My son, at the age of two, sobbing, wishing God made him a girl because girls got to wear pretty clothes. The school psychologist calling in the first grade to tell me my vivacious little boy, who’d always been surrounded by friends in preschool, stood alone on the playground every day. A moment in the sixth grade when a teacher mistook my short-haired daughter for a boy. She burst into tears, because teachers were supposed to know. When the lunch ladies or substitutes insisted my son was not who he said he was, because his name was a boy’s but his hair “made us think he was a girl.” The year a long-term substitute continued to call my son “Mademoiselle,” despite numerous conversations with his parents, guidance, and the head of her department.
I don’t really understand why short hair means boy and long hair means girl—I mean, I grew up in the seventies, when men grew long hair and wore flowers, and women cut their hair like Dorothy Hamill. It’s absurd to me that it should be the sole determinant of how we perceive someone’s gender. My eldest shaved her head bald in the tenth grade. Hair irritates her skin, distracts her, and is hot and sweaty. My middle child grows his hair as long as a model in a Clairol commercial. He loves the way long hair feels around him—it comforts him, much as it did me when I was his age. The youngest, at 6, cut his hair short and now enjoys the way he looks in the mirror. Instead of fighting to brush his hair in the morning, he spends twenty minutes gazing at himself and brushing his boys’ regular cut with such happiness it would be cruel to rush him.
And as far as the absurdity of gender norms, the same goes for pink clothes or boxy shirts. We dedicate books and entire organization systems on how to find joy in your life, so why wouldn’t I let my boy wear pink sparkly shirts if they bring him joy? A recent study discusses the arbitrary nature of gender norms, and how easily they can be manipulated. As such, I don’t generally find them useful for my family.
My third and youngest child began to tell us he was a boy about a year and a half ago. He used different terminology from my older son’s “I wish” conversations. Youngest said, “I am,” without any question or explanation. The interesting piece for me is that it doesn’t really matter if he is transgender or simply experiencing gender fluidity at his age—because my love for him isn’t contingent upon whether he chooses to wear pink or blue or plays with dolls or trucks. I encourage both. He wants “to be a Dad” when he grows up, so he likes baby dolls. He wants to be a geologist, so he loves rocks, and digging. He prefers plaid and dark colors, but will occasionally wear pink because his older brother did. But we’re careful of the gender terms we use—because if he’s just asking us to call him “he,” it doesn’t hurt to do so, but if he’s asking us as a trans kid, using the correct pronouns can be crucial to his mental health.
It leaves us in a place where we try desperately to balance gender neutral with gender inclusive. We want our children to grow up without having to adhere to gender norms that don’t mean anything and seem to be less and less important in our society. But we also want our youngest to be able to adhere to his gender identity if he chooses. We want it to be okay for our middle child to be a boy who has long hair, and our eldest daughter a girl who is bald. For our youngest to be whoever he is, without the confines of what society tells him he must be.
For us, that means allowing them to exist without restriction. I don’t mean without limits—every child needs limits. But those are for guidance on how to be a good person, not how to conform to what the world thinks they have to be. We’ve raised them to believe everyone should be treated the same. Men, women, and non-binary individuals are all equal. Pink and blue are just colors. We give them leave to conform or not conform. And most importantly, when they tell us who they are, we believe them.
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