Boys and girls experience gender variance in very different ways.
It is perhaps the only way in which being female is easier than being male. A young girl reaching outside her gender stereotype is encouraged. Sports? Yes! Science and math? Of course! Pants? Short hair? Sure. Oh, there’s a price to pay if she gets too boyish—especially as puberty approaches. She’ll get stuck into a category—tomboy. But even that is seen as transitory—nothing to worry about. Puberty will straighten her out!
If a boy who reaches out for feminine things is ‘encouraged’ social services is notified. Nobody calls social services about a short haired girl in pants.
So parents of children born as girls slip through the early years with only a vague sense of unease. No, the gender non-conforming girl, who may in fact be a young transman, doesn’t show up on the radar until she (or he) freaks out as puberty approaches. Perhaps this child has been granted the trappings of masculinity, allowed the hair, the clothes, the scholastic endeavors, the athleticism—and now, it isn’t enough. The child needs the name, the pronoun, the social role, is horrified at the thought of breasts, of menstruation…
We can see clear distinctions here; not a tomboy, then. Something else. A struggle for identity—after a childhood that more or less worked.
For boys it’s different. Supression is instant and automatic. While the girl cuts her hair short, the boy aches for long hair. While the girl wears pants, (and freaks out when forced into dresses or skirts for formal occasions) the boy must live full time incognito. The skirt, the dress, is the red-line. A lot of parents compromise there, buying shirts and pants from the girls department for their non-conforming boys. But wearing a skirt, a dress, (and female shoes) is Dress Up. It’s play. It’s an indoor activity. Perhaps with the shades down. Sibling exposure, whether their friends are allowed to see the spectacle, has to be negotiated.
The girl skips down the street in a baseball cap in tattered jeans. In broad daylight. Tomboy!
Sarah Hoffman’s family and my own are trying to allow for the existence of the male tomboy. The tomgirl! Look at him! Isn’t he cute! He’ll probably grow out of it, but my, isn’t he pretty! Adorable. Give him time to figure it out. You know, sometimes, they’re trans. I heard that. Well, give him time, give him time. Does the child like to be called he or she? He’s OK with either pronoun, as long as you’re not teasing him? He prefers he? OK then.
(I hear someone screaming, BATHROOMS! WHAT ABOUT THE BATHROOMS!—another post. Don’t worry. We’ll get to the all-important bathroom soon enough.)
That’s the world we want to create. A world in which very young boys and girls do not need to ’socially transition’ because they are granted freedom of gender expression. At puberty there’s a rubicon; a battle rages between those who feel that puberty in a gender causing dysphoria should be delayed and bypassed, and those who feel that puberty is necessary for the child to fully understand themselves. This is a serious question, and it may be answered differently for different children.
But for the little ones, could we just let them be?
We are fortunate to live in two of the most enlightened cities in the country on either coast; doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes catch hell, but on the whole, our kids have been free to be Tomgirls. Pink boys, Sarah calls them. We need a name. Things with names are normal! Things without names, things with only clinical names, are weird and horrible. Lovecraftian. The Thing Without a Name!
People confuse the word ‘transgender’ with ‘transexual,’ not understanding it to be an umbrella term encompasing different kinds of people. So when you say ‘transkid’, people think you’re performing SRS on a toddler. People should know better; we could teach people better, but at a certain point, you give up on a label and go around the landmine. It’s hard to be against a progressive; easy to pillory and mock a Liberal.
Tomboys and tomgirls. It’s gender freedom. Freedom of expression.
You got a problem with freedom? Why do you hate freedom?
What are you, Al Qaeda?
POSTSCRIPT: Social transition complete with pronouns, living in stealth, may well be necessary for many children in many places. I don’t have a kid like that or live in a place like that, but I respect parents who do. What Sarah and I are trying to do, trying to advocate, is to hold open as many options for our kids as possible for as long as possible, to give them time to understand themselves. We’re lucky. We have nothing but sympathy and admiration for those in tougher places. Our hopes are with you.
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