Tue 5 Aug 2008 In: Worth Checking Out View at Wayback View at NDHA
Mani Mitchell The next episode of Maori Television's LGBT programme Takataapui will be broadcast at 9:30pm on Monday 11 August: Dianne gave birth to a beautiful baby girl called Samantha in 1981. During Samantha's childhood she started to show signs that she was a girl who wanted to be … a boy. "I really needed to find out what transgender was, so I went on a search on the internet and tried to find people who could help me. I tried help lines and I did everything - and I didn't come up with many answers," Dianne explains. She navigated her way through the medical, emotional and practical issues associated with raising a teenager who was transitioning to their preferred gender. Along the way she found an important person, one of the few counselors in New Zealand who had worked specifically with transgender children, someone that Dylan finally opened up to. Mani Mitchell knew the journey as well as the map to get there; so Dianne wasn't alone. "Dianne was incredible in the early days. She had no idea what was going on, but as soon as she had some words she was off and did her reading and really tried to be there," explains Mitchell. "She really tried to understand and think 'what do I need to do as parent?' - and I know how hard it was." Takataapui is broadcast on Maori Television each Monday night at 9:30pm, then repeats on Freeview's Stratos channel at 10pm. Takataapui TV - 5th August 2008