A mother and daughter from Brazil have undergone gender transition to become father and son.
Raphael, 38, and Gustavo Batista, 10, from Sao Paolo, Brazil, were born with female biological characteristics but now both identify as male.
Raphael, 38, stopped identifying as female last year and asked to be referred to as male. In September 2024, Raphael posted a clip on Instagram in which he discussed gender identity.
The clip was captioned, translated from Portuguese: “If I have dysphoria in my body? And the answer is yes.”
Asked if his child Gustavo influenced him, Raphael told G1: “It didn’t have any influence, but he [Gustavo] gave me strength and courage to face [the transition].”
The parent and child shared their inspiring story with their nearly 25,000 Instagram followers and many are supporting them in their journey.
The father and son have previously spoken out against people using their “dead names” – the names they went by when they identified as women.
“Even though it is our right to have the social name respected in practice, respect rarely happens in fact,” the caption reads as translated into English.
Gustavo, who is a student, also works as an actor and has played both transgender and cisgender characters in films.
Gustavo is treated at the Transdisciplinary Outpatient Clinic for Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation at the Institute of Psychiatry and the Pediatric Endocrinology Unit at the Children’s Institute of the Hospital das Clinicas in Sao Paulo.
In the UK, puberty blockers were banned indefinitely for children under-18 who think they are transgender in December because of safety concerns.
The Commission on Human Medicines (CHM) published expert advice that there is “currently an unacceptable safety risk in the continued prescription of puberty blockers to children”.
The commission recommended indefinite restrictions while work is done to ensure the safety of children and young people.
Source: Linda Ikeji Blog