A MUM has spoken out about the pride she feels for her 11-year-old drag queen son during an appearance on Loose Women.

Lauren Noakes, from Leicestershire, and her son Leo appeared on the ITV daytime show to talk about her son’s love of being a drag queen.

Lauren said at first she thought her son’s desire to don a dress and make up was because he did not have a father figure in his life for his first three years.

She said: “He’s always been flamboyant and a big character and he’s always wanted to dress in high heels and things.

“I thought it was a normal phase but from when he was six people started to say he should have grown out of it.

“It wasn’t until a few months later I thought it was time to knock it on the head.

“He didn’t have a father figure for the first three years so I wondered whether it was that, because he was always watching me all the time and that it was learnt behaviour instead of something he was into.

“If I followed my instinct I would have just let him carry on, but someone commented that I was making him gay and they said gay people don’t lead happy lives so I thought I had to do something.”

But later she understood that it was not learnt behaviour or because he wanted to change his gender.

Lauren explained: "From my ignorance I assumed that that's what he wanted. It's not at all.

"But, actually, he's really open anyway, he really clearly just says, "I'm a boy, I like being a boy, just because I've got a penis doesn't mean I can't wear a dress". He just wants to show everyone it's OK to be different. That's what he taught me."

Later on the programme Leo showed off his transformation into his alter ego Violet Vixen and strutted his stuff for the Loose Women panel.

Leo also got the thumbs up from Celebrity Big Brother winner Courtney Act.

Courtney said: “I’m loving all of the conversations I’m seeing online, all of the support and all of the love for you and you’re expressing yourself with so much colour and fabulousness.

“You’re also inspiring a conversation about how silly it is to apply a gender to a piece of clothing.

“Why do boys have to wear boys clothes and girls have to wear girls clothes?

“Can’t we just wear the clothes we feel like wearing? Makes sense to me. Makes sense to you too. Love you.”