Revisiting Episode 22: An unexpected gender evolution
How one woman’s journey shows that gender can be explored with humour and heart
This episode was first aired 7th May 2021, listen here:
In this week’s episode, Sasha and I speak with Lauren, a 32-year-old lesbian whose life story offers a refreshing, hopeful perspective on gender. Having moved fluidly across the gender spectrum over the years, Lauren shows that being gender non-conforming doesn’t have to be a crisis—it can be creative, dynamic, and even joyful.
Lauren’s reflections challenge the heavy, urgent tone that often surrounds discussions about gender today. Rather than pathologising or medicalising difference, she invites us to imagine a world where gender expression can be explored with curiosity and playfulness. Her story is a reminder that growing up outside conventional gender norms can lead to a rich, self-aware adulthood rather than confusion or despair.
Growing up, Lauren was “the good child” in a family where her older sister was seen as the masculine rebel. It surprised everyone when Lauren turned out to be the lesbian, not her sister. As a young adult, Lauren found comfort and confidence in drag and in men’s clothing, describing the butch persona as easier to inhabit—and, for about a decade, she lived happily as a butch lesbian. For her, being butch felt like a kind of third gender, a space between categories where she could fully be herself.
At one stage, Lauren identified as trans, but later came to see her gender as something more fluid. Over the years, she’s watched how the trans movement has reshaped lesbian identity, noting that many of her butch friends either transitioned or softened their presentation. While she supported their choices, she also felt an unspoken grief—a quiet loss of the butch culture she had known and loved.
Lauren’s reflections extend beyond her own story. She and her wife have navigated family life and motherhood together, confronting the challenges of raising children in a world where gender discussions have become increasingly medicalised. She’s passionate about protecting children from the pressure to “choose” an identity too soon, arguing that our first duty should be to their long-term wellbeing, not political fashion. “When eleven-year-olds are being asked if they want to preserve their fertility,” she says, “we’ve lost perspective.”
Her question—“Can we be more playful with our gender?”—sits at the heart of this episode. Why must every deviation from the norm be categorised, medicalised, or politicised? Why can’t exploration and ambiguity be part of the human experience? Lauren’s story is a testament to resilience, curiosity, and the power of living authentically without needing every aspect of identity to be fixed or defined.
Links and Further Reading