“I have learned that there is no greater pain than the pain of resisting change.”

These have been words to live by for Rebekah Robertson, actor and human rights advocate who this week became a published author with her book About a Girl, a reflection on her experiences raising her transgender child, Georgie Stone.

The formidable mother and daughter team is well known in transgender youth rights in Australia since they sought permission for Georgie to begin puberty-blocking medication in her early teens, leading to the successful 2013 challenge to the family court’s jurisdiction on making early medical decisions for transgender youth. Their profile remains high: Georgie recently made her debut in Neighbours as an actor playing the first transgender character on the show; Robertson is the founder of Transcend, a support group for families of transgender children.

It’s here that Robertson often encounters the grief of parents experiencing unfamiliar change in their lives. About a Girl is not explicitly about grief, and grief was not Robertson’s experience of her daughter’s journey to affirming her gender. Part mama bear memoir, part contribution to the political record, above all it is a mother’s story of belief in her children. It is also a story of a family, over time, with growing children and loss and change and challenges.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Georgie Stone’s female identity became apparent very early on on in her life. Photograph: Supplied

It is with characteristic empathy – something Robertson says comes with the territory of being an actor – that she strives to understand the perspective of others who may be feeling this grief.

“I think this is a normal human reaction to change. We don’t much like it, we do resist it. And that is very much about letting go of an idea. I think it takes a lot of courage sometimes for parents to let go.”

Robertson did not experience grief in this way. For her there was total consistency with who Georgie was, there was no “change from one thing to another” in her mind. After giving birth to twins in 2000, both of whom were assigned male, in contrast to her brother Harry, Georgie’s female identity became apparent very early on. This was expressed in both her relationship to her body and her interests. From Buzz Lightyear to toy trucks, “[Georgie] feminised everything” and Robertson found herself bracing for the judgment of others.

Robertson speaks with precision about her intentions as a parent and describes a distinction between her child’s experiences and her own. She knows Georgie’s story is not hers to tell; she can only tell her own. These lines are drawn painfully at times when she knows that by Georgie participating in society, she will be hurt. There is an extraordinarily hard moment where a very young Georgie is forced to use the boys’ bathroom at the swimming pool and Robertson waits for her outside the door, to the sounds of her child’s trauma: “When I recall this moment,” she writes, “I think about how hard it is to dress wet skin quickly.”

Robertson now says of writing about such things for her book: “I’m not inside that experience. I’m travelling alongside her. I couldn’t be with her. I couldn’t take those blows. Those emotional blows and those difficult moments, I couldn’t take on myself. So I think I could only try and protect her as best I could and show up every time she needed me. ”

Allowing Georgie to be herself – and to protect her path to doing so – was against the views of almost everyone Robertson knew. The sense of her isolation in these early years, as she recalls it now, is palpable. It was a time when resources and public and professional opinion was overwhelmingly damaging to her child.

And as Georgie went from dysphoric to suicidal, everyone around Robertson wanted to blame the mother.

“It felt like a really invidious position to be in. Because I felt like I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. I felt much happier to be damned if I did support Georgie and that was something I could live with. I could absolutely look myself in the mirror if I supported her and showed her I loved her no matter what. Even if everybody else thought I was doing the wrong thing. I could live with that much better than the alternative.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A younger Georgie Stone after a makeover by friends.

There is a ferocity to Robertson’s commitment to her children, a take no prisoners approach to changing the world, so that the world can’t change them. She speaks of parenting as a sacred responsibility.

“I think it is so important in raising young people to listen to them and to give them the skills to do what they need to do to create the world they want to live in. It’s not my world anymore. It’s their world. What I want is for there to be equity for our young people so the potential they have can be unlocked.

“We are living in a precarious moment in history as human beings on this planet. What if one of the great minds is a young trans or gender diverse person and that person is able to flourish and fulfil their potential and is able to contribute to this planet? I really feel as though trans and gender diverse people have a lot to offer the world. [They have] a really wonderful and unique perspective on things and their contribution is as valuable and unique as anybody else’s. I want all of our kids to reach their full potential and be given the opportunities.”

Robertson set this example herself alongside a teenage Georgie when they were both heavily involved in the advocacy and lobbying to have the family court removed from all gender affirming medical decisions for transgender children.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rebekah Robertson and Georgie Stone with their family at the Australian of the year awards.

The resolve this required did not come without cost to the family. Harry’s needs were lost in the economisation of time and the interrogation of Georgie’s identity and family left its mark on her too.

For all the challenges and judgement over the years, Robertson believes in the essential kindness of humans.

“There’s a lot going on politically at the moment which is incredibly febrile around the western world. Those forces are against us. I actually believe that generally speaking people want to do the right thing. They want to be supportive. They want to understand. There are extremes that are very loud.

“Generally speaking, people are open to learning about trans people and a perspective they haven’t considered before. I actually believe people want to be kind. I know that sometimes the world doesn’t give me the that evidence, but I do believe it in my heart of hearts.”