Corey Maison had no idea what was going on when her mom started filming her last week.
The 14-year-old transgender teen from Detroit had spent two and a half years waiting on an estrogen prescription that would allow her to begin hormone therapy.
That all came to an end on Sept. 24, when her mother Erica told her to look behind a couch cushion.
There she found a black bag with a small box inside. Her tears began flowing the moment she figured out what it was.
"She squeezed me, and I stopped the camera so I could hug her back," Erica told BuzzFeed. "Neither of us could let go for what seemed like an eternity."
The heartwarming moment was captured in a Facebook video that was later uploaded to YouTube.
The journey started when Corey was very young. She displayed feminine traits, such as wearing dresses and high heels, though she continued wearing masculine clothing in public, BuzzFeed reported.
At 11 years old, Corey watched a video featuring transgender YouTube personality Jazz Jennings and told her mom, "I AM a girl!"
She eventually visited a gender clinic in Chicago and later received an implant that restrains the puberty process. It was determined that she could begin hormone therapy in August 2015.
Corey's journey has been captured on social media, through media such as YouTube videos and Instagram posts.
Here she stands with her sister Kailee on their way to a homecoming dance this year.
Hormone therapy is a process that involves using cross-sex hormones in order to help a person maintain the traits that match up with their gender identity, says the Center of Excellence for Transgender Health at the University of California in San Francisco.
Not all transgender people choose to go forward with it, but those who identify as a gender that does not match their birth sex can use it to help bring the "endocrine and psychological systems into balance," the Center says.
Go here to learn more about hormone therapy.
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