Former Backstreet Boys singer AJ McLean is publicly talking out in assist of his nine-year-old daughter Ava altering her identify to “Elliott.”
Information of the daughter’s identify change broke when his spouse Rochelle shared a photograph of Ava holding an indication that stated “Elliott’s First Day of 4th Grade!”
“When my daughter requested to alter her identify to Elliott, initially, I didn’t know if it was a transgender factor, which it’s not, however it’s a private alternative,” McLean informed People Magazine. “And it’s her physique, it’s her identify, it’s her all the things. And he or she’s nonetheless Ava. She’ll all the time be Ava to me.”
“However on the identical time, no matter reasoning it’s, that’s hers, and I’m going to assist it one million p.c, my spouse will [too],” the previous boy band member added.
McLean stated that the identify change doesn’t essentially imply that his daughter is transgender.
The singer stated that his daughter went to him a yr in the past and stated, “Dad, I simply really feel like my identify just isn’t that distinctive and never that unique, and there’s lots of Avas at dance and lots of Avas in school.”
“She simply completed watching Pete’s Dragon, and he or she beloved the identify Elliot, however with two Ts,” he continued. “Now it simply rolls off the tongue. Now she’s Elliott.”
The lady’s mom additionally posted on Instagram that the identify change just isn’t a “gender factor.”
“For these asking … not that it’s anybody’s enterprise however Elliott’s identify change just isn’t a gender factor,” Rochelle wrote. She stated that the daughter had tried out just a few names earlier than deciding on that one.
“She needed one thing distinctive that nobody else had (There are such a lot of Ava’s). I didn’t actually see the hurt in respecting her need to be distinctive,” the mother wrote.
She added that she finds it a “little odd” that folks choose names for youngsters and “count on them to endlessly indentify[sic] as that particular person.”
“Anyway … in order that’s how Ava grew to become Elliott. I knew as soon as I put it on the market folks would have opinions, however be sort,” she continued. “She’s only a child attempting to make her approach on this loopy world! I simply need her to know she will all the time be whoever she desires to be🖤”
