What’s So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?
Lindsay Morris
Above, a boy prepares for a fashion show at a camp for gender-variant children and their families. More Photos »
By RUTH PADAWER
Published: August 8, 2012 692 Comments
The night before Susan and Rob allowed their son to go to preschool in a dress, they sent an e-mail to parents of his classmates. Alex, they wrote, “has been gender-fluid for as long as we can remember, and at the moment he is equally passionate about and identified with soccer players and princesses, superheroes and ballerinas (not to mention lava and unicorns, dinosaurs and glitter rainbows).” They explained that Alex had recently become inconsolable about his parents’ ban on wearing dresses beyond dress-up time. After consulting their pediatrician, a psychologist and parents of other gender-nonconforming children, they concluded that “the important thing was to teach him not to be ashamed of who he feels he is.” Thus, the purple-pink-and-yellow-striped dress he would be wearing that next morning. For good measure, their e-mail included a link to information on gender-variant children.
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"Is it fair to push a child into the forefront of the gender identity wars?"Bruce Leimsidor, Venice, Italy
When Alex was 4, he pronounced himself “a boy and a girl,” but in the two years since, he has been fairly clear that he is simply a boy who sometimes likes to dress and play in conventionally feminine ways. Some days at home he wears dresses, paints his fingernails and plays with dolls; other days, he roughhouses, rams his toys together or pretends to be Spider-Man. Even his movements ricochet between parodies of gender: on days he puts on a dress, he is graceful, almost dancerlike, and his sentences rise in pitch at the end. On days he opts for only “boy” wear, he heads off with a little swagger. Of course, had Alex been a girl who sometimes dressed or played in boyish ways, no e-mail to parents would have been necessary; no one would raise an eyebrow at a girl who likes throwing a football or wearing a Spider-Man T-shirt.
There have always been people who defy gender norms. Late-19th-century medical literature described female “inverts” as appallingly straightforward, with a “dislike and sometimes incapacity for needlework” and “an inclination and taste for the sciences”; male inverts were “entirely averse to outdoor games.” By the mid-20th century, doctors were trying “corrective therapy” to extinguish atypical gender behaviors. The goal was preventing children from becoming gay or transgender, a term for those who feel they were born in the wrong body.
Many parents and clinicians now reject corrective therapy, making this the first generation to allow boys to openly play and dress (to varying degrees) in ways previously restricted to girls — to exist in what one psychologist called “that middle space” between traditional boyhood and traditional girlhood. These parents have drawn courage from a burgeoning Internet community of like-minded folk whose sons identify as boys but wear tiaras and tote unicorn backpacks. Even transgender people preserve the traditional binary gender division: born in one and belonging in the other. But the parents of boys in that middle space argue that gender is a spectrum rather than two opposing categories, neither of which any real man or woman precisely fits.
“It might make your world more tidy to have two neat and separate gender possibilities,” one North Carolina mother wrote last year on her blog, “but when you squish out the space between, you do not accurately represent lived reality. More than that, you’re trying to ‘squish out’ my kid.”
The impassioned author of that blog, Pink Is for Boys, is careful to conceal her son’s identity, as were the other parents interviewed for this article. As much as these parents want to nurture and defend what makes their children unique and happy, they also fear it will expose their sons to rejection. Some have switched schools, changed churches and even moved to try to shield their children. That tension between yielding to conformity or encouraging self-expression is felt by parents of any child who differs from the norm. But parents of so-called pink boys feel another layer of anxiety: given how central gender is to identity, they fear the wrong parenting decision could devastate their child’s social or emotional well-being. The fact that there is still substantial disagreement among prominent psychological professionals about whether to squelch unconventional behavior or support it makes those decisions even more wrenching.
692 Comments
When I was a little girl, I wanted a Hot Wheels set and my parents wisely complied, so I knew what to do. I got my son his Care Bear (and tiara, dress and sandals - it was his birthday). The Care Bear staff included an almost certain tran who was incredibly nice about it.
The kid is in middle school now, obsessed with video games, world conquest, physical activity and a little girl named Allie. And BTW I'm a married straight woman.
Don't overthink this, people. Human beings try out all kinds of things, especially when they're young. And so what if it leads in an unusual direction? Does the roof fall in?!
I didn't know what to say, but now as an adult of 40 years old he is a full blown out-of-the-closet homosexual who lives with his mate in New York. In looking back I now believe he knew exactly what he was doing, and his questions were provocative, and he knew that also. He was testing me. He wanted to know if I could be truthful, because the truth was he was deliberately trying to look absurd and embarrass his family, and he certainly achieved that goal. However, what I found most disturbing was that he seemed more interested in humiliating his family than being gay. So I failed. What he needed to hear was that he was an embarrassment, and he was. But his life worked out, although in the end he became estranged from all members of his family. Perhaps that was the outcome he really wanted. Sexual freedom and getting away from all of them.
Give one example of your new enlightened views producing numbers of happier better people. Different Cultures around the world have had thousands of generations to work out the bugs to produced quality Adults.
With Love and Light!
of gender identity confusion. He just likes dressing in dresses. As the artlcle aptly points out, most kids outgrow this.
What's wrong with explaining to him that the school, and social settings, have dress codes and other expected codes of behavior? I used to hate wearing a tie to work too. Should I get out of that because "it doesn't express the real me?"
He can dress in a dress at home if he wants. But school is another matter. How about mom and dad stop letting him dictate what goes on in his home, dress him appropriately for school and that's the end of it. There's no need to tell him to be "ashamed" of wanting to dress in a dress. This is about having some sense of rules and social customs. If 99% of the class are firmly planted in what gender they are, and expect to see the two genders dress in certain gender-specific clothes, why should they have to put up with this? If a kid decides he likes dressing like a horse, do we have to allow that too, lest we be called "intolerant"?
I was touched by how many fathers came around to accept their boys on their own terms. Reminded me how much children teach their parents.
My favorite line was P.J.'s response to "Why don't you want to be a girl?" "Because I want to be who I am!" If I had been writing, I would've ended the article with this line, but that's a small gripe about a fantastic article.
Bravo! Fascinating to read as a teacher, son, and expecting parent...
Should my boy be anything like the boys in this article, I just hope I can be even a little bit like their amazing parents.
It's not the kid who wants to walk down the road in a dress who has the problem
It's not the parent who has a daughter who is a tomboy who has the problem
It's not the teachers who are supporting these kids who have the problem
It's not the law makers who are changing the laws for more acceptance who has the problem
It is the fear that is installed in all of us who wish to be different because surely everyone has to be the same otherwise the world would fall apart. Really?
Einstein, Florence Nightingale, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Edison, Hedy Lammar, all disprove the arguments touted by the neanderthals out there. They all thought differently, saw things differently and I have no doubt challenged the perceived wisdom and norms of their time.
We should embrace such differences and open our minds to the potential of others rather than constantly suppressing and putting down others.
Don't let the burden of your fear contaminate others and ask yourself what am I really frightened of. The parents are not claiming to have the answers, they are simply trying to find a way of asking the right questions.
I wish you all the very best!
This behavior has to come from messed up parents. It's OK if this boy wants to wear girls clothes, be gay, or play with girl dolls. He should still be loved andd protected, and his parents, teachers, and leaders in society should do everything to help him have a productive, happy life.
But to pretend there are no norms of behavior, that any old gender role or fetish is just fine, just pick one from the last Ellen episode you watched, is flat silliness and the same old lefty nonsense.
I also have questioned if it was something in his environment that had made him this way. Was it that princess movie that we let him watch at age 2? Was it the two girls from pre-school that are his best friends? Were those things having an influence on him; or was it that he was already predisposed to be drawn to princess movies and girl friends? Was it my socially liberal attitude that allowed a small interest to become a fascination? Was it some sort of rebellion to be as different from his very traditionally boyish and domineering older brother? I guess I will never know for sure; and in the end does it really matter? All that really matters is that he grow up happy and healthy. Having an accepting family, and more importantly self-acceptance, will be a big part of making that happen.
1. "… kids can't make that kind of decision! Being a parent is knowing when to lay down the law and tell your child NO! Would you let your son eat ice cream for breakfast if that's what he wanted???"
Okay, yes, sometimes kids can't make certain decisions for themselves. And yes, being a loving parent means sometimes not letting your kid do something because you, as the adult, know better.
But everyone is comparing A) the decision to allow your child to choose what to wear to the decision to B) the decision to allow your child to choose something that is unequivocally bad for him. If your son is making a good choice (broccoli instead of dessert!) or a neutral/unimportant choice (red vs. green socks!) you'll probably leave it up to him. Because yeah, he's 4 years old, he doesn't fully know what he wants (or will want in the future), but isn't allowing your kid to make choices what teaches him what he wants and will want in the future?
You're trying to make this an issue of the boys exerting too much control over their parents. But nowhere in the article does it say anything to that effect. This argument only makes sense if you believe that wearing a dress is unequivocally bad for the boy.
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no matter how hard one might try to justify it.. one can see clearly that there is a problem. why does a girl wants to look like a boy?
why does a boy wants to look a girl?