Holy Acts of Becoming: Sacred Reclamations and Gender in Children’s Literature, part 2 by Elanur Williams

part 1 was posted yesterday

Liminality of the Soul

I have always adored fairy tales and folk tales, as they were the original, shimmering mirrors of my own interior world. In my own spiritual formation, I found my earliest refuge in the ‘monsters’ of the canon. I was drawn to the Selkie, whose power lived in her shed skin, and the shapeshifters who refused to be fixed in a single narrative. These were my mysterious teachers who offered profound knowledge, that I might have an interior life that does not match the exterior expectations of the world. By re-reading these archetypes, I see that the ‘liminal’ is not a place of exclusion, but the most sacred place of all: the threshold where the divine creates.

The traditional “curse” of the beast in fairy tales can be approached as a narrative of liminality, an invitation to exist in the “in-between” where nature and spirit intersect. This “curse” is, fundamentally, a colonial misunderstanding of power and a fear of the fluid. Figures like the trickster, the shapeshifter, and the mermaid reveal that the “soul” has never been bound by a static form.

When I look at the core tenets of world faiths, I find the trans journey maps perfectly onto the most sacred concepts of spiritual transformation:

• Rituals of Naming: From Judeo-Christian to Islamic and Buddhist traditions, receiving a new name is a profound awakening. When trans youth and adults choose their names, they participate in a lineage of spiritual self-determination.
• Rebirth as Sacrament: The natural world is full of divine allegories for transition. The chrysalis is not a “tragedy of the changing body,” but a celebratory resurrection.

We must move away from the colonial instinct to view the human body as a closed, static system. In the natural world, fluidity is not a ‘deviation’; it is a survival strategy and a mark of vitality. From sequential hermaphroditism in marine species—where organisms naturally transition their biological sex in response to environmental cues—to the constant, rhythmic shedding of skin and growth of new wings in the insect world, nature speaks in the language of becoming. To be trans is to align oneself with the Earth’s own restless, metamorphic creativity. The trans journey is, therefore, one of the most ‘natural’ experiences possible; it is the soul honoring its capacity to bloom, shift, and evolve, refusing to be fossilized in a form that no longer serves its growth.

Intersectional Reclamation

As philosopher María Lugones articulated through the framework of the ‘coloniality of gender,’ the imposition of a rigid, binary, and hierarchical gender system was a fundamental strategy of colonial control, used to dismantle Indigenous social structures and enforce European patriarchal values. Additionally, sociologist Oyèrónké Oyěwùmí has demonstrated how gender categories, and the ‘bio-logic’ that links anatomy to social destiny, were imposed upon Yoruba society, effectively ‘inventing’ the subordinate category of ‘woman’ where it had not previously existed as a social hierarchy. Colonialism enforced a shift where the body was “read” as the primary indicator of a person’s value, labor, and rights. This approach turned anatomy into a tool of surveillance and marginalization. By centering intersectional, BIPOC-led narratives, we rediscover ancestral traditions that celebrate gender expansiveness as a spiritual gift long before the binary was codified. In Hindu mythology, the synthesis of Shiva and Parvati into the non-binary Ardhanarishvara reflects a cosmic balance. Indigenous Two-Spirit traditions have long held space for those who embody both masculine and feminine spirits as healers and bridges. In my own ancestral Alevi tradition, the soul is understood as fundamentally genderless.

When we center these narratives, we invite the next generation to see their existence not as a disruption of a divine plan, but as a participation in it. Transition is a homecoming to the soul. It is the moment a character steps into their true power, speaking a name that resonates with the frequency of their spirit.

Toward a Fifth Wave Canon

If the Fifth Wave is a movement of spiritual reconstruction, it must also be an ecological one. We cannot heal our relationships with our bodies while remaining indifferent to our relationship with the Earth. This wave recognizes that the colonial ‘bio-logic’—which sought to cage the human soul within a rigid, anatomy-bound binary—can be approached as part of the same logic that seeks to cage the Earth as a resource to be mastered rather than a kin to be honored. A Fifth Wave feminism that centers trans liberation is inherently an ecological project; it recognizes that there is no ‘natural order’ that demands the silencing of the queer soul or the exploitation of the land. By reclaiming our right to define our own bodies, we are also reclaiming our right to belong to the Earth in all our complexity. We are teaching the next generation that the sacredness of a mountain, a river, or a forest is found in its wild, untamable changes, and that their own lives are a continuation of that holy, untamable cycle

Whenever I encounter the word “canon,” I feel a sense of violence and the history of what has been excluded. When trans children are denied access to the language of the sacred, they are robbed of their cosmic belonging. By rethinking the canon, we can offer children a treasury of stories where transformation is holy, where naming oneself is an act of prayer, and where the divine looks upon a trans child not with condemnation, but with unconditional love. We give them a world where they do not have to choose between their identity and their spirituality, a world where being exactly who they are is the most faithful thing they can do. This is a profound spiritual gift to youth: the knowledge that their fluidity is natural, their complexity is divine, and their existence has always been celebrated.

An Invitation to Reflect

I offer these questions as a threshold, a way to bridge these concepts with your own spiritual journey:

• On Naming: If you consider your own journey of growth, what names or labels have you shed, and what new ones have you adopted that reflect your true spirit?
• On Collective Care: As feminists, what steps are required as we move towards a proactive, spiritual reconstruction of how we approach and center trans children and youth?
• On Transformation: What does the concept of “holy transformation” mean to you?

Elanur has been writing a series of analyses of children’s literature which we have posted on FAR. Her other pieces are below:

Brave Girls, Bad Witches: Age, Agency, and Anxiety in C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia

Witches and Queens in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia

The Creative Divine: L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon

Grief, Grace, and the Eco-Feminist Legacy of Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia

BIO: Elanur Williams writes from Ireland. She holds an MPhil in Children’s Literature and a MS Ed in Literacy Studies. She is a teacher who specializes in reading and writing instruction, as well as a poet whose work has appeared in the Ekphrastic Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, and Citron Review, among others. Above all, she is inspired daily by her daughter, whose presence imbues her life with joy, magic, and a sense of limitless possibility.