Gender Policing Children

I’m writing this becuase I am sick of the constant gender policing my daughter goes through. She has an Avengers lunch box. She got it for her fourth birthday. It’s one of her favorite possessions, but every few days she comes home from school sad because people keep telling her she likes “boy things”. She gets the same type of comments when she wears her Batman jacket. The conversation usually goes like this:

TJ: I’m not going to take my lunch box to school anymore. Everybody tells me I like boy things.
Me: Do you like the Avengers? Are you a boy?
TJ: Yes. No, I’m not.
Me: Alright then. You’re just someone who likes those things.
TJ: They’re what makes me, me.

We have a similar conversation every few weeks. It gets exhausting.
TJ also loves a lot of feminine coded stuff, like Barbies and My Little Pony. Her favorite Disney movie is Frozen. She prefers dresses and skirts over pants. On days when she’s completely femme, there are people who are surprised becuase they’ve seen her with “boy things” in the past. These people seem to forget that children are actual people, and just like people have varied goddamned tastes.

I went with her on a field trip and the amount of gender policing that went on was mind boggling.Some girl classmates were playing and a little boy came by and asked if he could get a turn. One girl told him no because it wasn’t a boys’ game. I told him he could play. The game? Wizard of Oz match three.

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Screenshot of a board from The Wizard of Oz Match 3 game

 

Another boy said he didn’t like flowers because they’re for girls. At one point I was sitting on a blanket with a bunch of girl classmates and one another boy sat down with us. His mom came along, grabbed him while saying, “why are you here with all these girls. They’re all playing girl games. Go play with the boys”. The girls were telling me about school.

I’m constantly told not to judge parents who restrict their children’s play based on perceived gender. Frankly, I’m going to judge you. You’re raising your child to believe in harmful stereotypes. Stereotypes which lead to trans and gender non-conforming people getting harassed and killed. We have states trying to ban trans people from using public restrooms. All because we reduce people to their genitalia. Then your children spread these bigoted thoughts and make children like mine afraid to express who they are.

If gender is so innate why are cis people so afraid of a boy who plays with dolls? Of a girl who loves trucks?

I’ve seen a lot of cis parents claim that Target making their toy aisles gender neutral is silly because gender isn’t a big deal and the people asking for these things are overly sensitive babies.

You wanna know who are the overly sensitive ones?
Cis people who can’t handle their son wanting a Barbie. Cis people freaking out about which bathroom trans people use.

Apparently gender while being so innate is also very fucking fragile and anything could make children go into gender questioning chaos. And if that child tells their parents and the world they are trans, they can get killed for it. But yeah, keep making it sound like people asking to pee in peace and gender neutrality in media are the bullies in this.

Gender Policing Children
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UPDATE: New Year, Same White Fragility: Cathy Brennan is still a Fake Goth

Back in July of last year, I wrote a post about Cathy Brennan. Since then, I and several friends have gotten 1, 3 and 7 day bans. Several friends have had their jobs called in the hopes my friends would be fired. They weren’t.
My last ban lasted a week back a few months ago. I was banned for simply posting “Cathy Brennan is a fake goth”.

It is now February 9th 2017, and I have just gotten a 30 day ban for that blog post from July ’16.

I am no one. I have this blog and Mandesty. I have my tumblr and Twitter accounts. I do not have many followers. So why the fuck does Cathy Brennan care so much if I call her a fake goth? It really is like white people JUST LOVE feeling oppressed.

My Facebook profile is a huge source of emotional support. Let’s talk about that, Cathy. I am a Latina, trans, single mom, disabled and poor. I blog about the oppression I face in my daily life.
You are a well off white cis lesbian who I’m told is a lawyer but all you seem to fucking do is go after people calling you a fake goth.

Don’t you claim to care about women, or is it just cis women you care about? No answer needed here. We’re all aware of Gender Identity Watch.
Don’t you espouse supposedly intersectional feminism? Is it in your feminism that you find it’s OK to get a Latina blogger banned on Facebook? Is that sisterhood?

Do you go this hard after the racist, sexist, misogynist posts? After the posts that make light of rape? The homophobic posts? Or do you only care that some small time blogger called you a “mean” name a few times?

Keep getting me banned on Facebook. You can’t ban me on all my social media. You can try but it’s not a good look, gringa. COME AFTER ME, I FUCKING DARE YOU.

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UPDATE FEBRUARY 9TH 2017

Cathy graced us with her presence over on my blog’s Facebook page. Below are screenshots of this. Of course she misgenders me and assumes I am male.

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According to her, I got banned for “bullying behavior”. If that was the case then how come Facebook never takes down pages or posts which post bigotry? Is she saying that bigotry is not bullying?

As the Blue commenter noted, this Catherine Brennan profile is new. My friends and I had her Cathy Brennan profile blocked. Can it be called bullying when we don’t go to her with this silly name? We post on our own pages, and she’s the one who finds us. That is not bullying. That’s abusing whatever influence or privilege she has to get vulnerable people banned.

As I noted, she insinuates I’m emotional, but again, all I did was post something months ago, and then this post today. Who’s emotional now?

UPDATE: New Year, Same White Fragility: Cathy Brennan is still a Fake Goth

What’s the Harm in “Female-Bodied”?

Guest post by America Yamaguchi

[CN: sexual assault]

 

“Female-bodied” is a term that is endlessly harmful.

It reduces cisgender women to their uterus. While childbearing is a massively important component of patriarchal harm, it goes far beyond that. It is also harmful to insist that childbearing or a uterus is what makes a woman a woman, both to trans people of all genders, and to cisgender women who are infertile for any reason. It compounds a major source of psychological distress to cis women who cannot have children. By the standards of “female-bodied” to mean the uterine body plan, a cisgender woman who is missing any aspect or has a dysfunction by any part, is bound to feel like less of a woman. Thus, this term directly attacks the womanhood of a variety of cis women as well as trans women.

Continue reading “What’s the Harm in “Female-Bodied”?”

What’s the Harm in “Female-Bodied”?