Please feel free! Just call me Alexa there.

And even there… it seems to me she’s roguish, rather than actually big and strong. She gets into scrapes. To me that means she gets into trouble for how she is, and her getting into trouble is endearing, somehow. Even the stereotype doesn’t quite let her be masculine and confident. It says she’s scrappy — a fighter who dukes it out for every scrap of recognition she gets.

Also, she’s a kid. I’ve never heard of the tomboy stereotype becoming the executive wearing a suit and tie in the boardroom.

But… sometimes it’s not so easy. Sometimes the short hair gets you comments every day from your family. Sometimes going to the Hair Cuttery means thirty-minute fights.

Sometimes your family buys you perfume and lipstick for your birthday, exasperated with giving subtle hints.

Sometimes everyone around you calls you “sonny” and uses “he” and your family doesn’t understand why in the world you’re indignant, because wanting people to respect both your gender and your expression at the same time is asking far too much.

Sometimes you’re walking around in a muscle shirt showing off and your mom has to stop you and tell you you look strong and feminine, turning a moment of pride into a long lecture about how it’s okay to accept yourself, as long as you call yourself the right words while you’re doing it. And you picked the wrong ones, because you never said you wanted to be a boy, even if you never told anyone you were kind of mad you weren’t born one, sometimes.

Because if you said that, they’d either have a heart attack or start calling you “he,” and even if they did that second one, then you’d have to get annoyed at them all over again… when they’re trying.

Sometimes people think it’s awesome that you’re muscular but can’t share your pride when you use a heavier weight, because that will make you bulky, and muscular women are supposed to be lean, and you can always just do more reps with the little pink ones. Don’t you want to do that? Be reasonable, here.

Sometimes even the hair that supposedly no one things anything of is bought with screaming and cursing and tears. Sometimes people know that what you’re doing isn’t “tomboy,” because “tomboy” is something they can shrug off, and this they can’t, and it bothers the heck out of them for some reason you’ve never understood.

Today’s society seems to have opened the doors for girls and women, giving them the freedom to dress, act, and present themselves in a truly feminine fashion, or taking on more masculine characteristics. Boys and men, however, are reluctant to show any interest in this area because of the potential backlash from society. This stereotype of how men SHOULD be, in my opinion, presents a double standard. The tightrope men are walking needs to change, taking the pressure off them – young and old – and allowing them to explore the feminine side. The true impact that this may have is unknown, but if you suppress it what will happen in the long run?

I am so grateful that we are progressing as a society and moving towards acceptance (albeit slowly). I can’t help but wonder how much easier my childhood would have been to have been accepted and not shunned for being “different”.

Thank you for sharling your lives so openly.

Gender variance means something, but we cannot know what it means immediately. We wait and see.

Human beings are very bad at this wait and see thing. They need support in this situation. Which I why I urge parents of gender variant kids to seek out communities to share their feelings with. These communities, by the way, are very non-judgemental. The ones I belong to are supportive of parents decisions, across the spectrum. The only thing we all have in common in our parenting is the knowledge that these feelings are deep, important, no one’s fault, and that we must struggle to find the best way to help our kids make their way safely through their childhoods. Different kids, different environments, different cultures, demand different responses. But we can all help each other. At the core, we accept. Then we work out the best compromise our situation allows.