At first it was hard for my other two children, Simon, 19, and Sarah, 18, to get used to. While they weren’t quite sure how to do it, they knew it was important for all of us to embrace John.

At first we only called him John at home, and then he came out at his indoor climbing group. The biggest moment was when he came out at school. As the first child at his school to go through this journey, he bravely decided he wanted to stand up and tell them himself, rather than let social media do the talking. In July 2014, with the support of the headmaster, John gave a speech to 40 other children, all in his own words. I was there as he explained how some people’s sex and gender don’t match up, that you can have a boy’s brain in a girl’s body. At the end he took off his girl’s uniform of a maroon blazer and swapped it for a boy’s blue one. Afterwards, outside, the two of us burst into tears. That evening, all together as a family, we opened a bottle of bubbly and I gave John gifts with his new name on them. It was almost like a birthday. When he went back to school after the summer holidays, it was as a boy.