The next Shiloh Jolie-Pitt? Meet Jackson Theron, Charlize Theron’s 8-year-old transgender daughter and rising LGBT icon

Oct 15 , 2020

Jackson Theron (left) with mum Charlize Theron and sister August. Photo: @charlizeafrica/Instagram

The Oscar-winning South African actress, who’s starred in Bombshell and Mad Max: Fury Road, confirmed to Jimmy Fallon that she’s raising a transgender daughter and has received praise from transgender Sense8 actress Jamie Clayton for her progressive parenting

Shiloh Jolie-Pitt isn’t the only celebrity offspring making waves as an LGBTQ+ icon in Hollywood. Charlize Theron’s eight-year-old transgender daughter, Jackson, is also living her truth thanks to her A-list mother’s progressive parenting.

“I was taught by my mum 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,” Charlize told Jimmy Fallon during an interview last year.

Charlize Theron at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills, California. Photo: Invision/AP

“My job as a parent is to celebrate [my children] 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.”

Charlize is also mum to another adopted daughter, five-year-old August.

Not surprisingly, the Oscar-winning actress has received plenty of praise for her parenting skills. Jamie Clayton, a transgender actress in the Netflix series Sense8, wrote on Twitter: “@CharlizeAfrica Sending you so much love … Thank you beyond.”

Jackson (left) with sister August. Photo: @charlizeafrica/Instagram

Jackson was adopted in the States

Jackson Theron was born in January 2012 in the United States and was adopted by Charlize soon after, although she only officially announced the news in March of that year.

At the time, South African-born Charlize received a lot of flak from fans and media outlets in her home country for not adopting locally, especially considering the country’s struggles with homelessness, poverty and HIV.