LYN McDonald thought her world had come crashing down 17 years ago when her son said he was a woman.

The Warranwood mother of three said she didn’t know where to turn.

“I felt shattered, I felt disbelieving, I thought she was mad,” Mrs McDonald said.

“I said well you need to see a psychiatrist, and she said she had and she’d been diagnosed a transsexual.”

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But Mrs McDonald, who grew up in the ’50s and ’60s in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs, didn’t know what that meant.

“I wasn’t educated in university, I didn’t even know what a gay person was; in fact ‘gay’ just meant happy,” she said. This year she helped set up the Trans Family peer support group.

Three weeks after the revelation, her son, now daughter, harmed herself

It was then Mrs McDonald realised the real meaning of the Serenity prayer: to accept the things she couldn’t change, and the courage to change those she could. “I couldn’t change the fact that my daughter’s transgender ... but I could change my attitudes, my knowledge and my sharing,” she said.

Transgender Victoria’s Sally Goldner helped her set up TransFamily, supported by Opening Doors, a grassroots leadership program for people working towards a more socially inclusive society. Mrs McDonald said Toni had undergone a sex change operation in 1999 and now felt confident enough to wear women’s jeans and a T-shirt.

“Things are different now, people are more aware of transgender and there is more information and people are more accepting.”

In 2002, Mrs McDonald published He’s My Daughter – A Mother’s Journey To ­Acceptance, under her married name Lynda Langley.

For more information, contact Lyn at transfamily australia@gmail.com

If you need help, phone Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis line: 13 11 14.