl.

The Romeros changed her name legally, Josie Claudine Romero.

When I got my girl name, I felt like everything was done, but apparently not.

Because by age nine, Josie was filled with anxiety again.

This time over something neither her nor her parents could control.

Josie Romero was born a boy, but has been living as a transgender girl since age six.

When we first met her in 2010, she was nine and a half.

You can go this way, or you go through here.

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Living a Transgender Childhood Documentary

anxiety

debate

controversial

therapy