A SCHOOL principal and her family are moving to Brisbane because her transgender child, 21, cannot get sympathetic help from allied health professionals in their regional area.

The mother said that 18 months ago their child, who was born a boy, revealed she had felt she was a girl since the age of 14.

The mother said it was "a great relief" to her and her husband when she told them why she had been so unhappy and their two other children had accepted her choice to transition to a girl.

"I threw my arms around her and said 'I love you, regardless' and my husband did the same," the mother said.

While their "pretty" child still presents as a male in the local community, she is taking feminising hormones and will openly start her new life as a young woman next year in Brisbane.

"It will be a chance for her to live the life she has dreamed of," the mother said.

"All we can do is walk beside her."

The school principal said there were not enough allied health professionals in regional areas with the knowledge, understanding and sensitivity to offer support to transgender young people.

"I don't know how anyone could cope with transitioning in the regions without both parents behind them, with the time and money to make it happen," the mother said.

The school principal and her husband are now looking for work in Brisbane.

Brisbane-based Australian Transgender Support Association of Queensland has helped the family find sympathetic doctors and skin and speech therapists in Brisbane.

In last week's Sunday Mail a mother told how her brave child, "Jane", 9, who was born a boy but was going to school as a girl, was barred from using the girls' toilets.

With the help of the association, the mother intends to lodge the Anti-Discrimination Commission's first gender identity complaint involving a child.

The mother of another transgender child, 6, who was born a boy but has lived as a girl for a year, withdrew her child from a Queensland Catholic school which felt it could not deal with the issue.

The mother said at the age of four her child told her: "I feel like I'm a girl inside a boy's body."

"He lay sobbing face down on his bedroom floor, devastated that I wouldn't allow him to visit the playground in a sparkly ballet tutu," the mother said.

When his feelings did not change, the family consulted child health professionals and a play therapist has helped the child transition to a girl.

The mother, who admires the courage of "Jane" and her family, said she was not prepared to fight the Catholic school over gender recognition, and now home-schools her.

"We have a happy, thriving, well-adjusted child because we recognised her need to be embraced as our daughter and not our son," the mother said.

Shelley Argent of PFLAG Brisbane is helping the mother set up the first Australian support group for parents of transgender children.

"We are trying to establish a network of parents who support a healthy attitude towards gender identity, especially for parents with very young children," the mother said.

For support contact atsaq.inc@gmail.com or pflagbris@bigpond.com