Former Hollyoaks actress Daisy Wood-Davis has defended her son after cruel fans hit out at her decision to allow him to wear a dress.
Daisy appeared as Kim Butterfield in the Channel 4 soap for four years before her departure in 2018.
Her exit scenes saw her flee the country for her own safety, and involved iconic 80s popstar Rick Astley. Following that, she had a recurring role in Holby City.
She announced her engagement to co-star Luke Jerdy, who played Jesse Donovan, in August 2019 and the two wed three years later. Together, they share two year old son Asa.
During a recent social media post she shared a message from his pre-school teachers and expressed her delight that he had been given the opportunity to try on a dress whilst singing and dancing with his peers.
She told her 179,000 followers: ‘I feel so passionate about this, not just in case Asa wants to wear a dress one day but to make sure he is never the child who bullies or puts another down for being ‘different’ which seems to happen from such a young age it’s scary!
‘I can’t believe children’s innocence is taken away so early by gender normative views which doesn’t necessarily mean a homophobic parent is at home but it’s a parent that doesn’t care enough to actively bring it up and discuss it with their child. Rant over.’
She continued: ‘I should also add he wasn’t wearing a dress in the play village. He was with his Nana but I believe he was also merely looking at the dressing up items when the boys needed to tell him this ‘fact’.’
Sadly, her comments were soon met with backlash from trolls, including one who said the innocent dress-up was ‘what is wrong with the world now’ – and she was quick to fire back in his defence.
Sharing the message on her story, she said: ‘And here they are… crawling out of the wood work. I am laughing out loud that you think me letting my two year old play in a dress is him telling me he’s a different gender.’
‘He doesn’t know his surname, how on earth would he know that about himself yet? Why are you so scared?
‘As parents we should want to nurture our children’s innocence, play, creativity and expression.’
‘I’m so sorry your kids haven’t been able to experience that and you’re so frightful of a little boy in a dress’ she added.
Luckily, the negativity was outweighed by the positivity and Daisy later shared a message thanking the ‘kind, intelligent and responsible parents’ who took time to support her.
