Transgender father Stefonknee Wolscht leaves family in Toronto to start new life as six-year-old girl

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday

Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice

A Canadian transgender father left behind a wife and seven children to begin a new life as a six-year-old girl.

Stefonknee (pronounced ‘Stephanie’) Wolschtt, 46, had been married for 23 years when she realised she was transgender.

She's now living with an adoptive family, and says she does not “want to be an adult right now”.

“I can’t deny I was married. I can’t deny I have children. But I’ve moved forward now and I’ve gone back to being a child,” she said in a video series by The Transgender Project, published by Daily Xtra.

Ms Wolschtt said her wife could not accept her as a transgender woman. She was told to either “stop being trans or leave”.

“To me, ‘stop being trans’ isn’t something I could do,” she says. “It would be like telling me to stop being 6ft 2 or leave.”

Feeling rejected by her family, Ms Wolschtt left and now lives with her adoptive family, who she says are “totally comfortable with me being a little girl”.

She explains how her new parents’ youngest granddaughter wanted a little sister and decided Ms Wolschtt should be younger than her.

“We have a great time. We colour, we do kid’s stuff,” she says.

“It’s called play therapy. No medication, no suicide thoughts. And I just get to play.”

In an earlier part of the series, Ms Wolschtt spoke of how she became suicidal and was hospitalised a month after taking part in the first Toronto transgender march in 2009.

After she was discharged, her wife accused her of harassment and assault, and pressed charges against her to achieve a restraining order.

In 2012, her eldest daughter invited Ms Wolschtt to her wedding, but requested she “dress like her dad” and to sit at the back of the church and not address any members of the family.

The day of her daughter’s wedding, Ms Wolschtt attempted suicide for the last time, and was unsuccessful.

She now receives support from the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, where the congregation is mostly made up of LGBT people.