Erica Maison is the mother of five children in Detroit. One of her daughters is a transgender girl named Corey.

Erica told BuzzFeed News that Corey was always feminine, even from the time she was very young. “She loved to dress in high heels and dresses. In public she wore boy clothes — I just assumed she might be gay.”

When Corey was in the fifth grade she was bullied so badly her mother made the decision to pull her out of public school and begin homeschooling. It wasn’t until Corey was 11 years old that the mother-daughter duo came across a video of transgender YouTuber Jazz Jennings and everything suddenly clicked. “She said, ‘Mom, I’m just like her, I AM a girl.’

Once she was at home and free to be herself, Corey started gaining confidence and began dressing like a girl in public — which wasn’t always easy.

Her hair was still very short, and she still looked like a boy. People would give her dirty looks, and take pictures of her with their cell phone cameras. They would laugh, and point, and stare. I told Corey, ‘Every time someone points their phone at you to take a picture, you turn and smile and strike a pose!’ That really boosted her self-esteem. I wanted to teach her to turn anything negative into something positive.

--Erica Maison