Actress Charlize Theron has opened up about her eldest daughter Jackson's gender, saying she earlier this year to prevent further misgendering in the media.
Speaking to , Theron revealed that 7-year-old Jackson, who she adopted from Africa in 2012, had first asserted her gender identity at the age of three - and that it's been a learning process for the whole family.
"I think it became harder for us the older she got, that people were still writing about her in the wrong pronouns," she said.
She added: "Also I was still talking about her in the press using the wrong pronoun. It really hurt her feelings. I don’t want to be that mum, and that was really why I said what I said a while back."
Theron was referring to an Daily Mail, in which she addressed speculation around Jackson wearing skirts and dresses.
"Yes, I thought she was a boy, too," she said in the interview.
"Until she looked at me when she was three years old and said: 'I am not a boy!'"
Later in the interview, she said: "I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect and I want to see thrive. They were born who they are and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide."
But despite addressing Jackson's gender, the mother isn't about to overstep her daughter's boundaries and share her story publicly.
"This is all pretty new for us... My daughter’s story is really her story, and one day, if she chooses, she’ll tell her story," she told Pride Source.
"I feel like as her mother, for me, it was important to let the world know that I would appreciate it if they would use the right pronouns for her."
