“It’s Okay to be Neither": great Tumblr entry

[ceg045]

A Facebook friend shared this a few days ago; I meant to share it then, but life managed to get in the way. For a community as obsessed with traditional gender roles as the fundamentalist Christian one, I can only wonder how they'd react. Probably palm it off as public school brainwashing...

http://togetherforjacksoncountykids.tum ... ullying-in

[Hane]

What a wonderfully thoughtful and compassionate teacher!

[emmiedahl]

That was an amazing story. Teachers like this make a huge difference in the way people are treated throughout their lifetime. Teaching respect and tolerance is just as important as teaching the alphabet.

When people get mad about teaching gender issues (like Heather Has Two Mommies) in kindergarten, this is the type of thing that they are getting mad at. The teacher is lucky that none of the parents complained.

[Esther]

That's amazing. It reminds me of my (Catholic!) high school religious education teacher, who was such a wonderful lady and still one of my heroes. Although I grew up in a country that is fairly tolerant toward LGBT people, she was one of the first teachers who ever talked to us about how it's all right to be gay, or straight, or bi, or genderqueer, or anything else.

[Lostie]

That was great. Starting young is so helpful with these kinds of situations. I can only hope that Allie's subsequent teachers were just as caring.

[CanadianHippie]

Over the summer semester I did a research paper on children who fall outside the gender norm for a "parental advice" project which included sharing what I learned in my research. It was wonderful to be able to share with others research that when children who identify outside the gender norm are accepted, they have fewer problems over all and are less likely to act out than children in the same situation who are being pushed to change.

[thoughtful]

Thanks for posting that!

As a school music teacher, I sometimes asked children to be "dressed up but comfortable" or in the classic black bottom half, white top half for concerts.

Early in my career, I worked with a girl who refused to wear skirts. I actually hadn't realized it was that important to her, since it hadn't even registered on me that I always saw her in pants -- that's pretty common in elementary school.

The principal made it a big confrontation, telling her she had to wear a dress or skirt, and telling me, with a tone of voice implying that of course I would agree, "She's going to have to learn sooner or later that there are times when she will have to wear a skirt."

I said, "Why?"

After that, I made sure that dress code for concerts included lots of options, including pants for girls, and that what costume a character/stage hand might wear was part of my description before the children helped me decide who would do what in a play.

[Wolfie]

Thanks for posting that!

As a school music teacher, I sometimes asked children to be "dressed up but comfortable" or in the classic black bottom half, white top half for concerts.

Early in my career, I worked with a girl who refused to wear skirts. I actually hadn't realized it was that important to her, since it hadn't even registered on me that I always saw her in pants -- that's pretty common in elementary school.

The principal made it a big confrontation, telling her she had to wear a dress or skirt, and telling me, with a tone of voice implying that of course I would agree, "She's going to have to learn sooner or later that there are times when she will have to wear a skirt."

I said, "Why?"

After that, I made sure that dress code for concerts included lots of options, including pants for girls, and that what costume a character/stage hand might wear was part of my description before the children helped me decide who would do what in a play.

I totally agree here. While I will set up the black bottoms/white top, or all black dress codes, I don't worry if the girls wear pants or skirts. (I probably wouldn't care if a boy wanted to wear a skirt, it hasn't happened though.) I do discuss with my middle schoolers why a skirt up on stage should be at least knee length or longer. My class this year TOTALLY got it after I had them practice on the risers.

[snarkbillie]

I didn't know the words "gender variance" until I read this. I learned something.

[emmiedahl]

My daughter has worn pants for performances (in fact, her favorite non-formal performance outfit is a pair of black skinny-fit pants and a cute white blouse). She has a black dress for more formal performances, the ones where she is the star and not just a part of a strings group, and she insists on wearing it with black leggings because she is worried about people seeing up her skirt.

[bethanythemartian]

I played the cello in middle school and high school, so my options were "really full, really long skirt", or "pants". We wound up making me a skirt at one point, but I wore pants through middle school. It was just easier.

Later, I moved schools and they insisted girls wear skirts and boys wear tuxes. It didn't particularly bother me, I'm comfortable either way, but one girl objected. She snuck into many competitions wearing a tux she'd bought, mostly out of objection to the strictness of the rule from what I understood.

[Rachel333]

That was really sweet.

My parents didn't handle that type of thing very well. I went through a period where I didn't like feminine things, and it really bothered my parents. I remember learning the word "feminine" and saying I didn't want to be feminine, and getting the "But that's wrong! God made you a girl and you need to be feminine!" speech. I didn't want to wear dresses and skirts, but one night my mom told me that I was going to have to wear dresses sometimes. I cried all night. They actually weren't too strict about gender stuff -- there's a picture of my brother in a purple leotard and tutu in his toddler album -- but for some reason my behavior really bothered me.

I think I did say at one point that I wanted to be a boy, and I can see how that would upset parents, but I think you need to just go along with it and not make a big deal about it. If your child is transgender, they're going to need all the support you can give them, and for the vast majority of children who say they want to be a different gender, it's just a phase. I'm totally fine with being female now and I wouldn't want to be male. I just wasn't super feminine as a child.