LUANA NEVER WANTED TO BE MANUEL

Luana´s story, has become the only public event of a child so young.

Luana, is 8 years old, she was born male and twin of Elijah. He became the youngest person who has changed his name, he loves his long hair, wears gold rings and an amulet with a princess around his neck. The boy says he likes wearing dresses.

This little at his young age, has had to fight hard for being woman. He was born male and everyone repeated it constantly, he is currently the youngest person who has taken a progressive Argentine law that allowing people say with which gender is identified for legal purposes, becoming then in an international symbol of progress for transgender community sparking a debate in this country considered Catholic, the birthplace of Pope Francisco, regarding the best way to raise a child who is identified with another gender.

The transgender child lives in a modest two-bedroom house in Merlo, west of Buenos Aires, where constantly says that “she” was always “girl” with a lovely smile similar to his twin brother who is constantly playing with their remote control cars and says that although Luana was forced to play with his toys, would not change anything, it would remain a girl.

Also the mother of Luana says that there always were clear differences between the twin sons, Manuel, (the name given to Luana at birth), he got t-shirts in his head, pretending has a long hair, he loved dolls and his favorite characters in the movies were princesses and mermaids. He was flatly refused to wear pants and his first sentence was “me girl”.

A team of psychologists implemented him a program to strengthen his masculine side, the child could only play with boys’ toys like action figures and wears menswear, it was forbidden to use the pink and cartoons featuring by female characters.

The mother went to court asking for a gender change to Luana in December 2012, officials refused to do because of the age of the child, however, the governor of Buenos Aires intervened and accepted the request.

Experts consider that the best thing for the child is try to accept the sex which it was born, in part, to avoid sex changes that are traumatic. It may take many years for Luana and other transgender people for not suffering reject, but also can be part of the community without discrimination.