A 10-year-old child is making headlines as the world’s youngest trans model to walk the runway at New York Fashion Week after representing the Trans* Clothing Company brand.
Noella McMaher was a model at New York Fashion Week in February, but the child’s story has begun to receive additional media attention after it was announced that the 10-year-old had been signed on for modeling gigs until November.
According to Noella’s parents, the child began expressing gender dysphoria around age 2.
Referring to the boy using feminine pronouns, Noella’s mother stated: “She would refuse to wear boy clothes and have tantrums because she was so young. She knew what she wanted, but didn’t have the words to say it … I should have known earlier, as she hated anything masculine, so I brought her to a gender clinic.”
At age 4, Noella was “socially transitioned,” referring to a process in which a child is “affirmed” in their chosen gender identity by presenting as that gender while in public. It was around this time Noella’s mother said she brought the child to therapy at the gender development clinic at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. During the appointments, Noella told a gender counsellor he was a “girl.” By Age 6, Noella’s legal documentation had already been changed.
But information on the child’s family is often left out of the glowing profiles.
Dee McMaher, Noella’s biological mother, is a social justice advocate who identifies as non-binary, appears to be on hormone replacement therapy, and recently had a cosmetic mastectomy. Both she and her current partner are females who identify as trans masculine.
According to the Point Foundation website, McMaher, neé Kalick, has been an “advocate and educator” for transgender children for 10 years — roughly since around the time Noella was born.
In 2019, McMaher and Noella were featured in People’s World during a legal episode in which McMaher was fighting for full custody of her child from her biological father, Timothy McCord.
According to McMaher, McCord had been opposed to 4-year-old Noel’s transgender identity. McCord and McMaher had been separated at the time, but the father had visitation rights and the two parents shared child-care duties during the week while she was at work. At the time, McMaher was employed at the Rainbow Family Support Center as a transgender advocate, and McCord’s visitation often included making dinner and putting Noella to bed.
In July of 2016, McCord caused a fracture in Noella’s arm, something McMaher stated happened while he was forcing Noella into “boy pajamas.” McCord is reported to have then given Noella medication and sent the child to sleep. The next morning, after Noella expressed pain, McMaher reported McCord to child protective services and he was arrested on charges of aggravated child abuse.
McMaher also fought to have McCord charged with a hate crime, but the court determined there was not enough evidence to do so. In 2018, McCord pleaded to a lesser charge and was handed probation rather than jail time. He is currently employed as an analytical chemist in Chicago, having previously worked as a medical examiner and toxicologist for Cook County, Illinois.
In 2019, McMaher married Ray, a biological female who also identifies as transgender and works in “LGBTQ health justice.”
That year, Noella and McMaher were profiled in Chicago Parent, wherein it was stated McMaher has planned for Noella to have “gender surgeries” at age 16, but would start the child on puberty blockers and hormone therapy before then.
McMaher and her partner appear to have another young infant they are raising as non-binary, referring to the child as a “theybie” who is often photographed in a jumper which reads “genderless is more.”
Speaking to Reduxx on the case, Sinead Watson expressed incredulity at the disturbing details.
“I cannot believe this child was affirmed at such a young age. I cannot believe this child – this baby – was deemed wrong as young as 2.” Watson says, “And legal changes as 6? This whole case is abhorrent.”
Watson is a vocal member of an active and growing online community of detransitioners – people who began, but ended and sought to reverse a gender transition. Watson had taken testosterone for 3 years after deciding she identified as male, but later realized her feelings came from a struggle with misogyny and trauma. Watson has been open about her experience being immediately “affirmed” by clinicians, with all of them failing to investigate her history of mental wellness concerns.
“That this child’s parents both happen to be ‘trans’ or ‘queer’ is no surprise to me. They are forcing their own ideological ideas onto their innocent baby.” Watson says the phenomenon is not new to her, and that she’d seen stories of parents transitioning gender non-conforming children as early as 2015.
“As with the social contagion among vulnerable children, we’re seeing more and more parents with Münchausen syndrome by proxy. It’s not the kids who are trans – it’s the parents who want them to be trans.”
On the family’s plans to have Noella undergo “gender surgeries” at 16, Watson calls it “child abuse” in no uncertain terms.
“So many children will be harmed by this in the future. So many. I can say nothing else other than I am absoulutly disgusted by what these people are doing to this poor child. Unforgivable.”
Childhood transition has become a growing concern in recent years as many have witnessed an explosion in both gender clinic locations and the prevalence of “trans kids.” According to Gender Mapper, North America has seen the amount of pediatric gender identity clinics grow from a mere handful to “over 200” in just 10 years.
On February 25, the National Academy of Medicine in France issued a release to its professional members noting that it had become aware of a “sharp increase in demand” in youth and adolescents seeking gender identity services.
The Academy called it an “epidemic like phenomenon” and cautioned clinicians to take caution when dealing with youth presenting with gender identity concerns.
But French medical professionals were not alone in their concern. Globally, multiple countries and health authorities have taken steps to try and stop or restrict childhood transition, citing negative longterm consequences for the child.
In April, the Florida Department of Health has issued a press release discouraging all forms of medical and social treatment for ‘gender dysphoria’ in children and adolescents. The Department pointed to a report out of Sweden in which a trans-identified female child who was prescribed puberty blockers at 11 went on to develop severe medical side-effects. The girl developed severe osteoarthritis in her spine after 5 years on the medication. Her height was also stunted, and X-Rays demonstrated a number of abnormalities in her skeleton.
Even “social transitioning” has come under scrutiny, with some detransitioners noting that it is not without its negative long-term consequences.
According to Dr. Leor Sapir, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, “social affirmation” often puts children on the pathway to full medical transition.
In a thread published today, Dr. Sapir noted: “Schools are not being ‘supportive’ or ‘inclusive’ when they adopt ‘affirming’ policies. Instead, they are potentially changing the course of psychosocial development and putting kids on track to becoming sterile, sexually dysfunctional, and lifelong wards of the medical industry.”
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