4 minute read
Feature Story: Being free to be us!
Being free to be us!
By Anthony Kilner
Our Supernal feature this month covers the topic of transgender children. Mornington Peninsula Mum, Celeste de Vis and her transgender daughter, Charlotte has graciously agreed to share the journey of their transition as a family with us.
From a young age, Charlotte questioned her relationship with her gender identity; she had always innately known that she didn’t quite fit into the ‘male’ identity that her biological sex had assigned her. For a young person, not fitting into the norm can be a confusing and distressing situation; however Celeste was determined to learn as much as she could to help ease Charlotte through the transition process. In doing so, they have strengthened not only their bond and understanding of one another, but their knowledge of their own truths and what it means to be your authentic self.
Within seconds of knocking on the door, a young girl flashed into sight, un-snipped the door, said “Come in!” and disappeared again. At this point I was greeted warmly by mum, Celeste. This was the start of a fun, chatty afternoon with a beautiful family.
Life often throws challenges at us and, in many ways; life is about solving those challenges. Depending on a person’s life, social standing, wealth, health and other factors, these challenges are very much based on an individual’s circumstances, even though the challenges may look and feel the same. We can empathise with people’s problems only if we can slightly understand what they are experiencing – this helps them and us, to at least understand enough to care.
The best way to understand is to listen and wow, has my world expanded because of meeting these girls. They live in a place and space where bigotry, fear, and bullying is the norm, yet with love, respect and the support of their community, life is so much more fun for these girls. Plus they are committed to helping others too.
In fact, helping their community, making acceptance the norm, being able to help educate people as to the plight of their community without fear and judgement has become a way of life. They are special indeed, however it’s been born from ignorance. This is the story of Celeste, Charlotte and Renee - it’s a beautiful one!
Meet Celeste
Celeste is in her late 40s, and is a 50s and 60s retro loving tragic - the colour, the look and the sound that was that era. She is bright, bubbly and very aware of her life and what’s impacted her. To understand this story, we have to go back a few years.
Celeste was single in her mid-30s, desperately wanting a child and with no suitable partner in sight, Celeste made the decision to go through the IVF program and become a single parent. This was made possible by her father who helped out financially, but more importantly by law reform allowing single women access to the IVF program.
Celeste gave birth to a son, Josiah in January 2006. He was perfect and life was moving along according to plan. After 2.5 years, the caring mum was in a position to expand her family and in 2008 Renee joined the family as a foster child. Celeste had Josiah – the son, and Renee – the daughter, and gender roles were set. At age four dynamics started to shift in the de Vis household. Josiah said, “My name is Charlotte and I am not a boy anymore!”
The insistent, consistent and persistent nature of Charlotte’s protestations over the next four years led Celeste to struggle with what this would mean for her family. She had been brought face to face with a concept that was difficult to understand, and her inability to grasp the idea at first sparked a sense of despair and frustration – what was wrong?
With a diploma of education under her belt, Celeste understood that children have a tendency to swing between gender play naturally but Charlotte wouldn’t let it go. At the age of eight, Celeste had become aware that there was no way around it. Charlotte knew innately that she was a girl, and the only thing to do was to truly affirm Charlotte as her daughter. In doing so, both their lives changed forever.
The first two or three years were hard on the family as accepting their truth resulted in the loss of friends and community as they introduced Charlotte. Celeste stated that, “One of the biggest losses was our church family.
