The Indi MP was scared to voice her opinion on the topic, then a conversation with a high school student started her on the path to accepting marriage equality.

If a plebiscite is held in 2017, she will vote yes.

A Wangaratta High School student shared her story in 2013 of how her father had realised he was gay and had found a new partner, and his children wanted him to be able to get married.

“I can remember almost just crying at the humanity of that story and I remember that bit of my brain going ‘of course, if you love each other, that’s marriage – it shouldn’t be about what gender you are’,” Ms McGowan said.

As a young girl, she was raised reading books involving marriage between a mum and dad, with clear roles for each in the relationship.

“All the stereotypes that I got growing up in the 50s and 60s of male and female marriage were all about gender,” she said.

“The thought that a man and a man, and a woman and a woman could get married – there was just such resistance to that concept, because ingrained in my head was this thought that marriage was a man and a woman and that’s what marriage meant.”

Ms McGowan opened up on her change of views while speaking on the topic of “respect and equity” at the Women’s Health Goulburn North East annual general meeting.

She admitted she tried to “weasel my way out” of a marriage equality conversation with her three gender diverse nieces and nephews, but their stories of needing to leave the North East to be respected “was a real wake-up call”.

The MP said she was up for the challenge of being more accepting and respectful.

“I don’t think you’re born with it, I think it is a journey and it probably goes on all your life,” she said.

“For me, it’s important to allow myself to have time to be generous with myself, and not just hit myself over the head because I’m not perfect, and keep growing wisdom or knowledge of that unconscious bias.”

In speech to the WHGNE meeting, Ms McGowan quoted US presidential candidate Hilary Clinton.

“Human rights are women’s rights, human rights are girls’ rights,” she said.

She also spoke about the challenges of being accepted as a “woman farmer” in the 1980s when farmers were only ever called “he”, not “she”.

Her uncle had told her not to use the term farmer until she could pick up a fly-blown sheep and put it in the back of a ute.

“You know what it’s like, I thought I was pretending and I had been caught out,” Ms McGowan said.

“Working in that environment, initially, was extraordinarily difficult.”

But another woman stood up for her on that day and she realised she could farm differently and still be successful and respected.

WHGNE executive officer Susie Reid said the organisation’s campaign was about putting “respect and equity” at the centre of changes women wanted to see.

“I challenge you to think about the messages behind statements like ‘boys don’t cry’, ‘that’s girls’ work’ or ‘you kicked like a girl’ – they are meant as insults, to boys and to girls,”  she said.

“Unconscious bias is a reason, but not an excuse, of women always being asked to take the minutes or to get coffee, when male employees of the same level are never asked to do that by managers.”

About 50 women in the room at the Quality Hotel Wangaratta Gateway were challenged to think of what they could do to change gender inequity and sexism.

“It’s one way we can start to address a culture and stop violence against women,” Ms Reid said.