Guest Post: Understanding and Accepting Gender Diversity with Deirdre Murphy
In a world marked by diversity, the realization that gender is not confined to a binary spectrum is a pivotal step towards acceptance and inclusivity. This journey into understanding and embracing the complexity of gender begins with personal stories that shape perspectives and challenge societal norms. We asked the multi-talented artist Deirdre Murphy to write about her experience as a parent navigating her child's journey of self-discovery and how this exploration offers insight into the profound impact of recognizing the multifaceted nature of gender. As the cultural landscape evolves, she talks about the transformative potential of dismantling traditional norms, nurturing authenticity, and fostering a more liberated and compassionate world.
When my older child was six, they came out to me as trans. The discussion had wandered around to trans people, and I watched as a light turned on in them. They said, fiercely, "Mom, I'm going to do that when I'm old enough." And I said "Really, are you sure?" We had been talking about the surgery, so I explained the actual surgical procedure and what it entailed - and they paused and thought deeply for a moment and then nodded ferociously and said again "I'm going to do that when I'm old enough." And then time marched on and we all forgot about it until they came out to me again when they were 14, six years ago. They had been doing a lot of soul searching, and researching gender issues, and at a certain point the bottom just dropped out of their world and they became breathless. They were filled with a resonance of truth and expansive groundedness and alert alive excitedness. And everything fell into place. And they couldn't not tell me.
My children have first and second cousins on both sides of the family who are trans, and it seems like every other person I'm related to is queer of some stripe. There are also people who don't know how to support these family members living in their truth. I guess that for some people the notion of gender is so deeply rooted and so natural to their bodies that they cannot conceive of what their existence would be without that root. And so they cannot conceive that for someone else. But if bodies can be gendered, why not souls? Imagine the pain if your soul was female but your body didn't match that.
I myself am lucky to have a match -- female body, female soul. I don't look at my body and loathe what is there in terms of gender, but even without that, in truth I have looked at my body with loathing for much of my life. I always felt wrong in my container, judged, unsuitable. It has taken me a lifetime to learn to not resent my body's shortcomings or to be ashamed by it. I find it easy to imagine the intensity of the internal struggle of adding gender to that uneasy mix. Where you might not only perceive your body as being the wrong shape or size, but the wrong gender too, and in addition have to face societal judgement for something that is innately you? Heartbreaking. The only answer based in kindness is to meet this mixture with acceptance. With love.
Everything in nature occurs in a spectrum - light, sound, even gravity. That gender should be exempt from this spectrum seems a little silly. All that being said. I know many parents of transgender teens. It's clear that there's a grieving process for the parents, where they have to give up their own ideas of who their child has been. Sometimes parents can have loyalty to the child they knew previously, or to their own perception of the child. The parent might feel betrayed, as though the child were giving up on themself, and since the one being given upon was loved, there is grief. It is not a path without struggle, and it is too easy to fall into the fear that surrounds it - the weeds, the brambles - but as a parent, I want my children to be investigating the truth of who they are. I want that for everybody. It's our birthright and too many of us have lost that truth. The collapse of the gender binary, and the transformative potential of seeking and living into individual truths, are indicative of a cultural shift which I think can and will bring liberation to this shackled world. One soul at a time, all together.