Heather Dubrow Reveals Why She Publicly Announced Her Son Is Transgender

Heather Dubrow says it was a no-brainer to reveal her son as transgender publicaly before the media found out from someone else outside of their camp. She opened up about her son Ace on her podcast, Let's Talk with Heather Dubrow. The Real Housewives of Orange County star first revealed the news in an Instagram post.  "First of all, I just want to say thank you. I'm going to get very emotional during this, but thank you to all our supporters," she began. "I need to clarify some things. With all the support, there's always going to be hate. You're going to have haters. You're going to have people who don't understand…I get that. Ace is 12 years old. Why now?" She explained her goal as a mother is to always protect her children.

But her circumstances are different due to her living her life on reality television. "My son has been in the public eye since he was 9 months old. As much as we want to protect him — and that is our number one priority and our number one goal — for a variety of reasons, it also, over the last few years and more recently the past few months, became apparent that we had to say something," she explained.

As a public figure, she says she wanted to control the narrative. "So even though I don't want to tell my children's stories for them — and I never have, nor will I ever — something had to be said by us before someone else made a statement. And that part I need to leave at that. But hopefully, that will add some clarity to it."

Dubrow denies accusations that she's using her son's transition as part of her storyline for the show. "They are the farthest thing from the truth. Again, it's really just about protecting my kids. And I've already explained why now," she said. "We are not trying to leverage our child for content, and I'm just going to leave that there. I have four kids, and they are incredible, and they're mine."