Rosie O'Donnell admits its 'hard' to call her non-binary child they/them

Irish Daily Mirror

05-05-2025

Rosie O'Donnell admits it's hard for her to use neutral pronouns for her non-binary child, as she fled from the US to Ireland to protect them.
Last month, the Hollywood actress moved here to Dublin with her youngest child Clay, 12, and is in the process of getting Irish citizenship. The 63-year-old leaves behind four adult children in the US. The Sleepless in Seattle actress said she had no other option but to flee Donald Trump's America, as Clay in autistic and non-binary.
Speaking to The Grief Pod with Venetia Quick, Rosie said: 'My daughter is graduating from college in May, I won't be able to go. But, I had no option. I knew I had no choice. And my friends didn't know because I don't know that they all have such incapacitatingly big feelings.'
The actress and President Trump have had a long-standing feud spanning 20 years. But it's his policies against minority communities that made Rosie realise she needed to jump ship. She continued: 'When all these celebrities said 'When he wins I move', I never said that.
'But when he got the nomination I said to my therapist 'I can't survive another four years with him, I know I can't'. And I said I would move to Ireland. It's the only country I would move to, I have family here that we had kept in touch with and I know I can get citizenship because of my grandparents living here.'
Before putting the wheels in motion to move, the A-lister spoke to her youngest child Clay. She said: 'I said (to them) this is a very dangerous situation in America now. And for trans people and trans kids and gay people, it's not a safe place to be.
'She has such resilience and strength and the day after the election she walked into her class and said 'Well, I'm moving to Ireland'. They said 'Why?' And she said because the president hates my mom, but she hates him just as much.
'For women, they have taken away our rights that I remember fighting for in the early 70s. It's like the Handmaid's Tale and I know enough about history to know what comes next. And I also knew about Trump's cruelty first hand.'
While Rosie is very supportive of her 12-year-old, she admitted that using neutral pronouns is difficult, and slipped up several times during her chat with Venetia. She explained: 'It's so hard for me, I had it tattooed on my wrist in her handwriting so that I would remember to say it and whenever I say 'she' they say 'Your tattoo isn't working'.
'I try my hardest, it's very difficult to do. Not that it should give anyone the reason not to try, to totally ignore what someone's perceived identity is, how dare you say they can't be referred to this way.'
After her child came out as non-binary, the Hollywood actress called them their old name, Dakota, for a year, until she was ready to make the change. Rosie said: 'It's been Clay ever since, and it was easier for me to do than the pronoun because I look at her…them, and I see Clay now, I don't see Dakota still.
'Who knows where it's going to go or what it's going to lead to. Kids who are autistic often have gender issues and body dysmorphia.'