My seven-year-old child, although born male-bodied, has expressed herself as a girl since she could walk and talk. That expression translated into an articulation at age four that she was a girl "stuck inside the wrong body". Reinforcing boyhood for our child began to lead to distress, upset and anxiety. What did we do? We kept reinforcing boyhood. What happened then? We found ourselves with a five-year-old who talked about wanting to die rather than be a boy. A five-year-old with a fascination for butterflies and caterpillars and mermaids who began talking about suicide …

Our child lives as a girl now and her school describes her as "calm, mature, bright-eyed and intelligent". How did we get to that point? We listened to the child. We educated ourselves on the facts at hand and we facilitated the child's outward expression of her own assertion about her identity. This has led to a happy child, well adjusted and thriving, engaged with an education and well liked by peers.

The issue at stake for children such as ours appears to be firmly rooted in a gender identity not congruent with their natal sex: a condition called gender dysphoria.

And yet, many people insist that any divergence away from a gender identity that does not match biological sex according to a strict binary of male and female is pathological or a deviation. This is a disturbing and dangerous prejudice that is unfortunately perpetuated by some of our national press.

"NHS to give sex change drugs to nine-year-olds: Clinic accused of 'playing God' with treatment that stops puberty" declared the ugly front page headline. When the Mail on Sunday sought to make a mockery of the NHS, "sex swap drugs for nine-year-olds" was what they decided to run with. Vulnerable families attempting desperately to support children with gender dysphoria were targeted. Why? Because the world doesn't seem to accept that our gender and our core sense of self is rooted in our minds and not between our legs.

And so because it is in the mind, our children are declared as hysterical and delusional and suffering from psychiatric disturbance. The Psychiatric Diagnostic Statistical Manual has recently been updated to list what was known as gender identity disorder as gender dysphoria. This is because the symptoms that accompany the distress of gender incongruence between mind and body are what leads to pathology and not the state of identification in and of itself. Modern psychiatry can accept that.

In response to accusations that our children can be "counselled out of this", the fallout from reparative therapies is evident. Modern psychotherapy and counselling is not the same as North Korean-style brainwashing. Counselling is about nurturing a person within an empathic relationship of positive regard towards a better sense of self and place in the world. This is often exactly what parents are struggling to achieve.

Puberty suppressants are not "sex swap drugs". In theory they are only prescribed after lengthy assessments between teams of health professionals in consultation when strict criteria are met. They are usually only prescribed and monitored closely by consultant paediatric endocrinologists in tandem with psychotherapeutic support. The reality is that far more children who need puberty suppressants are not being prescribed them than are.

Many who would benefit from this treatment actually do not receive it. It is true that some health professionals have had their careers threatened if they respond to the needs of transgender children and families, often by superiors who are entirely unsympathetic and openly prejudiced. Families and children are still at the mercy of this culture, in direct contrast to the scenario suggested by the Mail on Sunday. Families commonly find themselves with nowhere to turn in the UK after the very services and support they turn to either rejects them or turns on them. Paediatric endocrinologists with the courage to prescribe puberty suppressants to transgender children in the UK are few and far between despite the fact that the research from controlled clinical trials exists.

Puberty suppressants are not a permanent measure: they are reversible and give pubescent children with acute gender dysphoria time to think and work out their place in the world without the pressure of secondary sex characteristics developing that define and brand a child as belonging to the very biological sex they so vehemently reject.

This is not an experimental science. Precedents exist. Research exists. Children have been monitored and outcomes compiled. If the child grows older and becomes more comfortable with their natal sex, so be it. When the puberty suppressants are withdrawn, a normal healthy puberty resumes and progresses. There is no lasting damage, unlike secondary pathologies such as self-harming, eating disorders, depression, substance abuse and the consequences of dropping out of education, bullying and peer rejection.

This is a horrific reality for many children: and some courageous, loving parents who support brave, intelligent children are at times rejected by health professionals and, after that indignity, are demonised and mocked in the press.

This isn't about sexuality or not allowing our children to grow up gay. Some people think that. Others blame distant parenting and then over-protective parenting. Some people think we subconsciously condition our children to be the children we never had or always longed for. (This while we are battling to get them to brush their teeth, eat their five a day, tidy their bedrooms and finish their homework).

In contrast, some gay parents are accused of causing this also because they are gay. Many are threatened with investigation from child protection services when there is no case to answer. How insulting and degrading to our abilities as parents and our relationships with our children. Our children are regularly accused of coming from "dysfunctional families" which always shocks people who actually know us.

The truth is that trans children come from all walks of life. Some parents can and do open themselves up to the possibility that an outward expression of the gender the child identifies with "persistently, consistently and insistently" as opposed to the body they inhabit, is what is going to take their child to a healthy sense of self. This is often difficult and traumatic for parents as they come to terms with what they need to do to nurture well balanced, contributing members of society. Parents will often grieve painfully and at length for the child they thought they had even as they work to support and accept.

But without that acceptance, more NHS resources are avoidably burdened as our children develop secondary pathologies, appearing repeatedly in accident and emergency wards after suicide attempts and chronic self-harming incidents.

Chronic eating disorders and substance abuse can take root when children and adolescents are not given affirmation and recognition as well as that chance to belong in an environment where they have a safe education and thrive towards a life of community and contribution.

Depression and anxiety fester when children are not supported. The statistics are horrifying and alarming.

Some children escape all this, nurtured by parents who respond lovingly and intuitively, who reject the bigotry and foster their children to step out into the world bravely and proudly, the way Ruby Bridges's mother did in Alabama all those years ago as represented in Norman Rockwell's civil rights painting, The Problem We All Live With.

Parents of transgender children work tirelessly with schools to keep their children engaged with education so they can grow up to contribute. We work. We pay taxes. We want them to as well. People forget that. We decry the very same waste and exploitation of public money and resources that anyone else does.

The NHS was created with the ideal that healthcare should be available to all, and that it should meet the needs of everyone. The editors at the Mail on Sunday sought to make an attack on the translation of that aim into a modern reality, leaving vulnerable transgender children and their families as collateral damage.

Why don't we just ignore it? Would you if it was your child? This world belongs to my child as much as yours. Do you suggest we turn a blind eye and leave our children to the mercy of bigotry and prejudice? Would you?

Mermaids is a support group for gender variant children and teenagers, and their families.