Noella McMaher’s parents – All you need to know about her ‘queer family’

Noella McMaher

Noella McMaher made headlines when she walked for the Trans Clothing Company at the 2022 New York Fashion Week. At only 10 years old, she became the youngest transgender model to walk at a major fashion show. But Noella began modeling at a much younger age, walking her first runway show, at Chicago Fashion Week no less, when she was just 7.

Noella, who transitioned socially at 4 years old and legally at 6 years old, plans to get on hormone blockers soon and undergo gender surgery down the line. Besides, she is not the only LGBTQ+ member of her ‘queer family’ as her ‘trans-masculine’ parents are fully supportive of her journey.

Noella’s biological mother Dee McMaher, along with her partner Ray, came out as non-binary/trans-masculine

Noella McMaher parents
Ray McMaher, Noella McMaher and Dee McMaher attend Machine Dazzle Exhibition Opening At Museum of Arts and Design on September 08, 2022 in New York City. | Photo by Sylvain Gaboury/Getty Images

Noella currently lives in Chicago with her parents, Dee and Ray McMaher – both of whom were assigned female at birth but now identify as non-binary or transmasculine. They came out in 2019, within a few years of Noella’s social and legal gender transition, and got married in November 2020.

Dee, who is Noella’s biological mother, uses the ‘they/them’ pronoun and appears to be on hormone replacement therapy. They recently had a cosmetic mastectomy as well.

Moreover, Dee works as a social justice advocate and educator for transgender children at Point Foundation. They were previously employed at the Rainbow Family Support Center as a transgender advocate and have been working as an activist for over a decade.

According to Dee, Noella first identified as a girl when she was only two and a half years old. Upon the revelation, they consulted with a gender development clinic and provided therapy to Noella for her transitioning process.

Dee and their partner Ray have a child together, an infant they are raising as non-binary and refer to as a ‘theybie’. On the other hand, Noella’s younger brother Levi identifies as cis male and is equally supported by his family.

Dee has come under fire for allegedly pushing her child to be transgender as many experts believe that Noella is too young to ethically decide on her identity. One campaigner even touched on the possibility of Dee fabricating her children’s gender crisis as an extension of Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy.

“My spouse and I probably own two pairs of shoes between us. We’re not into fashion at all. Noella is the opposite. She loves glitter and makeup and clothes. We wouldn’t even know how to encourage that kind of femininity,” said Dee, implying that Noella had full agency in her transition.

Noella is estranged from her biological father Timothy McCord after he fractured her arm when she was 4 years old

Noella is estranged from her biological father Timothy McCord, an analytical chemist also based in Chicago. While he and Dee formally divorced in 2019, the pair were separated for quite a few years and only used to share parental duties at the time.

Dee claims that Timothy disagreed with his child’s transgender identity. Things came to a head in the summer of 2016 during one of his visits when he violently forced a 4-year-old Noella into ‘boy pajamas’. This physical altercation fractured Noella’s arm and caused for child services to be called in.

Timothy was arrested for aggravated child abuse and he pled guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment, serving a probation sentence instead of prison time. The court ruled against Dee’s fight to charge him with a hate crime due to insufficient evidence.

After the incident, Dee filed for full custody and Timothy never saw both of his children again. He supposedly tried to get back into their lives but things turned ‘too contentious and stressful’ for everyone involved.

Today, Timothy remains unsure of what to make of Noella’s future medical interventions (such as hormone blockers) that will be required for her transition. Nevertheless, he maintains that he has no issue with her coming out as transgender and is merely concerned about her public life as a model.

“I have no say in it. She is not my kid anymore. I was given the opportunity to step back and let Dee’s partner adopt the kids and I did that in the hopes they would not have all the stress this was causing in their lives. If they have questions, I’m here, I’m not hard to find,” he said.