Transgender 6 year old banned from bathroom

[CoatRack]

I'm done with this thread but I just want every person here saying that anything but allowing this child full access to the school as a girl to know that they are part of the perpetuation of transphobic culture. They are not in the right. And THEY are the ones damaging things for this child, and all children like her, and all the trans adults who once were like her.

[Burris]

I'm done with this thread but I just want every person here saying that anything but allowing this child full access to the school as a girl to know that they are part of the perpetuation of transphobic culture. They are not in the right. And THEY are the ones damaging things for this child, and all children like her, and all the trans adults who once were like her.

Oh snap! You totally have me. My secret aim in this thread has been to reinforce transphobia. Ayiieee. My true nature has been revealed. Pfft.

I'm going to say this one more time: That girl is six. She's vulnerable. She will be mistreated, perhaps terribly.

She must be ready for it. If she isn't, it could destroy her. It's that simple.

[Ramona]

I thought allowing the child to use the gender neutral/staff bathroom was perfectly fine. I don't think it's fair to really pretend like "she's just like all the other little girls." She's not. She has a penis. And while I do think that children should be allowed to express themselves, I'm in the camp that at age 6 she is just too young to know who she really is. I also think it's really important to teach children that rules are there for a reason. I have a child with autism and she loves playing on playgrounds---but she's 13, and 5 ft 6, and she has to understand that most playgrounds are too small for her to play on. So she respects the rules. I do think age 6 is too young to be making all the choices for yourself about what you want. My daughters at age 6 wanted to wear tutus 24-7, but you know, I had to say NO. I think we walk a fine line between respecting a child's choices, and forcing your child's choices upon everyone else. I think finding a compromise is the best solution, and allowing this child the use of a staff/gender neutral bathroom, IMHO, was a good compromise.

We all have to conform to social norms to some extent, and little kids can be cruel. I have daughters and they don't run around in princess costumes and dress head to toe in pink. I noticed the child in the CNN article had magenta hair, I wouldn't allow my 6 year old daughter to dye her hair magenta just because she's a girl. The reality is, that the more you stick out, the more people are going to notice you, and not always in a good way. Children need limits and to be taught how to live in society. It is fine to "be yourself", but that sometimes comes at a price. You can't force the rest of the world to see things your way. As far as I'm concerned, until puberty, no one really knows for sure "who they are". Whether they are gay or straight, bisexual, truly transgendered....only an older teen or adult can really know, and make a choice to live as who they are, even at the risk of discrimination. I hate to see children being used as a "voice" for an adult platform, and that is what I'm seeing more and more. Kids aren't mature enough to make adult decisions, or accept the backlash of trying to live differently. Adults know how much prejudice and discrimination hurts, I just can't imagine as a parent throwing my kid out there like that. I have daughters and a son, and most of the time they wear gender neutral clothing. My child on the spectrum actually prefers men's clothing, but that doesn't mean I'd send her to school in a suit and tie. There is plenty of middle ground and compromise out there.

A) gender identity is not determined by the presence of a penis

B) seriously? we all hit puberty and then decide who we are? So can you pinpoint the age at which you decided that you were _______ ? Oddly, I don't remember choosing my orientation or anything else. I just was who I was... right from the beginning.

[Ramona]

She will be mistreated, perhaps terribly.

She wouldn't BE mistreated if people would yank their heads out of the arses and start trying to understand the things they fear.

[rward]

If the gay child were six? I would tell him or her to keep it under wraps at school until he or she is older.

I don;t think for one second that other kids and parents should bully. I think there should be harsher penalties for such actions. But I also think that's a long time in coming; that Coy herself will have to endure a world of hurt at the hands of people who do not recognize her right to exist as she is.

I don't think victims are responsible for their rapes, or that Coy is responsible for being bullied.

I do think. however, that a six-year-old - and yes, her age is what concerns me most - just shouldn't have to put up with this crap. She's a girl. But she may have to hide in boy's clothing for awhile as she builds up strength and endurance. She shouldn't have to. It isn't right. But it's how things are right now.

You don't build up strength by lying and hiding. By telling the gay/trans/whatevs child to hide who they are at the deepest, most basic level, you are telling them there is something wrong with them. They'll internalize that, Burris, and it will mean more coming from mommy/daddy than it would coming from random kid's parent.

Should her parents, and the school, do more to protect Coy? Absolutely! She needs additional protection that other students don't. Should she hide and pretend just because other people might be mean? No, that's not helping, it's just hurting in a way that doesn't get on the news.

Being a girl gamer isn't like being trans, but online gaming is a boys' thing, specifically a dudebro thing. I did, for a while, online game with a neutral name and no speaker, so people assumed I was male. It was disgusting. The dudebros said stuff about women and girl gamers that was shocking and horrible and they just assumed I was okay with it because my silence seemed to be assent.

The same will happen to Coy and your hypothetical gay child. Their hiding will seem assent to be told trans and gay jokes, to be subjected to gender norms and it will crawl inside them.

Life hurts. It hurts for some people more, for reasons that are unfair, and it sucks. Pretending it doesn't hurt or that you can hide away from hurt doesn't stop a thing.

[Mama Mia]

I haven't read anything saying any parent or child or staff at the school was making a big deal about Coy being a girl. The school offered the option of using the uni-sex restroom, which if Coy strongly objected to could have, I'm sure been dealt with much more quietly, But Coy's PARENTS are choosing to make this a huge media circus, point out that she is different than the other girls and pull her and her siblings out of school and pretty much guarantee that Coy will end up being talked about and bullied.

Regardless of if Coy is mature enough to decide to be open about her gender identity - I don't think a 6 year old is mature enough to understand the ramifications of being in the media spotlight based on a controversy. A 12 year old might be mature enough to weigh the pros and cons of being the public face of an issue - but I really don't think a 6 year old is.

[Burris]

She wouldn't BE mistreated if people would yank their heads out of the arses and start trying to understand the things they fear.

Indeed - and when do you forsee that happening?

[ILoveJellybeans]

I think it would be even more damaging for Coy to have to pretend to be a boy at school. It seems like she has been like this for a while, and that she hasnt had any problems with it so far, and I think introducing children to transgender people at an early age means they will be more accepting than if she waited til puberty to start dressing like a girl.

Sure, kids can be mean at times, but other kids would bully a boy who likes pink and playing with dolls as well, so Coy wouldnt have been safe from bullying if she pretended she was a boy, unless she also pretended to like blue and playing with toy cars.

At 6, kids know what gender they are. Everyone was aware of whether they were a girl or a boy when they were 6. Imagine how you would feel if you were a little girl, and you were told that you had to pretend to be a boy at school and pretend to be into boy things, or a little boy and told that you had to wear a dress to school and tell everyone that you were a girl. Youd feel pretty embarassed.

[dawbs]

I haven't read anything saying any parent or child or staff at the school was making a big deal about Coy being a girl. The school offered the option of using the uni-sex restroom, which if Coy strongly objected to could have, I'm sure been dealt with much more quietly, But Coy's PARENTS are choosing to make this a huge media circus, point out that she is different than the other girls and pull her and her siblings out of school and pretty much guarantee that Coy will end up being talked about and bullied.

Regardless of if Coy is mature enough to decide to be open about her gender identity - I don't think a 6 year old is mature enough to understand the ramifications of being in the media spotlight based on a controversy. A 12 year old might be mature enough to weigh the pros and cons of being the public face of an issue - but I really don't think a 6 year old is.

I think it's asking a LOT to say a 6 year old should self-advocate against authority figures at school.

[Burris]

You don't build up strength by lying and hiding. By telling the gay/trans/whatevs child to hide who they are at the deepest, most basic level, you are telling them there is something wrong with them. They'll internalize that, Burris, and it will mean more coming from mommy/daddy than it would coming from random kid's parent.

At this stage, Coy doesn't fully understand one way or the other what it means to be 'out.' She likely can't defend herself except to say the obvious: "I'm a girl, whatever parts I might have."

A six-year-old shouldn't have to endure hate crimes. If there is some way to prevent that, then I think it should be done. She can verbally 'own' the haters when she's older - when she meets other people like herself, when she develops a rhetoric of self-defense, when she can basically tell bigots to fuck off.

She's not in that position right now.

Should her parents, and the school, do more to protect Coy? Absolutely! She needs additional protection that other students don't. Should she hide and pretend just because other people might be mean? No, that's not helping, it's just hurting in a way that doesn't get on the news.

It isn't just so other kids won't be mean. Some of them will be mean when she's older and out, too. It's that she doesn't have the skin, yet, to deal with those kids and their parents.

It's an imperfect comparison, but apt enough, I think: A gifted, mechanically-inclined child, age six, should not be operating major power tools. S/he might understand the forms and even the safety precautions, but the idea that 'this thing could rip your arm off' doesn't really compute.

A kid that young might climb indoor rock walls, but not mountains.

Some things are simply not age-appropriate - and a kid having to defend her orientation is, in my opinion, one of those things.

Being a girl gamer isn't like being trans, but online gaming is a boys' thing, specifically a dudebro thing. I did, for a while, online game with a neutral name and no speaker, so people assumed I was male. It was disgusting. The dudebros said stuff about women and girl gamers that was shocking and horrible and they just assumed I was okay with it because my silence seemed to be assent.

...and you understood what they were saying, and the full import of their words. You understood the dudebro culture.

The same will happen to Coy and your hypothetical gay child. Their hiding will seem assent to be told trans and gay jokes, to be subjected to gender norms and it will crawl inside them.

A fair point - but which would do more harm: Having them act out their orientation at home while being spared the worst taunts at school until they're old enough, or dropping them into the fire when they're too young to even understand why there is a fire?

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Everyone was aware of whether they were a girl or a boy when they were 6. Imagine how you would feel if you were a little girl, and you were told that you had to pretend to be a boy at school and pretend to be into boy things, or a little boy and told that you had to wear a dress to school and tell everyone that you were a girl. Youd feel pretty embarassed.

I was TOLD by other people that I'm a girl (immature female human) long before 6, and yeah, told "you can't do this" "you can't do that" early on.

I never had any particular internal feeling one way or the other, still don't, wore a skirt uniform at school under duress but haven't worn a dress since graduation, never shaved a thing in my life and don't plan to start. Most of my social companions are men, I work in a male-dominated field, etc.

Personally I have an issue with the concept of "boy things." If I do them, they are by necessity also "girl things."

(Yes, I realize the world is not likely to change on a dime to suit my sensibilities anytime soon, and that people choose various coping measures to deal with that, but... in my heart, I'm on the "let's abolish gender entirely" side. If I'm not having sex, my genitalia aren't important, and you should not be able to guess what they look like based on my dress or behaviors or "thought processes" or anything of the sort.)

For starters though, I'll agree with people upthread that they could solve this issue by just having all the bathrooms be gender-neutral (with stalls with DOORS, thankyew) or "single-holers" where it's a room with one toilet like at home. Quit segregating kids by sex (or gender, which ends up being "what we assume your genitalia look like, based on stereotypes"), quit making them line up by sex, let them wear whatever they want (or if it's a uniform, let the options be the same, INCLUDING skirt or not, for both boys and girls), and let people use nicknames if they want to, regardless of what legal name is on their permanent record. If some kids piggyback on it to say they want to go by "Princess Sheba" so WHAT? Goodness knows in the workplace plenty of people go by nicknames, middle names, login, all kinds of stuff and no one cares.

A huge part of the problem, IMHO, are the parents of kids (generally) who constantly reinforce the idea that kids are supposed to have same-sex friends only, in addition to the "you can't play with this or that" business. The schools might try to be open-minded but the kids get a giant dose of this segregation stuff at home and turn into their own gender police.

Whatever we can do to make things better for "gender non-conforming people" be they trans or not would be an improvement, I think. Someone should be able to wear a skirt and have pink hair and say "I'm a boy" TOO and that should also be okay.

[Mama Mia]

I think it's asking a LOT to say a 6 year old should self-advocate against authority figures at school.

I'm sorry, I worded that badly. I meant that if Coy strongly objected to using the uni-sex staff restroom her parent's and/or their lawyer could have advocated for her - but without drawing her publicly into it.

[valsa]

Because if she can't defend herself and mean it, it will damage her. She'll think about it. She may internalize it.

Hiding who she really is and pretending to be something she's not is what's going to hurt her. Countless transgender people had said that hiding their real gender was deeply disturbing and painful for them. Why are you discounting the experiences of the very people who know best what Coy is going through?

My argument has nothing to do with making other people more comfortable and everything to do with the danger I believe a girl in that situation will face.

While that's a noble sentiment, your "solution" only perpetuates the attitude that is causing the potential danger in the first place.

A lot of kids with severe physical disabilities have aides at school not so much to help them with their work but to defend them from some of the other kids. And schools already do have 'special classrooms' for disabled kids, and even special schools for people who are blind or deaf.

And this is not necessarily because these kids can't compete academically. Many of them can, and then some. It's because other people sometimes pose a danger to them.

Human nature sucks.

So if a child who was physically disabled doesn't require an aide (who you apparently think is only there to fend off bullies anyway :roll: ), you think they should be forced to go to special classrooms or special schools, even if they don't want to?

Burris, I don't always (or even often) agree with your opinion on things but I do respect that they usually seem to be well thought out and reasonable. I'm almost astounded by how lacking your response is on this issue- you've shown a complete absence of understanding or information on the topic, and that is quite unusual for you.

[valsa]

I never had any particular internal feeling one way or the other

Neither have I, but I don't think it's unusual for people to feel differently. I wouldn't bat an eye if a physical girl were to strongly identify as a girl, so I don't see anything unusual about a physical boy strongly identifying as a girl either.

[Ramona]

Indeed - and when do you forsee that happening?

Maybe I have a more positive view of the world than you do, because I do actually see it happening -- it needs to happen a LOT MORE, but we have a start. You just have to look back at how things were for LGBTQ people even as short as ten years ago, but go back twenty, thirty, more and think how things were then. Things HAVE changed - people HAVE begun to understand, but they still have a long way to go .... and we all need to play our parts in that.

[Savoring Samsara]

You don't build up strength by lying and hiding. By telling the gay/trans/whatevs child to hide who they are at the deepest, most basic level, you are telling them there is something wrong with them. They'll internalize that, Burris, and it will mean more coming from mommy/daddy than it would coming from random kid's parent.

This. A trans woman friend of mine once told me that one of her most painful childhood memories was her mother telling her, before she went into middle school, to suppress her feminine mannerisms and pretend not to be interested in dolls while at school so that "the other boys" wouldn't make fun of her. My friend's mother meant well, certainly, but the unintended message my friend took away was that the things she liked and did were shameful for her, and that she needed to pretend to be someone other than who she was to be accepted.

[luvsit]

I read through almost this entire thread and have some things to say...

Why do bathrooms have to be about "gender" instead of "sex"? Why can't everyone just go to the male bathroom if they have male parts and the female bathroom if they have female parts? Bathrooms are catered more to a specific "sex" than "gender" anyway. Urinals for people with male bits so they can stand up. Toilets and stalls for people with female bits so they can sit down and also tend to the things that go along with HAVING female bits like changing pads, tampons, etc.

Also, while I don't think it is a huge deal for a girl to see a boy's penis and vice versa, not everyone feels that way. Parents should be the one who decide those types of things and not have a school force them to accept the fact that their daughter may see a penis in the bathroom.

Separating bathrooms according to sex and not gender is the best way to go in my opinion.

ETA: Before people start calling me a troll since this is my first post, I was registered on the old forum and just recently registered on the new one. I read here quite often.

[Little Miss Alien]

I don't think a person should have to. I think sometimes they must, until they have the strength and experience and resources to walk off the cruelty instead of being injured by it.

But how does someone get that experience? Not through just passively observing, the key word is 'experience' - they need to live it.

And conversely, the only way to promote tolerance is to normalise it And allow the other children to also live that experience. At 5 years old my son has encountered children with same sex parents, step parents, parents of different ethnicities, ages etc. We ourselves are a single parent family. Small children are resilient and accepting. The problems here are being created by adults being offended and knee jerk reactions to difference.

Yes, children don't grow up in a vacuum, but why would they be any better equipped to cope with such a change in their teens? By that time opinions will have solidified more and they may not be as accepting as they may have been 5 years previously. That extra 5 years of experience could make the world of difference.

[Savoring Samsara]

Why do bathrooms have to be about "gender" instead of "sex"? Why can't everyone just go to the male bathroom if they have male parts and the female bathroom if they have female parts? Bathrooms are catered more to a specific "sex" than "gender" anyway. Urinals for people with male bits so they can stand up. Toilets and stalls for people with female bits so they can sit down and also tend to the things that go along with HAVING female bits like changing pads, tampons, etc.

Because the configuration of my genitals is absolutely no one's business but my own (and maybe my doctor's and my sexual partner's, under certain circumstances). Under the division you propose, if my social exterior didn't match my bits, I would have to give that very personal information out to anybody who happened to be passing by every time I had to relieve myself.

[Rosa]

I know this is old but it's stuck with me...there are parents who won't let their kid wear a princess dress or cowboy outfit or whatever to school. Really? 6 year olds? At schools that don't have uniforms?

That's not something that would ever occur to me. Friends of mine took their 6 year olds to Europe and the twins wore superhero costumes for almost the entire thing. People thought it was adorable. The first graders at my son's school wear basically whatever they want, except on gym day they have to wear appropriate shoes and they have to have warm outerwear for winter recess. I guess if a 6 year old ever wore inappropriately revealing clothes they'd invoke the dress code, which is mostly there to keep the middle schoolers appropriately non-naked, but "cowboy" isn't school-inappropriate.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

Hiding who she really is and pretending to be something she's not is what's going to hurt her. Countless transgender people had said that hiding their real gender was deeply disturbing and painful for them. Why are you discounting the experiences of the very people who know best what Coy is going through?

While that's a noble sentiment, your "solution" only perpetuates the attitude that is causing the potential danger in the first place.

So if a child who was physically disabled doesn't require an aide (who you apparently think is only there to fend off bullies anyway :roll: ), you think they should be forced to go to special classrooms or special schools, even if they don't want to?

Burris, I don't always (or even often) agree with your opinion on things but I do respect that they usually seem to be well thought out and reasonable. I'm almost astounded by how lacking your response is on this issue- you've shown a complete absence of understanding or information on the topic, and that is quite unusual for you.

+1. I mostly agree w Burris, and this is disappointing. In general, this thread has made me disappointed in quite a few posters, in fact.

During my first year of college I organized a protest against gender neutral bathrooms. Because I was a religious asshole. So I have evolved on the issue and seeing others espouse the opinions I used to have makes me cringe.

[Love]

I worry about being uncharitable too. I don't think anything here is made up, and I think the school is being ridiculous. Kathryn has a pretty significant web presence, and there is always some struggle going on. It's just weird and I can't really tell you why, but my radar has been blippy in regards to Kathryn for awhile before this lawsuit and the school/bathroom issue. Like I said, I just hope this attention is what Coy wants, but I did not get that vibe from the Katie show yesterday.

I have to agree with both of you. I know that's not a popular belief, and I was even kicked off a message board once for not being supportive enough of Kathryn. I just can't help but notice that she always has a major struggle going on, and she blasts about her kids personal lives all over the internet. In my book, that is not honoring the child, but rather putting their lives on the web for all to see. Or in a nutshell - Exploitation. Its kind of like the fundie blogs we read that completely overshare information about their family. I know WAY TOO MUCH about this woman, her children and her husband to feel comfortable with what she is doing. This personal information that has been shared everywhere won't go away. I warn my kids about this type of thing all the time.

Did you all see the segment she was on with Coy on the Katie Couric show? Coy looked miserable. :( When Katie asked Coy if she liked seeing herself on TV, Katie said "Is it kind of funny to see yourself on TV isn't it. Do you like seeing yourself or not so much." And poor little Coy says "Not so much". That tells me the child isn't enjoying this media circus. And it did become a media circus yesterday. It was all over the net and the TV. One TV station that I watched said "the family asked us to share their story".

And it seems that there could be so many other resources for trying to work things out with the school than bringing legal action against them. No where have I read that they tried mediation, discussions, alternate ideas - nothing. Pulling all of your children out of a school is traumatizing for the kids, and was it really the best thing for those that are autistic? I know its not my place to say because I don't know enough of the situation, but it sure raises red flags for me.

I am sad that the school isn't allowing Coy to use the girl's bathroom. I don't think its a big deal and it would not bother me in the least if a transgendered child used the same bathroom as one of my kids. But I think Kathryn has gone way overboard - and for the attention. She is an attention seeker - always has been. She was posting on the internet during her triplet home birth, for pete's sake. I know, I was online reading as it all happened.

I believe some very traumatizing and difficult challenges have occurred for this family. But I strongly believe that Kathryn uses those situations to seek massive attention at the expense of her children's privacy.

http://www.katiecouric.com/videos/exclu ... as-a-girl/

[PurpleSheepleEater]

I have to agree with both of you. I know that's not a popular belief, and I was even kicked off a message board once for not being supportive enough of Kathryn. I just can't help but notice that she always has a major struggle going on, and she blasts about her kids personal lives all over the internet. In my book, that is not honoring the child, but rather putting their lives on the web for all to see. Or in a nutshell - Exploitation. Its kind of like the fundie blogs we read that completely overshare information about their family. I know WAY TOO MUCH about this woman, her children and her husband to feel comfortable with what she is doing. This personal information that has been shared everywhere won't go away. I warn my kids about this type of thing all the time.

Did you all see the segment she was on with Coy on the Katie Couric show? Coy looked miserable. :( When Katie asked Coy if she liked seeing herself on TV, Katie said "Is it kind of funny to see yourself on TV isn't it. Do you like seeing yourself or not so much." And poor little Coy says "Not so much". That tells me the child isn't enjoying this media circus. And it did become a media circus yesterday. It was all over the net and the TV. One TV station that I watched said "the family asked us to share their story".

And it seems that there could be so many other resources for trying to work things out with the school than bringing legal action against them. No where have I read that they tried mediation, discussions, alternate ideas - nothing. Pulling all of your children out of a school is traumatizing for the kids, and was it really the best thing for those that are autistic? I know its not my place to say because I don't know enough of the situation, but it sure raises red flags for me.

I am sad that the school isn't allowing Coy to use the girl's bathroom. I don't think its a big deal and it would not bother me in the least if a transgendered child used the same bathroom as one of my kids. But I think Kathryn has gone way overboard - and for the attention. She is an attention seeker - always has been. She was posting on the internet during her triplet home birth, for pete's sake. I know, I was online reading as it all happened.

I believe some very traumatizing and difficult challenges have occurred for this family. But I strongly believe that Kathryn uses those situations to seek massive attention at the expense of her children's privacy.

http://www.katiecouric.com/videos/exclu ... as-a-girl/

QFT I was there on MDC also. Kathryns online presence has always been very forceful and she's always encountering one big thing after the other in her life. A lot of drama there. I could care less which bathroom Coy uses and I wish that was how everyone felt. I find it very curious that this is the next big thing on Kathryns list though. And I wonder once this is resolved what will come next because it seems there's always something.

[shaylahc]

Did you all see the segment she was on with Coy on the Katie Couric show? Coy looked miserable. :( When Katie asked Coy if she liked seeing herself on TV, Katie said "Is it kind of funny to see yourself on TV isn't it. Do you like seeing yourself or not so much." And poor little Coy says "Not so much". That tells me the child isn't enjoying this media circus. And it did become a media circus yesterday. It was all over the net and the TV. One TV station that I watched said "the family asked us to share their story".

I agree completely. I saw the segment, and that child looked SO miserable. I can't remember the last time I've seen a child who looked that unhappy. If no one knew Coy was really a boy before, they sure will know now! Way to keep your son's biological gender under wraps. S/he is going to be even more subjected to bullying/harassment now. I bet Coy would have been perfectly happy to use the staff/alternative bathroom, instead his parents rip him out of school and decide to make an ordeal about it.

I was thinking about this a lot earlier and you know....the parents say they "knew" the child was transgendered when s/he started to gravitate towards "girls" clothes and toys. I have a son who is the youngest of 4 (and the only boy). He grew up surrounded by tutus and nail polish and princesses. He loved wearing tutus and having his nails painted. His favorite color was pink. When my oldest daughter started shaving her legs, he would line right up alongside her to get his legs shaved. It never occured to me once that he could be gay or transgendered. I simply assumed that being surrounded by girls, his interests would gravitate towards those things. He is 8 now and about as "traditionally masculine" as they get, although he still occasionally enjoys getting his toe nails painted :mrgreen:

As someone who was raised by a feminist, I have to believe that if indeed the goal is to create a "gender neutral" environment for children, we need to stop labeling things as being "for girls" and "for boys". Maybe Coy would have been happy to just be his male self, but dressing like a little girl, and enjoying things that are generally considered to be "female oriented". I think his parents were really quick to label him, drag him off to a psychologist (can a 4 year old reliably identify themselves as transgendered? I have met 4 year olds that still wear diapers) and pigeonhole him into being a "boy who wants to be a girl" when in fact, he may just be a boy who enjoys wearing dresses, having long hair, and having a pink bedroom. I am not too sure all the fuss they've made has done their child any favors, except to make him feel like even more of a pariah. Had they simply accepted his tastes without labeling them as female, would he have felt the need to "choose" one side or the other?

I hope that as these issues come more to light, that schools will consider adding "gender neutral bathrooms" that everyone can use. At many malls and stores now I see "family bathrooms", which I personally LOVE, because let's face it---if I want to take a dump, I certainly don't want 12 strangers to bear witness to it :shock: If I had to choose between a long line at a women's bathroom, or a short line at the "gender neutral" bathroom, I'd be at the gender neutral bathroom in a flash. I am also one who routinely uses the men's bathroom (I'm a woman) if the women's bathroom is occupied at Starbucks, or other places where there is a single stall and a lock on the door. Maybe we need to add a 3rd choice for those who don't care either way.

As far as gender stereotyping, my kids love all kinds of things that are gender neutral. I am always surprised when I see people cry out about their children being transgendered, it's usually over things like "my son wants to wear dresses", or "my son wants wear make up/get his ears pierced, etc" or "my daughter wants to dress like a boy". I would say the great majority of children I have seen wear fairly gender neutral clothing, jeans and tees. Plenty of girls aren't allowed to wear make up or get their ears pierced until they're teenagers. I am always suspicious when I see people touting their transgendered children who seem "over the top" in terms of their clothing/lifestyle choices. How about a transgendered child who likes everything? Just because you're male or female doesn't mean you need to dress in a way that is stereotypical. My girls love to wear jeans and t shirts, they love Batman and Ninja Turtles and Pokemon and other things generally marketed to boys. Why do we need to label people? Can't people just be who they are without labels? Are we doing more harm than good by forcing children to choose?

IMHO, permanent (or even semi-permanent) choices about gender/sexuality are to be made when puberty arrives. Since our genitals are tied to our sexual identity, pre-pubescence doesn't seem like a reliable time to make permanent choices. There are people who don't discover they are gay or lesbian until late in adulthood. We don't have to set everything in stone when a child is in 1st grade. Let people be who they are without shoving a label on them.

[gardenvarietycitizen]

Because the configuration of my genitals is absolutely no one's business but my own (and maybe my doctor's and my sexual partner's, under certain circumstances). Under the division you propose, if my social exterior didn't match my bits, I would have to give that very personal information out to anybody who happened to be passing by every time I had to relieve myself.

Why should we assume any particular "normative" relationship of social exterior to bits at all, for anyone, to begin with?

I get that the current 2013 environment wants to assume there should be some correlation there and label anyone who doesn't conform to that assumed correlation aberrant and in need of some "fix" (whether to change the social exterior OR change the physical bits, depending on whom you ask) but I find that to be the root problem.

Stalls for all I think is a great idea, though. People might not see genitalia in the current "girls' room" but they certainly do in the boys', and there's pressure to not hide them. Plus in 2013 where people do want to know if your bits "conform" or not, unisex bathrooms (with only stalls! and while we're at it, the special trash for tampons/pads on the wall in the stall, so no one can see if you put anything in it!!) would solve the "ooooh, Dana went into the girls'!!! Must be [...]" (or "Dana went into the unisex, must have something to hide!!") stalking/outing that people worry about. Solves a lot of "family bathroom" issues at the same time too.

I know this is old but it's stuck with me...there are parents who won't let their kid wear a princess dress or cowboy outfit or whatever to school. Really? 6 year olds? At schools that don't have uniforms?

That's not something that would ever occur to me. Friends of mine took their 6 year olds to Europe and the twins wore superhero costumes for almost the entire thing. People thought it was adorable. The first graders at my son's school wear basically whatever they want, except on gym day they have to wear appropriate shoes and they have to have warm outerwear for winter recess. I guess if a 6 year old ever wore inappropriately revealing clothes they'd invoke the dress code, which is mostly there to keep the middle schoolers appropriately non-naked, but "cowboy" isn't school-inappropriate.

I've seen buttons (pin on campaign type buttons) that say "I dressed myself!" in a cute font, I suppose those are handy if you really worry someone might look down on you for your kid's crazy fashion sense of lack thereof!

We will not speak of my passport picture at age ten...