Mother brings up baby girl as a boy for two years
A mother brought up her baby girl as a boy for two years, deceiving even the child's own father, according to reports.
By Matt Roper
9:22AM GMT 28 Nov 2012
The Brazilian woman convinced everyone her daughter was a boy after altering her birth certificate while in hospital and christening her 'Samuel'.
She was finally found out when the girl's aunt became suspicious and managed to peek under the two year old's nappy.
The mother reportedly claimed she did it because she had been abused as a child and did not want her daughter to suffer in the same way because she was a girl.
She told how after being discharged from hospital she scratched out the tick on the 'female' box on the baby's birth certificate and marked 'male' instead.
She then managed to dupe staff at a registry office in Goiania, central Brazil, and the girl was registered as male.
Brazil's Record TV reported how the mother convinced even the baby's father and grandparents that she was a boy. It is not known if the woman lives with the girl's father.
For two years she kept up the deception and treated 'Samuel' as a boy, dressing her in boys' clothes, giving her boys' toys and cutting her hair short.
The girl's paternal grandmother told Record TV she never once imagined that her grandchild was not a little boy.
She said: "I didn't suspect a thing. For me, he was a boy. Why would I think anything different?
"It was an aunt who had doubts about Samuel's sex, but she did not tell the rest of the family. She asked to hold Samuel at a family party and managed to look.
"It was a huge shock for everyone. Now I have to get used to the fact I don't have a grandson any more, I have a granddaughter."
Social services in Goiania confirmed that the girl has been placed in foster care while a children's judge studies the case.
