Man raised as a girl calls for ban on gender surgery until children can make up their own minds
ITV News Anglia reporter Claire McGlasson
The name Joella Holliday came up again and again in a search of ITV Anglia’s archives. We had followed the story of the little girl who fought to change her birth certificate from male to female in the 1990s.
She must be in her 20s now. I wondered whether she would give me an interview as part of my series on transgender issues. I decided to call. A man explained that Joella was now Joel but prefers to be known as Joe. Over the next few months I came to understand his story.
When Joe was born nurses couldn’t tell his mother whether she’s had a boy or a girl. He had a condition called cloacal exstrophy. He had not developed properly in the womb, he had a large hole in his abdomen and his genitals had not fully formed.
Not expecting him to survive very long after he was born, his parents were advised to have him christened in hospital. He was given the name Joel and registered as male.
But a year later a specialist advised them that it would be better if he was brought up as female.
Dressed as a girl and given the name Joella, she looked like a little girl but in law she was still male.
Fearing that her daughter would not be able to marry when she grew-up, Joella’s mother began a fight to get her birth certificate changed. High profile supporters like Diana, Princess of Wales, led their voices to her cause.
Joella appeared on television programmes like Anglia News to insist that the world should know she was a girl. But privately she was having doubts.
After suffering with depression into her 20s, Joella went for a routine hospital appointment. It was there that she saw the results of a chromosome test in the doctor’s notes. The letter said she was XY: Male.
Joe realised that he had been male all along. Discovering that his testicles had been removed by surgeons when he was little.
Joe has written a book, She’s a Boy, about his life and is now campaigning for an end to cosmetic surgery on children who are born with indeterminate gender.
An estimated one in 1000 babies born in the UK each year don't have typical characteristics of male or female.
Despite a report from the UN which condemned surgical intervention to "normalise" those children as a form of torture. The practice has not been banned in this country.
Joe is calling for a law to be passed to ban this type of surgery until children can grow up to make up their own minds.
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