TWO Cork sisters appeared on ITV This Morning yesterday to discuss how they were born brothers.
Jamie and Chloe O'Herlihy, 23 and 20 respectively, were born Jamie and Daniel.
Jamie says they would dress up in girls' clothes from an early age and didn't see any problem with it.
"Mum brought is up to be really free and nothing was off limits," Jamie says.
"We were playing with dolls and expressing that side, and she [their mother, Sarah] put her finger on it," Jamie says confidently, "that it was body dysphoria."
Jamie went on to say that at that young age, they didn't realise that they were "trapped in the wrong bodies."
Chloe, the younger sister, with a mane of red hair, says it became an issue when they started school, as she remembers she "noticed she was more like the girls than the boys."
According to their mother Sarah, the girls would dress up until their pre-teens, when they went to secondary school.
"She went to secondary school, put [the dressing up] in a box and stopped being like that," Sarah said, "I wasn't concerned but I did wonder where she put that part of herself."
Although the sisters are going through the transgender transition together, it wasn't until Chloe's school graduation that they opened up to each other that they were going through the same experience.
Chloe, left, as Daniel, and right, after she came out as transgender. (Source: ITV)Chloe, who came out as 'gender fluid' before transgender, says that on her school graduation she wore hair extensions, make up and gender neutral clothing.
"Jamie turned to me in the kitchen and said, 'you look really beautiful, like a beautiful woman, do you think that you might want to change your gender?' and I said I'm not sure, and it took a while for me to figure it out in my head."
Jamie, however, said she looked to her younger sister as an inspiration.
"With Chloe, I could tell she was feeling so free in herself," she says, "I was scared to start presenting myself as something and that's why I asked Chloe because I thought we could go on this journey together."
Jamie, left, as a boy, and right, as she is today. (Source: ITV)In September 2015 the sisters came out as transgender to their mother Sarah on FaceTime.
"I had just got back from Greece," Sarah told Eamonn and Ruth on the couch this morning, "Jamie Facetimed me and told me."
"I wasn't surprised," she said, "But it does mean a change for them."
"We use gender all the time without even realising it, you know, her and him, so those pronouns needed to change."
While pronouns needed to change, Sarah says her approach to her children didn't.
"I gave birth to two beautiful babies, they're still my children and it's not an issue for me."
"In the last few weeks," Sarah says, "it's sunk in and I've accepted that this is right for them and this is what they need to do."
As for the sisters, with the support of their mother the future looks bright.
Chloe and Jamie have finished half of their transition into women by completing their psychological evaluations.
Now, they're due to start hormone treatment to finalise their becoming women.
Jamie says, "we're excited because we've been dragging around these bodies that we don't want and that gets tiring and depressing."
"Once we start the HRT (hormone replacement therapy) we'll start noticing the differences, and going through that period of female puberty, it's going to be really exciting."
See More: Chloe, Featured, Irish, Jamie O'Herlihy, O'Herlihy, TENI, Transgender
