I remember when I got my first period

I remember when I got my first period.

I was, of all the places and situations, in Southland hospital, where I was visiting my dying Nana.

I had read in some instructional book for girls that this was a moment meant to define me as a woman. It was important, sure. I think I felt a little mortified, a little proud, a little uncertain. But I'm not sure my thoughts were particularly deep. I was alone in a cubicle, trying to figure out what I should do without a pad or tampon.

My body was announcing to me that I'd entered a new phase in my life. And my body was important to my identity, because bodies are. It had needs that would have to be met: on that first day I told you about; later, when I began to have cervical smears; later again, when I had my babies.

On that first day, I wasn't yet a feminist. But feminism dawned on me in the years that followed, even before I knew what to call it.

My feminism started with my body, because that's what I knew. I understood faintly that my body deserved respect: I knew it was somehow wrong I felt I had to slink around, use euphemisms, feel shame at the inevitable leaks during that time of the month.

But I resented the particular course that the blunt fact of my body was supposed to set me on. Resented that, with my scrawny frame, I was not attractive enough to fulfill the decorative function a woman should. Resentful I was meant to want to get married and have babies, my father handing me over physically to my husband. Resentful I was meant to save myself for my husband only.

And I was right: I was more than my body, if only just. My mind was sufficient to scrape through university entrance.

At university, I was spellbound by gender studies. I learned the theories of feminism, especially those of the 1970s thinkers, and I marvelled at the gumption of them, the originality of their ideas, their willingness to tip everything they were told they should believe on its head. Abortion, breastfeeding, domestic and sexual violence - they told me my body had dignity, its needs mattered. They told me I didn't have to be a virgin, a mother, accept what my dress size should be. They fought so my body wouldn't determine who or what I get to be.

Our bodies matter, but they do not define us. This paradox has always been at the heart of feminism. And we've done just fine.

My son is trans, now at university himself. He was a feminist before he transitioned, remained one after. He lives his own life in his own body: a body that once had needs like mine, but has changed over time to better match his wairua.

My son, his trans friends, do not threaten me as a woman or feminist. The fact of my uterus is wholly unaffected by his. That I might need to use different words to describe a male who needs cervical smears makes no odds to me whatsoever.

There's a small group of feminists, some of them amongst the wāhine toa of the 1970s, who believe that including trans women as women will take away their rights.

It's a little hard to engage with this argument, because it's not about logic. The feminist movement has taken on politicians, legislators, systems and industries for half a century, to win our bodily rights. These feminists who led the charge would have me believe my rights will now be undone by a small number of people who want to choose their pronouns.

Sorry: my identity as a woman is simply not that fragile. Nor is the tradition of feminism I belong to.

But this is not about the future. It's about the past.

I've puzzled over these feminists' views. It would be easy to dismiss them as mean-spirited or disingenuous - some certainly are.

But I don't think that's true of others. This generation of feminists stepped up to the plate for women's invisible, objectified and battered bodies: some, in protests or on pickets, put their own bodies on the line. Maybe seeing new generations questioning the link between our bodies and our gender feels like criticism, or a repudiation of all they did for us. It is not.

Those 1970s feminists tore up the script, showed how it was done, still do. But when you've torn up someone else's script, you need to understand when someone questions yours.

Challenging the ideas you've received - adapting them to a changing world - is no disrespect to the ones who went before. When I signed up as a card-carrying feminist, I knew I was laying the foundation for future feminists to one day challenge my own ideas. They will refuse to be defined, bodies or minds. That's feminism. It's not a movement if it isn't moving.

Every new generation deserves the chance to stand on the shoulders of giants. We, the older ones, should have the grace to let them.