“How do you feel?” People ask me this question now.

My child, who is 28 now, is going through gender transition from male to female. We are in the stage of surgeries occurring over the next year for her to get her body to the place she says will make her comfortable in her skin.

I’m at the point where I must talk about it to friends and family. I have had the conversation a few times in the past weeks and am getting good at explaining L’s decision and what is occurring. It is such a blessing that everyone in my life seems so open hearted and willing to try to understand.

… try to understand. If my loved ones are anything like me then they are also dealing with the letting go of solid boundaries. We were raised to believe that humans come in only two forms, male and female.

It’s all new for our psyche. A new path to traverse that has never been walked along before. Each step feels tenuous, this brings me the vision of walking on stepping-stones to cross a river.

The river has a name, I’ve heard about it throughout my youth, but I did not get to visit it. My spiritual awakening confirmed its existence, I saw it flow within the lives of great humans,  (Masters, mystics, and gurus) the ones who provided my spiritual lessons. I arrived at its banks and wadded in the shallow end, I have decided I wanted to live my life this way.

The river is named Unconditional Love.

For me there was never any doubt that I would cross this river.

Unconditional Love.  

It has been my touchstone phrase for every step of this crossing. The river has been deep at times and the stones shaky, until the point that I settle myself firmly into the lesson it offers.

I now see that the shaky footing, prior to stabilizing myself on each stone, has been a blessing. To steady myself,   I have had to release burdens along the way. I am grateful for seeing that my expectations, how I think things should be, are the cause of my resistance to understanding and acceptance. My expectations were heavy, causing me to struggle to even get up on the first stones of my crossing.

My Son.

For two and a half decades I proudly laid this title on this being who chose to come into my life. These two words carry so much weight: ownership as well as a cultural definition of male roles.

A big load I had to drop into the river was the idea that I have a say in the choices this person makes. There were mental battles about what I might say to still get my way, as well as considering if our future might mean being strangers to each other.

I am grateful for conversations with my sister and the time I spent journaling. These both provided me with greater perspective to see things outside of just what I wanted or expected. L’s happiness is the priority over my need to control and protect, even if that had been my habit of motherhood.

And with the letting go, do you know what I got back? A sense that I am unconditionally loved, given to me through all that L has shared and continues to share with me.

Gender Roles

Cultural roles of male and female are deeply embedded in my programming. I believed that anything different was meant to be unnatural and a conscious choice those ‘other’ people made just to cause trouble. I was a good girl so what did I know? (Very little.)

For me, I can let go of my mistaken gender beliefs because of mature beliefs in a Loving Universe. I know the cosmos to be full of infinite forms of living consciousness, where everything is possible.

Also in my thoughts is a recollection of Caroline Myss saying in a lecture that we are living in a time where all cultural systems are breaking down. I see the evidence of this with each passing decade, for example: high divorce rates and people turning away from religion. Gender roles have controlled people for millennia, to be part of society you had to fit into the few male or female roles available. This kept people from being true to themselves. I support being authentic over maintaining the status quo.

(Another Caroline quote I recall is ‘what is in one is in the whole’. This has me think that the more of us who feel whole and happy improves all of humanity.)

Pronouns

I struggled with the pronoun change step. I was just resistant. In a chat with my sis, she said to open my heart. I knew it wasn’t that … Unconditional Love was the goal. It was my head.  I was choosing to make it difficult to accept and that all I had to do was change my mind.  My use of different pronouns flowed more easily off my tongue after that – proof I had released another programmed belief.

(Post restored 4-18-22)