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While I have posted an article or two on Medium, I find that I enjoy reading other people's contributions so much that I spent little time contributing to the site. Today I received the usual email with a list of articles that are recommended by Medium's staff or by people I follow.
One of the articles was from someone about life's choices and lessons.
It was an unusual topic to find it's way to my list of recommended reading, but since I am friends on Facebook with the person who recommended it, I decided to read it anyway. The article was about non-monogamy. The article, while an interesting read, had little impact on me from a personal, relationship perspective. However, the author used gender references that I didn't understand and had to read more about. Most of the time I blame my ignorance on the language since English is not my native language, but it was not the case here.
What was an eye-opener for me, was the extent of social prejudices people suffer because of gender identification. The new term I learnt today was gender dysphoria. I even learnt that my own gender identification has a name, and at 48 years of age, I didn't know that. Cisgender. It sounds weird, but that is as much of a weirdness to me as some of the technical terminologies I deal with might be to non-engineers I suppose.
What triggered my desire to read (aside from the article on Medium) more on the subject, was a true lack of understanding I have of some of the struggles of my fellow human beings.
I pride myself on being open-minded enough not to judge people by whatever definition they have for themselves. As a life coach in training, it is expected from me to be understanding, open-minded and non-judgmental when working with a client.
Born and raised in South Africa, racial prejudice has always been something that I was familiar with. Not agreed with, but it still is a reality for many people living in this country. What I learnt today was that my ignorance could also be a barrier to understanding another group of people that could potentially be my future clients.
I don't find it difficult to accept that I might be wrong about something, I am far from perfect. What I do find difficult to accept is that my worldview, as imperfect as it is, can be so small and ignorant about the issues that people struggle with.
In my sci-fi series, The 3rd Gender, I explored some issues around a third gender. Although in the world of my stories genetic engineering was the culprit for a lot of unhappiness. Today I learnt that the world as it now is more complicated and filled with pain than the world I created in my books.
Reading about gender dysphoria and the relationship issues that are an inherent part of our lives (irrespective of gender identity) was a true learning experience for me today.
A lesson I hope that will help me be a good life coach, but more importantly, make me a better and more understanding human being.
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