Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP/Shutterstock
Charlize Theron Reveals Why She Opened Up About Her Daughter Jackson’s Gender Identity
Protective mama! Earlier this year, Charlize Theron opened up about daughter Jackson’s gender identity in a powerful interview. Now, months later, the Bombshell actress is revealing exactly why she did: for her 7-year-old’s well-being.
In a recent interview with Pride Source, the South African native was asked if “having a daughter who happens to be transgender influences your decisions when it comes to taking on the LGBTQ characters you do or, for that matter, don’t.”
“Well, this is all pretty new for us, so it hasn’t really kind of come into question. I don’t really necessarily know if it will,” she explained. “My daughter’s story is really her story, and one day, if she chooses, she’ll tell her story. I feel like as her mother, for me, it was important to let the world know that I would appreciate it if they would use the right pronouns for her.”
The Academy Award-winning actress — who is also mom to August, 4 — also confessed to the LGBTQ publication people still get Jackson’s pronouns incorrect and “it really hurt her feelings” and that’s “really why I said what I said a while back.”
As for what chats Charlize is having with her children at home, things are pretty open and honest with her little ones.
“We definitely have these conversations whenever they say, ‘I’m gonna get married’ and I’m always like, ‘What is it gonna be? A boy or a girl? What is it gonna be?’ I love that my kids just know that that’s a normal question to ask,” Charlize gushed. “One of my daughters [August] is convinced that she’s gonna be married five times and it’s gonna be three boys and two girls, and I just love that she has the freedom to think that way. God only knows what it’s going to be, but I love that she feels safe enough to explore in her little-girl brain that anything is possible and that she’s gonna go and discover that for herself.”
Back in April 2019, the South African native told the Daily Mail how Jackson, years earlier, realized she identified as a girl.
“So there you go! I have two beautiful daughters who, just like any parent, I want to protect and I want to see thrive,” the Monster star recalled at the time, adding that she supports them no matter what. “They were born who they are and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide. My job as a parent is to celebrate them and to love them and to make sure that they have everything they need in order to be what they want to be. And I will do everything in my power for my kids to have that right and to be protected within that.”
