Charlize Theron Shares How She Knew Her 3-Year-Old Was Transgender

Charlize Theron says she thought she was raising a little boy, until the then-3-year-old Jackson looked at her and said: "I am not a boy!" From that moment on, the Oscar-winning actress embraced the fact that she was raising a transgender girl. 

Speaking to The Daily Mail about the rumors and confusion surrounding her child, Theron said briskly: "Yes, I thought she was a boy, too." But then, Jackson corrected her mother. And from then on out, the actress has raised her eldest child as a girl. 

"[My kids] were born who they are and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide," she explained.

She added, "My job as a parent is to celebrate them and to love them and to make sure that they have everything they need in order to be what they want to be. And I will do everything in my power for my kids to have that right and to be protected within that."

Theron's own parenting philosophy doesn't stray too far from her mother's. "I grew up in a country where people lived with half-truths and lies and whispers and nobody said anything outright, and I was raised very specifically not to be like that," she said. "I was taught by my mom that you have to speak up; you have to be able to know that, when this life is over, you'll have lived the truth you're comfortable with, and that nothing negative can come from that."

Jackson is now 7 years old (seen below in 2015), and Theron also has a 3-year-old daughter named August.

Charlize Theron and Jackson Theron are seen having dinner at The Polo Bar on May 11, 2015 in New York City.