A San Francisco, California, mother of a now 7-year-old boy is defending his transition to being a girl.

The child, now named "Gracie," began the transition process at age four.

The boy's mother, Molly, told public radio station KQED she and her husband tried to discourage their son at first. They "filled her world with trucks and dinosaurs and superheroes," she told the station.

"Like, 'No, you can't be Elsa for Halloween. You have to be Superman. No, you can't have the dolls for Christmas. We're going to get you a pirate ship.' We just really tried everything we could. That's the part I'm ashamed of now," Molly said during the interview, part of which was transcribed by ChristianHeadlines.com.

"As soon as Gracie could tell us, it was, 'I'm a girl. I'm a sister. I'm a daughter. I'm that girl on that show. I'm that girl in that book. I'm the princess.' She took every opportunity to tell us she was a girl. She took every towel and blanket and turned it into long hair," Molly recalled.

A therapist encouraged the couple to allow the boy to transition to a girl even though the parents questioned whether or not the child might change his mind as he grew older.

But a therapist told them: "What will happen, and what I'm hearing when you describe the insistence of Gracie, is you're going to end up with a child who's anxious and depressed and feels ashamed."

Research shows 73 to 98 percent of transgender children revert back to their biological gender.

"This is the primary reason the major clinicians who work with such children in the Americas and Europe do not recommend that parents facilitate their children's desire to transition to the other gender before puberty," Glenn T. Stanton, director of family formation studies at Focus on the Family, wrote in an article for the Federalist.com. "It would require a troubling and traumatic 'second transition' back to their natural gender when they do desist."