Charlize Theron wants people to use the right pronouns for her transgender daughter Jackson: 'It really hurts her feelings'
Charlize Theron, in a recent interview, stated that it was important to her that the media uses correct pronouns when referring to her seven-year-old daughter Jackson, who is transgender.
The South African actress made the statement in an interview with Pride Source which was published on December 16.
"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," the 44-year-old actress said. She added that although her "daughter's story is really her story" and that "one day, if she chooses, she'll tell her story", it is key that people know how her daughter would like to be addressed.
Jackson was born male but identifies as a female.
"I think it became harder for us the older she got that people were still writing about her in the wrong pronouns, and also I was still talking about her in the press using the wrong pronoun," Theron said. "It really hurt her feelings. I don't want to be that mom, and that was really why I said what I said a while back."
Theron, in an interview with Daily Mail earlier this year, had clarified to the press about her daughter's correct pronouns and had asked them to respect her child.
"Yes, I thought she was a boy too, until she looked at me when she was 3 years old and said, 'I am not a boy!'"
Theron told the Daily Mail. "My job as a parent is to celebrate them and to love them and to make sure that they have everything they need in order to be what they want to be," she continued. "And I will do everything in my power for my kids to have that right and to be protected within that."
The actress adopted Jackson in 2012 from South Africa, where she was born and raised. She later adopted her second daughter named August, who is now three-years-old.