Ella (She) - The freedom to be a transsexual child

Elian Angel Ruiz is 13 years old, lives in Madrid, and is a transsexual child. Since when he was two years old his parents noticed that their son feeling like a little girl and that his biological sex conflicts with his psycological gender. Since early childhood, Elian (alias Eli) loved female games and clothes and he secretly stole them to his cousins. At three his cousin gave him the first doll, called “guapa roja”, together with a pink princess dress, that Eli wore as soon as he walked in through the door.

At first the parents were quite confused by the son's attitudes and also blamed by some friends and by the psychologist they addressed to, the allegations were quite severe and mainly referred to a sort of ineptitide to educate their son. After some time and a lot of conversations with their son they realized that the most important thing was to give him the freedom to be what he wanted, despite the comments of people around them.

At 9 years old Fernando became Eli, the name was changed on all his/her documents and at 11 she started to take a testosterone-supressing: a medicine, with reversible effects, that inhibits the production of testosterone.

In Madrid there are now two association, “Chrysallis” and “Daniela”, established by parents of transsexual children, that carry on the daily fight for the rights of these minors in order to guarantee their freedom to grow up as serenely as possible.

Transgender youth are extremely vulnerable to a multitude of issues: suicide, substance abuse and psychiatric disorders; moreover they are at an increased risk for bullying, physical, verbal and sexual abuse. Several studies show that the suicide rate among transgender people is one of the highest of the world's population, and that transsexual youth risk suicide even more than their gay, lesbian, and bisexual counterparts.

All these problems are often due to the fact that many of these children experience rejection and continuous social and domestic repression, as a result of their differences.