Welcome to #TransTuesday! This week we’re discussing something you’re perfectly aware of, because you are a human who was a child that grew up in this society. And if you’ve ever set foot in a clothing or toy store, it couldn’t be more obvious: GENDERED CHILDHOODS.
I am, of course, talking about the ways in which kids, both now and when we were kids ourselves, have every single facet of our society shouting at us that YOU ARE A BOY or YOU ARE A GIRL and BOYS DO X and GIRLS DO Y.
And you’re more aware of it than you know. The most obvious that still affects us as adults, are gendered bathrooms. Girls go here, and boys go there. You DO NOT CROSS THE LINE into the bathroom you’re not allowed in. It’s one of the first things you learn.
I remember once in grade school I was walking back from the bathroom, and I was the only one in the hall, and I’d brought one of those small rubber ultra bouncy-balls to play with at recess. And I was bouncing it in the hall as I went back to class.
And you see where this is going, right? It bounced into the girls’ bathroom and I FROZE. I was TERRIFIED. What do I do?! There aren’t any girls around that I could ask to go get it for me. And I couldn’t find a teacher and ask because then I’d get in trouble for bouncing the ball in the hallway!
Eventually I sprinted in, found the ball, and sprinted back out. And I remember feeling… terrified I’d be punished, but also some weird thrill because I always wanted to know what it looked like (also because, spoiler, I was always a girl and that’s where I should have been going).
I can’t tell you how old I was at the time, I suspect pretty young, but I don’t know. I have no other memories surrounding that moment, for reasons I talked about in the trans tuesdays on TRANS GRIEF (dissociation from dysphoria has made most of my pre-transition life a blank).
Anyway, I don’t know what would have happened if I’d been caught, but in my overly active imagination writer mind, I was sure I’d be expelled and grounded until I was 20. Of course that’s not what would have happened, BUT-
My imagination didn’t come up with that out of nowhere. It was seeded by how INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT it was made to me that you ONLY used the bathroom you were told to. Were SUPPOSED TO. Go in the BOYS BATHROOM, you BOY. It was very confusing.
And everyone reading this knows of the “blue is for boys, pink is for girls” nonsense our society flings around. It’s nonsense, and is of course part of THE FALSE DICHOTOMY (see its trans tuesday for more info).
Spoiler alert, the colors used to be reversed! Pink was for boys, and blue was for girls… and it was for JUST EXACTLY AS SEXIST A REASON.
“…a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department said, ‘The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls.’
‘The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.’”
The article also says kids of all genders used to wear white dresses until they were 6 or 7, but it calls seeing a boy in one of them “unsettling.” THAT ARTICLE IS FROM 2011, good lord. Who am I kidding, it could have been written today and someone might’ve said the same.
Anyway, not being allowed to like pink ALSO very much contributed to my own gender dysphoria, and was part of why I felt so broken. It’s the societal false dichotomy that’s broken, not trans people, but you certainly feel like the problem must be YOU, because society says so.
I discussed not being ALLOWED to like pink (a color! My mother wouldn’t let me like a COLOR!) when I was a kid, because it was for girls only, in the trans tuesday on UNEXPECTED BONUSES OF TRANSITION… like getting to embrace the color you always loved but weren’t allowed to like.
Now think about toy stores (well, most don’t exist anymore, sadly) or toy sections in department stores like Target. You can INSTANTLY tell how horrifically gendered everything is, right?
The “boy section” has cars and action figures and black and blue and chrome, and the “girl section” is searing neon pink and dolls and dolls and more dolls. And why is it girls get dolls and boys don’t?
Because having a DOLL ostensibly teaches a GIRL how to BE A MOTHER and honestly how is our entire society not fed up with the level of sexism that permeates all of it? I don’t even know where we begin to change it, but that can’t happen until everyone SEES it.
And I know this crap affects cis people too, because even as a kid I knew cis girls who didn’t want to play with dolls or Barbies, or wear dresses. They got called “tomboys” because wanting to be like a boy was admirable and understandable! Who wouldn’t?
But a boy who didn’t want to play with cars or army men, and maybe wanted to wear dresses, got called a fairy and another much more hurtful f-word that you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to repeat here. Because wanting to be like a girl was SHAMEFUL and WRONG.
And if you think that doesn’t all compound upon a young trans girl who feels broken that the world is telling her she’s every single thing that she’s not and contributes to gender dysphoria in a massive way, I think you haven’t been paying attention.
But I actually DID want to play with cars and action figures, but I also wanted to play with Barbies and wear dresses and hang out with girls (much much more than boys) and I can feel, even now, deep in my heart…
My chest is tight remembering how broken and alone it made me feel, every damned day of my life. But this isn’t just about me, or about trans girls, or about trans kids of any gender. It’s about ALL kids.
And if you want to see at least a little of what that did to me, and it turns out also happened to a whole lot of other trans people, see the trans tuesday on SEARCHING FOR MEANING WHEN YOU’RE TRANS AND DON’T KNOW IT.
There is NOTHING WRONG with a cis girl who wants to play with cars and action figures and get dirty, and there is NOTHING WRONG with a cis boy who wants to wear dresses and play with dolls and Barbies and have a tea party.
Yet our society, in general, balks at the idea. Even the more accepted tomboy is treated like a “phase” they’ll grow out of, and not them exploring who they really are. Ah, but now we’re getting to the crux of it, aren’t we?
Our society is INCREDIBLY cisgender heterosexual normative. Conservatives will rail and cry and scream about one gay kiss, never mind there are hetero kisses (and often a lot more sexual content) in all of our media everywhere.
And it’s PUSHED on kids, and if you don’t believe me you clearly don’t know many queer people. A perfect example is Hallmark Christmas movies. It doesn’t matter what you think of them or if you don’t watch them, they’re a big thing during the holidays, right?
Since 2001 Hallmark has made ALMOST 300 CHRISTMAS ROMANCE MOVIES.
The first one to star two women, and have a lesbian kiss, WAS RELEASED IN DECEMBER OF 2023. We watched it! It’s called A Friends and Family Christmas.
It was schmaltzy and saccharine like every other Hallmark Christmas movie, and QUEER PEOPLE DESERVE THOSE TOO.
It took them until 2019 to make Hanukkah movies! It took until 2018 until they had non-white leads, and they still wouldn’t allow interracial couples! (whiteness and christianity are forced onto us by society just like gender roles are).
And before you say “well those aren’t for kids,” let me remind you they are… rated G. Like Disney animated movies. Like all content aimed at kids. Hell, Disney has been making animated movies for kids since Snow White in 1937. How many starred a queer character?
They’re starting to slowly hint at our existence, some 75 YEARS later. Strange World had a gay boy as a main character, and that came out… in 2022. Did he get to kiss his crush, though? You know he didn’t.
HOW MANY DISNEY MOVIES HAVE YOU SEEN WHERE A CIS GUY AND A CIS GAL SMOOCH? Is it all of them??! The Little Mermaid marries Ariel off AT SIXTEEN YEARS OLD AKUGASKGSJKGJHKAGL
But they can’t show gay or lesbian or bi or ace or nonbinary or trans characters, because then kids might think they could be that too! They can’t let boys and girls not conform to gender every second of their lives or they might find out they’re not cisgender heterosexual. It’s UNNATURAL!
My dudes, if you have to force gendering on kids’ bathrooms, clothes, toys, media, behaviors, mannerisms, and preferences JUST to “maintain” cisgender heterosexuality… WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU ABOUT CISGENDER HETEROSEXUALITY?!
Nothing that was the ONLY “real” way to be would need every single facet of society to brainwash kids into thinking that’s all they CAN be. If a cis girl or boy wants to play with things you THINK “should” be for their gender, great! Let them.
And if they want to play with things you think “shouldn’t” be for their gender… GREAT. LET THEM. Kids NEED to explore, to imagine, to discover. The whole point of childhood is to learn, we spend the entire time figuring out who we are. (also get over yourself plz)
When you force a kid into clothes they don’t want, colors they don’t want, toys they don’t want, sports or activities or anything that’s not what THEY want, you are harming them. Trans and cis alike. You’re messing them up in untold ways.
And this isn’t about making them eat a vegetable once in a while, or clean up their room. Don’t get it twisted. You KNOW I’m not saying to cave to a kid’s every whim. There’s a difference, and it’s easily definable, and to say otherwise is disingenuous.
If you’re in any way restricting a kid from exploring something just because it makes YOU uncomfortable, you’re failing at being a parent. You’re supposed to support THEM in what THEY want, not what you want.
I’ve shared things I love with our kid, hoping he’d love them too. Some he does! Some he doesn’t. AND THAT IS OKAY. I’m not going to force him to pretend to like something he doesn’t, or pretend to be someone he’s not. Why on earth would I? Why would anyone?
You help kids be who THEY are, not who YOU want them to be. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. It’s about their happiness, and security, and ability to know and love all the wild, wonderful, different ways a human can be.
THAT’S THE JOB.
Tilly Bridges, end transmission.
tillysbridges@gmail.com