Gender transition – how to hear all the voices and understand the silences

The issues around gender transition pop around the media like meteors.. They pop, they flash, they cause momentarily awe, or blindness in random spectators, perhaps a little ripple of controversies and vigorous argument… and they disappear. People who live with this subject on a permanent basis perhaps are reacting in a much more muted fashion, maybe just to give a tired nod and a shrug. Because living with Gender Transition is like accommodating someone new in your family. It is for real, for ever, for goodness sake and one has to find a way to live with it.

On Saturday we delivered the training for people with professional or personal interest in impact of the gender transition on families.Our aim, apart from informing and sharing own stories, was to give participants some lived experience what it is like to be a member of a family, or a relationship in which Transition is a permanent feature.

The workshop proved to be a wonderful experience for all. Firstly, due to the courageous spirit of participants willing to dive into the pool of experiential interactions. Secondly, thanks to warmth and hospitality of Stillpoint Spaces, which undoubtedly facilitated the openness and relaxed atmosphere in the room.We were overwhelmed by the level of involvement during the workshop and wonderful feedback that came after. The participants valued the space to explore their views and doubts and also the fact that the facilitators were generous and honest with their personal experience and struggles, which they thought added unique value to the learning.

We hope that our workshop created the little ripples which will gradually give Gender Transition more opportunities to speak its own voice and become a permanent star on the firmament of the news. The one that we accept, and reckon with, rather than a meteor that creates short spurts of unrest and vanishes.

“No voice missing – Systemic approach to understanding gender transition” delivered by Anna Jezuita and Aris Papaefstathiou in Stillpoint Spaces, London on 9th of June 2018