“I Wish I Had A Dad Like This”: Celebrity Parents Who Have Won Hearts Online By Publicly Supporting Their Transgender Children y

#1 Adjoa Andoh
Celebrity parent holding a coffee cup in support of transgender children

British actress Adjoa Andoh and author Howard Cunnell’s son, Liam, now in his late 20s, came out as transgender in his early teens.

Over the years, the Bridgerton actress, who plays Lady Agatha Danbury on the hit Netflix show, has spoken about raising a transgender child several times, including at a TEDx Talk in December 2014.

“My son is a walking manifestation of substance dualism,” Andoh said on the stage.

The idea of substance dualism, or mind-body dualism, was first formulated by the Renaissance-era French philosopher and scientist René Descartes, who held that the mind is a nonphysical, non-spatial substance concerned with human consciousness and self-awareness, distinct from the physical brain, which is the seat of intelligence.

“Looking out at a reflection of himself and seeing a girl’s body staring back at him, an image his brain reports as faithful, but his mind, knowing it to be the wrong image, revolts against — a mind trapped in a wrong body,” Andoh continued.

“So, as a family, we’re following our son’s mind, and bearing witness to his mind’s assertion that he is indeed a boy — a boy in his behavior and tastes from his earliest childhood.”