continues:
BARBARA WALTERS: And you really feel that way, don't you? Ten years
ago, Stephanie and Neil Grant gave birth to fraternal twins a
girl, Ali, and a boy, Richard.
STEPHANIE GRANT: The perfect family. You have a boy and girl, you
don't need any more.
BARBARA WALTERS: From the beginning, the twins were
different.
STEPHANIE GRANT: Ali was extremely always looking into life.
Richard was clingy and quiet and more passive and he wanted to wear
a dress. He wanted to be pretty, like his sister.
BARBARA WALTERS: At two?
STEPHANIE GRANT: At two, two-and-a-half. "I want a dress. I'm a
girl, Mummy, I'm a girl". I would say, "No, you're a boy, you have
a penis. Ali is a girl".
BARBARA WALTERS: Then an incident in the bathtub convinced the
Grants just how seriously confused their son was about his gender
identity.
STEPHANIE GRANT: So I left the room and when I came back, Richard
was standing there very innocently with a nail-clipper and he was
holding it to himself and it was closed. It's a cringing thought
and that's exactly what I did. "Buddy, What are you doing? What are
you doing?" He just looked at me with these eyes and he said,
"Mummy, it doesn't go there".
BARBARA WALTERS: He was going to cut it off? Cut his penis
off?
STEPHANIE GRANT: Yeah, that's at two-and-a-half. In my mind, I knew
right there something is going on.
BARBARA WALTERS: So here you are with this little boy rejecting
everything male. At what point did you allow him to dress as a
girl?
STEPHANIE GRANT: At about three years old.
BARBARA WALTERS: They called it "girl time". Richard could dress up
in his sister's clothes but only when his father Neil was out of
sight. The secret between mother and son went on for months.
Richard's double life put a strain on their marriage. They almost
separated, but Stephanie was undeterred. Richard, now four, was
going to school as a boy but wanted to be a girl full-time. At
night, you heard Richard's prayers. What was he saying?
STEPHANIE GRANT: He said, "Mum, I'm so mad at God." I said, "Why?"
He said, "Every night I pray that God gives me a girl body but when
I wake up I'm still a boy". He said, "God won't take back his
mistake, He won't make it right".
BARBARA WALTERS: Neil, what happened when you heard this? I don't
want to put you through something that is this difficult.
NEIL GRANT: I need a few minutes, I'm sorry.
BARBARA WALTERS: At home and at school, Richard was having panic
attacks.
STEPHANIE GRANT: We had and incident during homework where he had
such a panic attack he turned blue. And the next morning I went to
the principle and I sat in the office and I cried. I explained
everything and she looked at me and she said, "Why can't he come to
school dressed like a girl? How can I do that?" He is a boy. I
can't send him to school dressed like a girl. She said, "Why
not?"
BARBARA WALTERS: In 2003, at age seven, Richard Grants parents
allowed him to transition from a boy to a girl. He, now a she,
pierced her ears, grew her hair out, wore girls' clothing, and took
the name Riley. Her father Neil, who once rejected her took her
shopping for dresses.
NEIL GRANT: I saw the look on her face.
BARBARA WALTERS: You understood?
NEIL GRANT: Yes.
BARBARA WALTERS: But when she showed up at school in the third
grade wearing a dress, her life became increasingly difficult. She
had to use the nurse's bathroom and the bullies had a field
day.
STEPHANIE GRANT: It became a nightmare; it was horrible. She was
known as "the girl with the dick".
BARBARA WALTERS: The girl with the dick?
STEPHANIE GRANT: Yes.
BARBARA WALTERS: And she's still bullied? That's the way things are
to this day?
STEPHANIE GRANT: To this day.
BARBARA WALTERS: When Riley and I first sat down, she was cautious,
but talkative, but when the conversation turned to her gender, a
very different child emerged. Riley, when you're very young, what
did you what people to know that they didn't know.
RILEY GRANT: That I was a girl.
BARBARA WALTERS: How did the other kids treat you?
RILEY GRANT: The same, except some people called me a boy, but I
just tell them to shut up.
