Cindy Barshop Reveals The Biggest Misconception People Have About Raising A Transgender Child!

Cindy Barshop said that “nothing’s really changed” for her family since revealing last month that her nine-year-old son Jesse Barshop is transgender. The former Real Housewives of New York City star said that life is “the same, we are the same,” she told PEOPLE.

“That’s how we have always lived, since they were little. I’ve always let him dress how he wants, do what he wants. So a lot of the kids know, some don’t. Nothing’s really changed, I just thought he may want to speak about it a little bit and he said, ‘No you can do it.’ “

“It’s just so normal in my household. We’ll joke around and be like, ‘Jesse gets more attention because he is trans.’ We play with it just like an everyday type of thing. But she’s fine, she looks at him as a brother,” Barshop said of how her daughter Zoe has reacted to her twin brother’s reveal. “I mean once you start, they are 9 now, so it’s for six years they’ve been doing this.”

The mother-of-two also revealed what's the biggest misconception about raising a transgender child, Barshop elaborated that “gender identity does not mean anything to do with sexuality.”

“So they say ‘at that age, how do they know?’ ” the V-Spot owner said. “They know at that age, they know that, ‘you know what, I’m not supposed to be a girl, I’m supposed to be a boy.’ And just to flourish that. We are probably going to save one child’s life just now by just talking like this to a mother, that they say, ‘Well maybe I should just be open about it.’ It’s super important.”

“You notice very young, it’s very young,” Barshop added of when parents can identify that their child is transgender. “The other parents I’ve spoken to, we’re talking at 2. Even the movements that they make. At 3, 3 1/2, I was 100 percent sure.”

Barshop also spoke of a “poignant moment” that the child themselves realizes their identity.

“If you speak to every parent whose gone through this at a young age, there’s a very poignant moment when a child explicitly — obviously my child said it differently than others: ‘This is not right, there is something wrong,’ ” she told PEOPLE. “For a child, they are like little angels, to come out with it at a young age, that’s when they are going to realize: something is off and I can tell my mother.”

“There is an absolutely poignant moment where it’s black and white to the parent,” Barshop continued. “Each child is different, so that’s how they’ll come out with it.”

As previously reported, Barshop revealed last month that her son was transgender. “When a child feels comfortable and open, identity issues are able to be discussed in the family environment,” she told PEOPLE. “I believe living in creating an open and positive home so they are able to express themselves.”

Barshop said she wanted to speak out after Mario Lopez recently came under fire for suggesting parents should wait until a child’s “formative years” before making declarations about their gender.

Barshop also revealed that she wanted to try and use Lopez’s comments as a positive learning lesson for others. “I’m hoping that the more awareness that we bring that people understand that trans is an identity and has absolutely nothing to do with sexuality,” she told PEOPLE.

Barshop added that when she shared Lopez’s comments with her son. “He said, ‘Why don’t you tell him that we learn about this in 5th grade and he needs to go back to 5th grade.’ It shows how evolved our children are and hopefully the adults will catch up,” she said.

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