“I was always hanging around girls, doing girl stuff,” she told BuzzFeed News. “My mum got to this point where she thought: ‘Is she gay, or is she transgender?’ And one day I told her, ‘Mummy, I want to be a girl’. Simple as that.”



On Saturday Erika and her mum Anna marched in the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras parade for the first time. Erika spoke to BuzzFeed News before the parade, sitting just outside a frenetic room where other marchers were getting ready to shine, armed with make-up, glitter and transgender flags.

It was a night to celebrate being trans, and being loved. But Erika’s identity is not so accepted elsewhere. For example, the first weeks of Year 6 have been difficult.

“I have a few close friends, but some of [the other kids] aren’t very nice,” Erika said.

“Sometimes they like to call me names, they make jokes about me. They kind of, like, pick out that I’m different and make fun of that. And I really don’t like that. But it’s not just being mean. It’s also in class. Since I’m trans, it kind of makes everyone else uncomfortable. In group work I’m always alone, and no-one ever wants to choose me. In dodgeball, I have to be alone or on my own team.”

She paused.

“I feel like nobody really likes me.”

“Five minutes ‘til we leave!” someone hollered in the background. A stampede of fellow marchers rushed towards the bathroom, transgender flag capes trailing behind them.

“People treat me like I’m special,” Erika said. “I don’t want to be treated special, I want to be treated like any other girl.”

Anna, busy rifling through a handbag, looked up.

“Because she’s so young, there is nothing out there for when you’re under 12,” she said.

“I’ve been contacting headspace, Twenty10, the Gender Centre. We’ve been there to talk about school. But [there is] not really anything out there for us, at the moment.”

Asked what she would be doing as she walked up Oxford Street, Erika said she would be looking out for her teacher, who told her he would be at the parade.

“I’m definitely going to wave to my teacher,” she said. “He’s really nice.”