Sh*t To Help You Show Up June 17, 2022
It's a boy! Or maybe not.
A Facebook friend who recently found out she was going to be a grandmother for the second time gleefully posted the other day, “It’s a boy!” My first response was to be happy for her joy, since she seemed pretty joyful about it and who couldn’t use some joy these days?
My second thought was, I wonder how long it will be until the prevalence of out trans, nonbinary, and intersex people will impress enough upon our cultural consciousness that sexing your baby before they’re even born becomes understood as the exercise in futility it actually is?
According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, adult nonbinary individuals in the United States currently number 1.2 million. That makes nonbinary folks 0.5% of the adult population. The Institute includes in this total figure transgender folks who consider themselves nonbinary. When it factors in those trans individuals that do not consider themselves nonbinary, the number of transgender adults rises to 1.4 million. This might not seem like a significant percentage, but it’s worth remembering that this is only a count of adults.
The percentage of individuals that identify as nonbinary or transgender grows markedly in younger age groups. The Institute calculates that 1.4% of children 13-17 years old in the U.S. identify as transgender, which doesn’t even factor in nonbinary kids who aren’t trans. That’s a nearly 300% increase!
And then there are intersex people. According to studies, intersex individuals account for 1.7% of the world population— approximately the same percentage of folks with red hair. This redhead says, “Y’all, that’s a lot of people.”
I actually chose not to find out the supposed sex of my children before they were born. Not because it occurred to me they might be transgender. I just wanted to “submit to the mystery”. But even that submission to mystery didn’t prepare me for my oldest to come out as trans a few years ago. That revelation completely shocked me. I had no idea that was going to happen.
Luckily, for both him and me, I got over my shock and focused on supporting and advocating for him without equivocation. I did, however, have to go through a process of disentangling us from the stories I’d told myself about who he was and what our relationship would look like. There was real grieving involved. It was hard, sometimes heartwrenching work. But I was clear from the beginning that I wasn’t going to let my attachment to my stories get in the way of him telling his story as authentically as possible.
I don’t want to steal anyone’s happiness. If finding out the potential sex of your or someone else’s baby brings you joy, have at it. It’s simply worth remembering that what you’re discovering is only a potential, not a static, immutable fact.
Not only when considering children’s gender, but anytime we tell ourselves a story about who someone is we have to hold that story very, very lightly. Otherwise, we might be obstructing the full expression of their integrity.
We’re all question marks, not periods. Until the very last moment of our lives, we are more potential than actual, more fluid than fixed. Holding onto that reality while loving people for the long haul is complicated and poignant. Even when things go well overall, they never go exactly the way we expect. We can love the surprises and unexpected detours and still mourn the road we thought we were taking.
The times in my life when I’ve fallen the furthest out of my integrity were all periods when I was more attached to my story about what was supposed to happen than dealing with what was actually happening. I hurt myself and other people repeatedly with my stubborn refusal to simply be with what actually was.
My early years with Otto were plagued with post-partum depression because of my dogged attachment to an idea of the mother I was supposed to be. This story was only vaguely connected to the mother I actually am. My marriage was 10 years of that stubbornness as well, to my detriment and his. In both cases, I mulishly persisted in trying to bash a square peg into a round hole for years.
Dr. Henry Cloud defines integrity as “the courage to meet the demands of reality”, which sounds very noble and inspiring but is actually just self-help code for “not running away from shit.” To meet the demands of reality means not avoiding conflict, admitting when something’s not working, and releasing control of things that were maybe never yours to control in the first place. It means confronting mistreatment and injustice and setting boundaries, while always keeping a small door open in your heart for transformation.
It means letting people be who they are even when that’s not who you thought they were. It means letting yourself be who you are even when you’re not who you ever imagined you would be, which is sometimes the hardest thing of all.
What stories have you told yourself about someone else that you had to let go of?
If you are an integrity nerd like me (and why would you be here otherwise?) and you find the machinations of the beauty industry both boggling and fascinating, you should check out The Unpublishable. Long-time beauty journalist Jessica DeFino writes all of the things that the beauty industry should be saying and definitely isn’t. And she’s gorgeous and funny, to boot.
Bringing integrity to the beauty industry, one newsletter at a time.
FYI, a new thing is happening here at Let Your Life Speak. I’m setting up some posts that I send out to my paying folks to unlock and be available for everyone about five weeks after they originally publish. The first one will unlock Saturday, June 25th. Folks on my free list should get an email letting you know, so check it out then.
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Indeed- our entire life is a continual becoming- a question mark, as you say. When we become too fixed, we die. Here’s to the journey!