July 25, 2018

“We tell people that we still live together and they give you that look like 'what? You live with your ex-partner?'"

Summer Day doesn’t understand the people who pity her family. Since the 37-year-old came out as transgender four years ago, she’s been inundated with comments from other parents, expressing sorrow for her two young children.

“It’s like, please don’t feel sorry for our kids.” Summer told Kidspot.

“I feel sorry for kids who have an alcoholic parent or an abusive dad. We don’t have anything like that. All there in our household is endless love.”

Summer began her transition four years ago, with her family's blessing. Image: Supplied

"She's definitely my soul mate"

Summer lives in Varsity Lakes in Queensland with her ex-wife and their two kids. Although the couple of 12 years struggled after Summer revealed her true gender identity, a month before wife Atsuko gave birth to their second child, they decided to keep living together.

“She's my best friend. She's definitely my soul mate,” Summer said.

“We tell people that we still live together and they give you that look like 'What? You live with your ex-partner?' It's definitely not the typical divorce where you both hate each other or someone hates someone and you can't wait to get away from each other.”

The couple chose to continue living together with their two young daughters. Image: Supplied

Mum and mumsy

The arrangement also means that the couple’s two kids get to have both their parents around on a daily basis. Summer said while four-year-old Zara doesn’t remember a life without two mums, the couple did have to explain the situation to their older daughter Millia, now six. “I explained to her as easy as I could to a two and a half-year-old,” Summer recalled.

“At that stage, I didn’t want to be called mum, I didn’t want to take that from Atsuko. But as I moved forward in my transition, I wanted a parent term as well so hence mum and mumsy.”

Summer always knew that she didn’t feel right in her body, but it wasn’t until age 22, while working as a tradie, that she sought out information online about transgender people.

“There was quite a long period of confusion, my mind drawing to one thing and my outside body and being socialised as a man, being pigeonholed into this little area. It's pretty confusing,” she said.

Summer chose to do the magazine cover to give hope to others struggling with transitioning. Image: Supplied

"I needed to do something about it"

For a long time, the mum tried to fit into the persona of the perfect husband and man but the charade caused deep depression and at least two suicide attempts. It was at this point that Summer decided she needed to come clean.

“It's something at the time when that's happening, you're that depressed you don't really think clearly,” she said

“I didn't want to leave that stain on my children's-slash-family's life so instead of bottling up and suppressing and holding it all in, I needed to do something about it.”

She came out to her wife, who had no prior knowledge of the transgender community, and began her physical transition, which was completed last May with reassignment surgery in Thailand. Although Summer believes her transition is far from over, she was thrilled to make history becoming one of the first transgender women to grace the cover of an Australian magazine.

Summer said that the decision to appear on the front cover of the Gold Coast publication Get It was easy. “I did it in the hope that at least one person would see that there is life after you transition and it's not all bad,” she said.