Tamzin Outhwaite reveals her eldest child is transgender and admits she regrets her reaction
Tamzin Outhwaite has announced that her eldest child is transgender. The EastEnders star confessed she was 'distressed' when Flo first came out seven years ago, but now has no problem in saying she has a son and a daughter rather than two daughters.
The 54-year-old soap star, who played Mel Owen in the BBC soap, said she wishes she could go back and change her initial reaction to the news. Tamzin said she found things difficult at first and she and Flo both went to family therapy to help work through it.
She said: "The way I reacted at the very beginning I would love to change because I think until you're going through it yourself with your child it's very difficult to judge other people or to judge a situation because you don't expect that to happen to you or your child.
"What I did initially, I was like 'don't be ridiculous', I didn't say don't be ridiculous but my mind went to 'that's ludicrous' and working back from that to talking through it"
Outhwaite shares her two kids, Flo, 17, and Marnie, 12, with fellow actor Tom Ellis who she divorced in 2014, the Mirror reports.
Speaking on the Parenting Hell podcast, she said: "I've got two kids and I did have two daughters and now I have a son and a daughter and that's quite easy for me to to say now but it wasn't maybe six or seven years ago.
"We live in a very happy household now, full of jokes, and it's my favourite place to be at home.
"You know they say that as a mum, probably as a parent, that you're only ever as happy and your unhappiest child and so with that in mind we have had some pretty unhappy years.
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"Now we're in a really wonderful place as a family, Flo is in a wonderful place as a brilliant actor, singer, writer, director in his sixth form at school, and Marnie is thriving.
"So instead of just trying to get through difficult times we are now all thriving and the relief and joy is very tangible."
She continued: "It was about when Flo was about 10 or 11 and the maddest thing is, I suppose, is that it's not the most interesting thing about him.
"He's an incredible, incredibly funny, intelligent boy and I'm watching him grow into a wonderful human who's very talented and to see him thriving is just nothing but relief and joy for me really because there was some dark times."
"Fab bit of family therapy, therapy on Flo's side so Flo was doing therapy as well. Speaking to other people and realising you weren't alone was a really, really helpful thing...
"I became almost like a padded cell around Flo, almost going 'it's okay whatever you want, you want to do this, you want to do that, it's all okay', because I think if you push back on a kid they're going to want to do the opposite of what their parent says so I made everything a possibility.
"I didn't say you can't be that but it was a very distressing time."
Tamzin also explained that whilst her six year old understood the change very quickly, she was worried about the 'wrath' of her father who is now also fully supportive.
She said: "Marnie has been the most insightful about all of it because it's constantly, from pretty much day one when Marnie was six years old has said 'this is my brother Flo'.
"Flo has many nicknames at school, all sorts of different things, all of the kids are so accepting of everything but I think they're much more understanding.
"Whereas obviously there was a time, my dad's brilliant now and on board, but there was a time where I didn't want Flo to have the wrath of what my dad had to say about the whole thing."
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