Monday, March 8, 2010

Raising a kid "gender neutrally" doesn't mean "forcing a kid to be gender neutral".

"“If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings.” - Brian Tracy
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” -Maya Angelou


A while back, there were two parents in Sweden who decided to raise their child gender neutrally. They didn't tell what sex their child was and all of that. This was, of course, met with much hullabaloo and disapproval. One person commented that it wouldn't work because "They'll see gender roles anyways".

At first I was confused by that. Yes, of course they will, but the gender roles won't be forced down the child's throat. And that's a good thing, really, because if the child does grow up to be a man or a woman, they'll need to know about gender roles to know what society expects of them and make decisions from there.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

With friends like these...

"Allies actually further the erasure of trans people in queer communities by only admitting to a related relationship, an abstract, and not a real and inherent one." - gudbuy t'jane


About a year back I was on a forum, and the issue of trans came up, and someone made a post talking about men and makeup/treatments/whatevers. I was genuinely confused about whether they were talking about trans men, cis men, or trans women. It could have applied to any of them. So I politely (no, really) explained that I didn't understand what the person meant and asked, if they were talking about trans women, to use the correct gendered terms.

The reply? Something along the lines of "I support you so I get to call you whatever I want".

I sincerely hope this person is in a vast minority, but I somehow doubt it (*waves to the genuinely supportive cis people out there* You guys rock! This post isn't about you!). If you aren't sure what's so bad about this, I'll try to explain.