Oliver Kipnis, 16
Student
Male with a trans experience
He/him
Assigned female at birth, Oliver was thought of as a tomboy, always roughing it out with the other boys at school and keeping really short hair. Every time someone mistook him as a boy, Oliver would beam excitedly.
Things began to take a turn when Oliver was about nine.
“I was taking tennis lessons and suddenly we were split into groups of boys and girls, and I had to join the girls even though I wanted to be with the boys. The same thing happened in the cultural dance class and it really frustrated me. When my mental health went downhill, mum and dad realised that maybe something needed to change,” Oliver explains.
Oliver was diagnosed with gender dysphoria and started his journey to transition from female to male when he was 10 with the support of his family and school. However, his Jewish grandparents took a while to come around.
“They loved us all dearly but they just didn’t quite understand. They just kept asking why I couldn’t just tell OIiver how wonderful it is to be a woman and to have babies,” Oliver’s mother Sarah recalls.
But just as Oliver was transitioning, his grandparents surprised him with yarmulke so he could wear it and join the men at a cultural celebration. At his following birthday, they gifted him another two yarmulke, which Oliver holds on to dearly.
When Oliver fully transitioned, he was recognised as the youngest male in the family by being given the right to light the candles and cite the prayers at family gatherings, following Jewish culture and tradition.
“My grandparents have totally come around now and they tell their friends and educate them about what it is to be transgender,” Oliver says.