Mara: im falschen Körper geboren

A small happy family with a house and garden, living in rural Aargau with an old cat and parents-in-law nearby. Everything is exactly the same as it is for many families in Switzerland, everything is completely normal, only something is different: Over the years, Jan, who is now eight years old, has become Mara.

Some would say that little Mara was born in the wrong body. She is transgender, as the jargon goes. Mara does not identify with her innate gender. "It started very early on," says the mother. At the age of one and a half, the boy tied scarves to his head and played that they were his long hair. He plays princess with his best friend, wishes for his first Rapunzel doll for Christmas at the age of two and his brother wants a giant digger. When Jan goes home to his best friend, the first thing he does is open the wardrobe and put on her girl's clothes. At first his mother thinks: Maybe I just have a homosexual child. She tries to support the child, telling him things like: "Colors are for everyone, even glitter." At Jan's request, his mother buys him a long nightgown that he wears to sleep at home.

When, at the age of three, the child is allowed to go to the carnival dressed as Princess Elsa, she beams all over her face and runs her fingers over her long blonde plaited wig. This is the first time the child has worn a dress in public, outside the home. "At first I thought it was just a phase," says the mother today, "and honestly, a part of me hoped it would stop." Not because the mother was ashamed of her child - but out of fear. "I wanted to protect my child. I thought to myself: What should I do if he wants to go to kindergarten in a girl's dress? Will it be teased?" By chance, the mother comes across a similar story in a parents' forum on social media. And begins to investigate. She reads about a possible trans identity for the first time. "Something I hadn't known before." She registers with the Transgender Network Switzerland, networks, attends lectures, seeks advice from experts.

Dagmar Pauli, head physician at the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Zurich University Psychiatric Hospital and head of the gender identity consultation, says it is normal for parents not to know how to deal with the situation and to look for guidance. They then come to Ms. Pauli's consultation and would like to have a test done, something that will give them certainty about the direction in which everything will now develop. They often ask whether it's all just a phase. Over 100 people come to her consultation every year because they have a minor child at home who is not sure whether they want to be a different gender or whether it is a case of gender variance, i.e. a boy wants to wear girls' clothes, for example, but still sees himself as a boy. Nobody knows exactly how many transgender children and young people there are; there are no statistics, neither for Switzerland nor for Europe.

Why a person does not identify with their innate gender is not yet entirely clear. Although new studies suggest that something might be biologically different, that the brain functions differently, the evidence is limited. The decisive factor is the child's level of suffering. And how stable the wish is over time. "But in the end," says Pauli, "there is no such thing as absolute safety." You have to go with the child, be attentive and stay in contact. Help him to live out his preferences. There are children who have been searching for their way for a long time. And then there are those who know very clearly from a very early age that they were born in a body that wasn't right for them. Mara feels the same way.

When the supervisors in the playgroup shout phrases like: "The girls in this corner, the boys in that one," Mara jumps up and automatically runs over to the girls. And when mom says, "But you're a handsome prince," she corrects her and says, "No, I'm a princess." A psychologist advises the mother to think about changing her name. To open up a space in which the family and the child could move step by step into the new world. So the mother takes the family to visit her parents in Austria for two weeks. And lets the child live as a girl for two weeks. "It felt good for all of us - and especially for her," says the mother today.

But there were still a lot of fears and questions. First and foremost: What if I push my child into something too early? What if I'm wrong? And harm the child? Expert Pauli confirms: Many parents are still afraid that they are acting too early. Or too late. Dagmar Pauli's advice here is to take one step at a time. It is a change, a process, nothing is set in stone. And you should also give this to the child. You can be who you are, and if you change your mind at some point, that's okay too. However, the more the mother informed herself about the topic and took steps together with the child, the more confident she became herself. "My husband said at some point when I was once again plagued by great uncertainty and fear: 'What kind of fears do you have? Our child was never a boy.'" She laughs today when she talks about it. And adds: "He was right."

She hadn't lost her son, but she hadn't gained a daughter in the true sense of the word either, everything was basically the same as it had always been. Now, her mother says, she can't imagine Mara any other way. "For us, she's a girl, that's completely normal, we don't even question it in the family anymore," she says. The name in her passport was changed, the social transition, i.e. communicating that Mara is now called Mara and is a girl, was already completed at the age of five. The environment, the neighbors, the family and the school understood the decision and supported it. But the subject is still fraught with shame and it is not known how society will react to people like Mara. This is another reason why the family does not want to make her name public. All names in this article have been changed. "I don't want her to google her name later and the first thing that comes up is her gender," says the mother.

Of course, the journey is not over yet. Puberty comes at some point. New questions arise. New fears. Perhaps in the meantime, a lot will revolve around hormones or the question of gender reassignment. The mother is convinced that her daughter will go her way. "Maybe she won't need any surgery at all, maybe she'll just be the way she is and that's fine," and if she does, then that's fine too, everything is open. "My child is not a normal child, I got used to that and I learned to believe what my child says. Back him up and say: Whatever you feel, you feel right, and we're here for you." Now she's just an eight-year-old girl, a normal girl with long hair, and nobody cares if she was born in a boy's body. She is simply Mara.