Jodie Patterson is a Beauty Entrepreneur, a former fashion PR specialist, a Brooklyn resident, and a mother of 4. She recently opened up with Cosmopolitan about raising her transgender son, Penel, who is 8.

But as soon as Penelope could speak, it was clear there was something different. ​Penelope screamed and threw fits whenever it was bath time or time to put clothes on. Penelope was always upset.

“I said, ‘What’s wrong baby, why are you always so upset?'” Patterson says in a new Cosmopolitan.com documentary. “And Penelope said, ‘Because everyone thinks I’m a girl … I don’t feel like a boy, mama. I am a boy.'”