IN a way, Briella Carmichael was born at age five.

The Cranbourne six-year-old was born with a male body but always knew she was a girl.

Mum Kirra Carmichael said before her daughter’s transition Briella had tried to pull off her penis and burst into tears at the thought of becoming a man and growing a beard like her dad Scotty.

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At one point Briella made herself ill by not drinking anything at school in an attempt to avoid using the male toilet.

While she is her daughter’s biggest cheerleader, Mrs Carmichael said at first she was terrified and, like many parents of transgender people, grieved the loss of her son.

She said she knew nothing about gender diversity until she met her oldest daughter.

“I was worried the outside world would reject her, I was scared about what would happen when I wasn’t there to protect her,” she said.

“She’s always known; she asked me at the McDonald’s drivethrough, ‘why wasn’t I born a girl?’

“She was like ‘when I look in the mirror I see a girl’.”

media_camera Briella Carmichael, 6, with mum Kirra outside her supportive school in Cranbourne South. Picture: Andrew Batsch

Briella transitioned last year and her school, Cranbourne South Primary School, has been so supportive Mrs Carmichael said it was like being surrounded by a caring family.

The school even had a ‘Briella Day’ where she received a new book bag and reader with her chosen name on them.

The family has called for more understanding about the Safe Schools program,which aims to teach students empathy and understanding for their gay, transgender and gender-diverse peers.

It came under fire from religious groups and conservatives last week after a Frankston mother threatened to pull her daughter out of school because of the lessons about transgender students.

Mrs Carmichael said parents who criticised the Safe Schools program were teaching their children to be intolerant.

“They are just creating bullies,” she said. “They need to let people be who they are. To hold a child back from being successful in life means you are not parenting right.”

The transition hasn’t been entirely smooth. Mrs Carmichael said Briella would run to her room to change into ‘boys clothes’ in the early days thinking relatives wouldn’t approve and reactions from family members had been tough on the family.

“My aunt doesn’t acknowledge it.”

“She told me if we were going over there to see my nan ‘can Baylin have a dress up day where (she) dresses as Baylin’ and I said, ‘absolutely not, I could never ask her to do that’.”

media_camera Briella was born with a male body, but lives as a girl. Picture:Andrew Batsch

Mrs Carmichael said before her transition, Briella was shy and withdrawn.

Now she was friendly, happy and sociable, and was being invited to birthday parties.

“The whole recess and lunch she would stand in the doorway; the boys thought’ you are strange you like girls’ things’ and the girls were like, ‘we don’t want to play with a boy’ ... she had not one friend for almost the whole of prep,” she said.

“Her teachers say she’s a whole new kid … I could not imagine her being a boy, I would not call her Baylin that would just feel weird.”

“She was the only girl invited to this boy’s party in her class and he said ‘you are my only girl friend’.”

Briella, who said she loved Cinderella, The Little Mermaid and Frozen, said she had been “really happy” since her transition and would feel “sad” if people told her she was a boy and had to use the boy’s toilet.

Mrs Carmichael said people who thought parents of transgender children “brainwashed” them needed to realise it was impossible to convince another person of their gender.

“If I said to my oldest son, Brock, ‘You are a girl now’, he would say ‘No, Mum, I’m a boy’.”

Cranbourne South Primary acting principal Elene Archbold said the school worked closely with Briella and her family to help make Briella’s transition as smooth as possible.

“We had expert assistance from trained professionals last year to help us support Briella,” she said.

DID YOU KNOW?

■ Transgender identity was first acknowledged in the west in the 1920s and 30s. Some of the first reassignment operations were performed by Dr Felix Abraham at Magnus Hirschfield’s Berlin clinic and included a mastectomy on a trans man in 1926, a penectomy in 1930, and a vaginoplasty on the Danish painter Lili Elbe in 1931

■ Many cultures have words for transgender including ‘Hijra’ in India, ‘Fa’afafine’ in Polynesia and ‘Takatāpui’ in New Zealand

■ In some Native American cultures third and fourth genders are recognised including feminine woman, masculine woman, feminine man, masculine man

■ Brotherboys are indigenous transgender people with a male spirit, whose bodies were considered female at birth and sistergirls are indigenous transgender women (assigned male at birth) who have a distinct cultural identity and often take on female roles within their communities

■ Transgender means your gender does not match the sex assigned to you at birth. Cisgender means your gender does match the sex assigned to you at birth