MOUNT OLIVE — Brenda Kohn remembers the day the dreams she had for her child, Nathan, changed shape. The day she had to get to know, understand and love her child in a way she never thought imaginable.

Last August, Nathan, 17, returned home from the Centenary Summer Scholars camp in Hackettstown, brimming with excitement. Nathan had spoken to his parents already about transitioning to female. They thought it was a phase. But the child standing in front of Brenda and Steven Kohn wasn't Nathan any longer.

"Our first reaction was to be dismissive of the whole idea," Brenda Kohn said. "But she came back from the camp last summer and said, 'Guess what?, everybody is calling me Adina and being real cool about it. My husband and I were like, 'Huh?'"

Adina was one of three transgender Mount Olive students who recently sat down with NJ Advance Media to share their journeys -- all coming to grips with their gender identity at a time when more and more public attention is focusing on trans life.

"You have hopes and dreams for your child and when you realize that their path is going to be more complicated, there's a process of changing your expectations. There's a grieving process to that."

Working to adapt

But the Kohns have worked hard to be supportive -- and that's made a difficult journey much more bearable for Adina, a junior at Mount Olive High School. Adina's mother takes her to support group meetings for transgender teens and therapy sessions with a social worker. She buys her daughter clothes, including breast forms and bras.

The Kohns have spoken to their medical insurance company about getting Adina started on hormone treatments to transition physically to female, but she has to be 18. Her birthday is Nov. 29.

Brenda and Steven Kohn are also trying to start a support group for parents of transgender students called "Transitions." The group can be reached by email at transitionsinmountolive@groups.facebook.com.

"If you love your child, you have to adapt," Brenda Kohn said. "Look at the statistics on how many transgender teens kill themselves. It's like 40 percent. If a child isn't supported by their family, the risk of suicide goes up."

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Adina said she realizes how valuable the support from her parents has been in her journey to find herself.

"It's a very joyous thing to be met with the level of acceptance I've had from my parents," she said. "To be able to come to them and say this is what's happening, something is wrong, I want to try to fix it. It's definitely a welcoming feeling."

A changing world

Transgender individuals are those whose gender identity doesn't match their anatomy at birth -- a transgender person can also be someone who's had a sex change.

Adina began coming to grips with her identity in a world just beginning to embrace -- or at least address -- transgender issues in the mainstream. In the last 24 hours, social and traditional media alike have focused heavily on the first public appearance of the former Olympian once known as Bruce Jenner as Caitlyn -- the female identity she's taken on.

But Jenner, whose stardom was at its height in the 1970s, is barely on Adina's radar.

Brenda Kohn said her daughter had never heard of Jenner "but she's aware that a famous successful former athlete has come out as being transgender and it has raised awareness of the transgender community."

Difficulty at school

Adina had her world shaken by a Facebook bullying incident that ultimately led to her transferring from Shepard Preparatory High School in Morristown to Mount Olive High School near the start of the school year.

The Facebook posting, last summer, featured pictures depicting how Kohn transforms from a male to a female every morning. The posting, by students at Shepard, deeply disturbed Adina and led to the school discovering she was transgender, she said.

Late that summer, Adina and her parents meet with school officials and she was told she couldn't present as a female and if she did, she would be suspended, her mother said. Adina agreed to try to present as a male but after two weeks, she told officials she would start presenting as a female, her mother said. The school suspended her, her mother said.

Several weeks into the suspension, Shepard offered to place Adina at Mount Olive High School, which is her district school, her mother said. The day before Adina was to start attending Mount Olive High School, Shepard changed course and said Adina could return and present as a female, her mother said.

But Adina and her parents declined the offer, her mother said. The environment, they felt, had become too hostile, she said.

"I welcomed the student back (at the start of the school year) and the student returned," said Frank Cocuzza, director of Shepard. "Then, the student expressed a desire to return to their school district."

Cocuzza declined to address the specific allegations by Adina and her parents. In an earlier interview, he told NJ Advance Media: "We don't have a problem accommodating transgender students. We don't discriminate against anybody."

Buoyed by the unwavering support of her parents, Adina has found a home at Mount Olive High School, which has a strong Gay Straight Alliance Club. But many challenges remain, said her father.

"I have a concern, which is that there are now obstacles that didn't exist before," Steven Kohn said. "Those obstacles are social and cultural in nature with respect to Adina fulfilling her dreams in the future, getting a job, having a career.

"People are people. They're going to believe what they want to believe and do what they want to do. Companies are companies. As much as the laws are what they are, people are still human."

Dave Hutchinson may be reached at dhutchinson@njadvancemedia.com.Follow him on Twitter @DHutch_SL. Find NJ.com on Facebook.