Rosie O’Donnell has confessed that using neutral pronouns for her non-binary child has been challenging for her, especially as she relocated from the US to Ireland to protect them, reports The Mirror.
The actress moved to Dublin with her 12-year-old child, Clay, last month, and is currently in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship. The 63-year-old left behind four adult children in the US. Rosie explained that fleeing Donald Trump’s America became a necessity, as Clay is both autistic and non-binary.
Speaking with Venetia Quick on The Grief Pod, Rosie said: “My daughter is graduating from college in May, I won’t be able to go. But, I had no option. I knew I had no choice. And my friends didn’t know because I don’t know that they all have such incapacitatingly big feelings,” reports The Mirror.
Rosie and President Trump have had a well-known feud that spans two decades. However, it was his policies affecting minority groups that led Rosie to realize she needed to leave the US. She continued: “When all these celebrities said ‘When he wins I move’, I never said that. But when he got the nomination I said to my therapist ‘I can’t survive another four years with him, I know I can’t’. And I said I would move to Ireland. It’s the only country I would move to, I have family here that we had kept in touch with and I know I can get citizenship because of my grandparents living here,” reports The Mirror.
Before making the move official, Rosie spoke with Clay about the decision. She said: “I said (to them) this is a very dangerous situation in America now. And for trans people and trans kids and gay people, it’s not a safe place to be.
“She has such resilience and strength and the day after the election she walked into her class and said ‘Well, I’m moving to Ireland’. They said ‘Why?’ And she said because the president hates my mom, but she hates him just as much. For women, they have taken away our rights that I remember fighting for in the early 70s. It’s like the Handmaid’s Tale and I know enough about history to know what comes next. And I also knew about Trump’s cruelty first hand,” reports The Mirror.
Though Rosie fully supports her child, she admitted that using neutral pronouns has been difficult, and she made several mistakes during her conversation with Venetia. She shared: “It’s so hard for me, I had it tattooed on my wrist in her handwriting so that I would remember to say it and whenever I say ‘she’ they say ‘Your tattoo isn’t working’.
“I try my hardest, it’s very difficult to do. Not that it should give anyone the reason not to try, to totally ignore what someone’s perceived identity is, how dare you say they can’t be referred to this way,” reports The Mirror.
After Clay came out as non-binary, Rosie initially called them by their old name, Dakota, for a year, until she was ready to accept the change. Rosie explained: “It’s been Clay ever since, and it was easier for me to do than the pronoun because I look at her…them, and I see Clay now, I don’t see Dakota still.
“Who knows where it’s going to go or what it’s going to lead to. Kids who are autistic often have gender issues and body dysmorphia,” reports The Mirror.
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