This story is part of a collection of essays on civil rights.

My mother cared about her children more than anything in the world. She was sick for many years with cancer, but she never once complained or moved us to change our behavior because of it. I was not an easy son — I was struggling with my own insecurities and I would lash out in anger when she would push us. She was pushing me to be better, to have vision and maturity beyond my adolescence, but when my father would say that she was sick and ask for kindness, I didn’t understand. In my eyes she was always so strong.

I did understand that she was our champion. When an English teacher falsely accused my sister of plagiarism, she came down on the school like a fury. When I was lazy and procrastinated on a project — a situation I put her into more than once, I’m afraid to say — she jumped on me immediately and helped me drive it to completion. As children she wouldn’t let us have sleep overs, because she knew that is where many teenagers experimented with drugs and alcohol , and though we complained and were upset of being denied this part of childhood we understood that she was doing it because she cared about us and wanted to protect us.

As she loved us she so to cared for a great many people. She was thoroughly sincere and fiercely loyal. When she passed away, the funeral director estimated more than a thousand people attended the wake, with cars being turned away as we had overflown the parking lot. She was accepting and welcoming, and touched the lives of a great many people in our community.

I knew this about her, and knew that despite her traditional, conservative catholic values she did not engage in the homophobia or hatred that besotted a generation of the religious right. There is only one occasion that I remember being surprised by her actions, by seeing her put her religion before a modern, more progressive stance. Part of what makes it stand out is how trivial it was. We were active members of our church. I was an altar boy, went to Sunday school, and sung in the church choir — despite not being a particularly talented singer — because it’s what my mother wanted. In the eighth grade we went through a confirmation ceremony, one of the sacraments of the church that connects you to God and cements your relationship with the catholic faith. As part of the process you select a confirmation name from one of the saints, read their stories and adopt them as your guide. That’s how I became Austin Bernard Christopher Gibbons, and adopted St. Christopher to watch over me on my travels, just as he had watched over Jesus when carrying him across a torrential stream.

Many of my friends chose a name because it was funny to do so: Matthew T. chose St. Blaise because it sounded like blaze, and he was one of my friends who was amenable to the “drugs and alcohol” part of sleepovers that my mother was so worried about. I had not set out to become Austin Bernard Christopher Gibbons. I originally selected Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orléans, because I had been playing Age of Empires II and they feature an entire campaign around her story. Age of Empires got me to read more history than any of the classes I had ever taken, and the story of the Hundred Years’ War and St. Joan’s role in the liberation of Orleans was exactly what I wanted in a hero — young, prophesied, victorious, and playable in video game format. I chose St. Joan of Arc as my patron saint for confirmation, and was prepared to become Austin Bernard Joan Gibbons, fully aware that this was a female name but unabashed because Joan of Arc was a badass, sneaking across the French countryside in men’s clothing to save her people. Also, I could tell that this whole confirmation thing just didn’t matter that much.

St. Joan of Arc, adorned in men’s armor

I nevertheless remember being a little nervous telling my mother. I was a difficult child at times, and I usually knew when I was being difficult. I wanted to exert my own identity and wanted to take stances and establish myself. I think I picked this battle precisely because I thought it was unimportant, that it was something I could win and use to confide to myself my own uncertainties around gender and sexuality. But, I lost. For the first and only time that I remember from my childhood, my mother took a hardline stance with her faith and established that boys-should-be-boys. It wasn’t a grand battle. I didn’t cite visions of the Archangel Michael or wield my banner at les Tourelles. The entire exchange probably lasted three minutes. I stated my intentions and she balked. I tried to stick to my guns but was rebuked and deflected to St. Christopher. I was embarrassed, I came around, and that was the end of it.

There are a great many moments from my childhood where I can look back and see that I was wrong. There are only a few moments that I look back and still believe that she was in the wrong. My mother did so much to shape who I am, to instill beliefs and independence into my character, and I see myself becoming more of who she wanted me to be every year. But I am so too shaped by these few moments where I still disagree and fight her. In rejecting St. Joan as my patron saint, she was wrong. It’s almost too easy to say that now. Living in San Francisco during the 2015 supreme court case that decided for same-sex marriage was a joyous occasion, but not a surprising one. Gay Rights were already seen as the de facto standard across the city, and we were just waiting for the rest of the country to catchup. Now in 2018 the energy being poured into transgender equality carries the same spirit — advocates are fighting against the outdated, the entrenched, the backwards folk who don’t understand a progressive agenda; those who have failed to learn the lessons are stuck in their old ways, but the advocates will triumph in the end.

While I don’t agree with the dissidents of the transgender movement, I have empathy for their resistance. They see headlines like Why the Trans Bathroom Debate is Utterly Ridiculous and balk, especially if they’ve conceded that loving couples can do what they will in their own homes and their own communities They paint a picture of transgenderism entering their lives and draw the contrast. They are unwilling to confront the unfamiliar and find excuses to reject change from their faith, their community, or just from “the way things are”. Sometimes I wonder where my mother would be on this issue. Would she find sympathy for people struggling with their identity, or would she harbor that “God doesn’t make mistakes”? Shamefully, I’m sometimes relieved that I don’t have the answer to that question. But in that shame I probe inwards and understand I am not just afraid of being embarrassed by the dated sentiments of an aging generation, I’m afraid that many of my own values and even my self-identity are rooted in attitudes formed around the institutionalization of right and wrong, where stubbornness forbids an open heart and open conversation.

Joan of Arc met her demise amidst fear and anger; she was convicted of cross-dressing by her enemies mock her and embarrass her people. My own inquiry towards the other gender was met not with hatred or disgust but indifference, a casual adherence to the times. I was seen not as a visionary heroine that had to be burned at the stake, but a bratty son who was not taking the Sacrament of Confirmation seriously enough. My mother wanted me to feel the same pride and respect she had for her community, but I am left instead asking if I am pushing an agenda of obliviousness against those facing their own questions of identity — will I play the role my mother played, of rebuking someone’s self-expression out of indifference?

My fiancée is ancestrally Taiwanese, and my entire family comes from Ireland. Suffice it to say our 23andMe results were not particularly insightful. Our children will be faced with questions of identity that were never presented to their parents, even simple things like a survey that has a single choice for ethnicity will ask them to define themselves in a way that will require us to have a conversation with them about who they are, where they come from, and let them know that the world won’t always be receptive to biracial people. I’m not afraid of that question. Being hapa in the Bay Area won’t put them into particularly unique circumstance, and their immediate community likely will never challenge or pressure them in a way that other parts of the world might. I’m not afraid of what I will have to explain to them, but I am afraid that some day they will have to explain something to me. There are presently fringe issues already generating commentary like Kat Callahan’s perfect post analyzing trans-ethnic conversations. I’ll echo the conclusion here:

When they try to place themselves into new boxes; they’re ultimately missing the point. They have freedom to adopt these labels because of all of the work previously done by feminist and queer activists to break down the constructed concept of “heterocisnormativity.” What they don’t seem to realise is that ultimately, it is the destruction of the previous labels which was the whole purpose.

My aspirations for my own children, should they want to take a new direction with their own ethnic identity, are to be open, honest, and receptive, to share what I know of the history of identity in America and be sympathetic of youthful viewpoints. However, and triumphantly, the hard work and conversations around demographic construction already have many inroads, and modern day trailblazers are laying a foundation for both discourse and introspection. I want to instill in my children the same determination and independence that my Mother gave me, and I am left hopeful that the conversations I have with my children will be to teach them a new lesson of self-expression and respect for identity.