A mother was warned that her daughter could be placed under the care of social workers after she complained that the 14-year-old was being ‘encouraged’ to change sex by a therapist and her teachers.

The 45-year-old, whom we’ve called Lisa to protect her identity, raised the objections after discovering that, during their first hour-long appointment, an NHS psychotherapist had told the girl she could take hormones to stop her periods and give her male characteristics.

She also found out that teachers had given her daughter – who wanted to identify as male – a boy’s name and referred to her using male pronouns at school without her parents’ knowledge.

Lisa, who says her daughter is a lesbian and only claimed to be transgender after being bullied for being gay, also demanded teachers stop treating her as a boy and revert to using her girl’s name

The school in the Midlands – the name of which the MoS has agreed to withhold because the girl still attends classes there – called in social services after Lisa banned her daughter from visiting the NHS clinic where she was receiving counselling and tried to find another therapist.

Lisa, who says her daughter is a lesbian and only claimed to be transgender after being bullied for being gay, also demanded teachers stop treating her as a boy and revert to using her girl’s name.

At a meeting at the school in January Lisa was told her attempt to find an alternative therapist was akin to ‘conversion therapy’ – a psychological practice of trying to change a person’s sexual orientation.

Days later Lisa received a ‘terrifying’ email from Child and Adult Services stating that her daughter was deemed to be at risk. Further warnings said the teenager could be placed in a ‘child protection plan’.

‘I was reduced to tears because we were being treated like criminals when we were trying to protect our daughter,’ Lisa said.

‘My daughter felt rejected as a lesbian, so she turned to the internet for answers and was sucked in by these social media sites selling her a lie that there are young people born in the wrong body.’

In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, Lisa told how her daughter came out as transgender at 13 after being bullied for being lesbian.

‘She wrote me and my husband a letter saying that she was born in the wrong body and she was really a boy,’ she recalls. ‘I remember thinking, “These are not her words – these are words she’s picked off the internet.” ’

The teenager soon began begging her mother to see a therapist for gender dysphoria after being encouraged to do so by a friend.

Lisa refused, but eventually relented and, in the summer of last year, her daughter was referred to the NHS Child and Adult Mental Health Services (CAMHS).

However, Lisa said she was ‘horrified’ when a counsellor brought up the possibility of taking hormones that could help her change sex.

‘That woman comforted my daughter and said, “Don’t worry, it is only a year and a half until you can take hormones.” I phoned the counsellor up immediately and said, “I did not expect there to be a mention of hormones – let alone on the first visit.” ’ Lisa says it was then a ‘constant battle’ with CAMHS and her daughter’s school to stop them from ‘affirming’ her daughter’s desire to be a boy, culminating in the intervention from social services.

However, after emails between Lisa and a social worker, during which the mother-of-one explained her concerns about the NHS therapy her daughter had received, the local authority closed the case. The school has also reverted to using the teenager’s real name.

‘I’m furious at the way we’ve been treated,’ Lisa said. ‘No family should be put through this hell.’

Last week, The Mail on Sunday revealed that an astonishing 17 pupils at a single British school are in the process of changing gender.