Beth McGarrity has revealed how her son and daughter both told her they wanted to swap gender, within weeks of each other. Beth and husband Russ – who moved to Cincinnati from Newcastle when kids Russie and Aly were tiny – noticed their children were different from a young age. At five, Russie liked to play dressing up with girls and Aly, three years younger, preferred to kick a football with the boys.

At high school, Russie suffered bullying and depression after adopting an androgynous look. Threatened with expulsion after running into the girls’ toilets he told his parents: "I did not choose this for myself. I wish there was a way that I could not be this way." But he added: "I would rather be hated for who I am than loved for who I am not."

While Russie struggled, his parents put his sister’s boyish style down to her being a typical tomboy, but it was Aly who came out as transgender first. A week before her 15th birthday, Russie asked her if she “liked girls” and she told him she had been trawling the internet and believed she was transgender. Russie persuaded her to break the news to their mum. With her brother beside her, she told Beth: “I've figured out what's going on with me. I know that I'm transgender.

"I've always wanted to be a boy. I never told you this, but when I was little, I would go to sleep and wish that I'd wake up a boy. “Every time we did the wishbone at Thanksgiving and I won, I would wish that I was a boy." With her mum’s unconditional support, Aly decided she would begin gender reassignment after high school, including an op to remove her breasts.

A month later, Russie broke down in tears as he told his parents that he was also transgender. After counselling, both decided to go ahead with the sex swap. Now 20 and 17, Russie and Aly are known as Rai and Gavin, and their parents are thrilled that they now have two happy kids.

Beth told Cosmopolitan mag: "People ask me what I've lost, but I don't feel that I've lost anything. I have my son and daughter the way they should be."

Proud dad Russ recalled the couple had hoped for a boy and a girl when starting a family back in Newcastle. He added: "As it so happened, we did have one of each — just in a different order than we originally thought."