When Rachel Giordano took her children out shopping for their Easter outfits, she could not have predicted the shameful treatment that she and her five-year-old daughter, Maddie, would endure.
Rachel was not surprised when her “tomboy” daughter Maddie expressed her desire to wear an Easter suit, and the mum-of-three looked on as Maddie happily tried one on.
When Rachel told the shop assistant that the clothes Maddie had tried on ‘weren’t going to work for her’, she watched the clerk’s jaw drop as she realised for the first time during the family’s visit that Maddie was actually a girl.
Describing the assistant’s expression as “just a face of disgust”, Rachel went on to explain to local media how she proceeded to receive a lecture from the woman.
“She told me that I was promoting wrong behaviour; that parents should not let their children choose the way that they dress if it’s cross-gendered,” Rachel said.
Needless to say, Rachel was horrified by the incident, and took to Facebook to share her experience.
Incredibly, however, when the story went public, the very same shop assistant continued to criticise Rachel.
The employee of Martha’s Miniatures wrote: “I was so shocked she asked for a boy’s suit for the child. I asked her why she was encouraging this…This is child abuse from the mother.”
The post has since been removed from Facebook, and Rachel admits that the response from friend and members of the public has been nothing but supportive.
“[Maddie] is who she is. People will think she’s a boy and she corrects them and says she’s a girl – and she doesn’t do that because we sit there and say ‘You’re a girl. You’re a girl’, because honestly I don’t care either way,” she added.
