Dear mainstream media,
Can you stop fucking scapegoating us for gender policing?
Trans people do not have access to the social capital, the legal mechanisms, or the institutional authority to turn our ideas into binding policy.
If you’re bent over gender policing, place the blame where it fucking belongs.
But I guess those articles don’t generate as many clicks.
Eat glass.
Thanks,
-Shiv
When I saw the title of this post on the freethought main page I thought it’d be another article about how Trump is our fault, but nope. Just the standard bile where someone getting paid to write in one of the world’s most prestigious and widely circulated news outlets whines about the enormous power and influence held by the transgender community.
My child was assigned female at birth. It was very important for me that my child know they don’t have to limit their tastes and choices to what society considers appropriately feminine. Tried to keep a balance of choices in clothes, toys, literature etc. By kindergarten my kid was into the princess culture. In Sophomore year my kid discovered feminism, as well as other social justice causes. In Junior year started exploring and questioning gender, identifying first as non-binary, but eventually as a trans guy. So the parent that wrote the original article can’t say definitely that their child is not transgender. Only that so far the child did not identify as such. BTW other than a change in clothing style I don’t think there is much difference in my kid’s interests post-transition. In short, kids being raised with a broader choice of gender expression isn’t going to stop people from being transgender if that is what they are. Nor is acceptance of people’s gender identities and how they choose to express them in any contradiction with encouraging people to not limit themselves to traditional views of gender and its expression.
Anat
QFT.
RE: NYT article and rebuttal
I kinda get where the Mum is coming from, in that she doesn’t want other people defining and labeling her child.
But she then turns around and defines and labels her child. *facepalm*
Why not let the kid be who they are, and identify as they will, instead of pre-emptively assigning normative labels?
So she’s upset that her child sometimes gets misgendered? And a few of them occasionally ask twice because they think they might know better than she does?
Must be awful.
And then there’s the fact that they’re all well-meaning people, happy to accept her as whatever gender she identifies with, asking her to make sure they’re supporting her properly. I guess that’s the part I can’t identify with.