To those who tell me that my children should 'choose their own gender:'
Tell me what you think a woman is, please. A man? What is gender?
You tell me that gender is fluid. You tell me that it's nonbinary. You tell me that a man can be trapped in a woman's body, and vice versa. You tell me that these things are complicated. Like I am simple, a child, and need to be slowly educated, with small. concise. little. words.
If that is the case, then help me understand, please. I want to listen, not just for the sake of hearing, but to comprehend. But the more I listen, the more confused I become, and the more I question if you even understand what you are saying, or if you are just spouting the rhetoric you've been told, parroting it because it's the inclusive thing to say, and you must, above all else, show your inclusivity.
I am a female. I have a uterus and all the other female body parts that accompany it. My parents taught me that because I have female body parts, I am female. The definition begins and ends there - I am female because my body has female parts. Period.
My first child is male. He has male body parts. He typically plays with female friends. I have multiple pictures of him dressing up as a princess, and his first favorite color (currently it's brown) was pink. Stereotypically, in our society, princesses and pink are GIRL things. And each time I hear my son ask to put on nail polish, and I hesitate because of what others might think, I ask myself, why? Why is nail polish a girl thing? Why is long hair, or dress-ups or compassion, or crying easily, or staying home to raise children; what about any of those things is feminine? Should they be?
As a parent, I am terrified that one day my son will go to school, and someone will tell him that he might be female because he likes something or does something that they ascribe to a female stereotype. Because it's what that the girls around him like. Or because he gets along better with girls, or feels more comfortable with them, or thinks it's fun to dye his hair pink, etc, etc. I want my son to love his body as God gave it to him. I want him to take care of it, to love how it moves and the opportunities it affords him. It's hard enough as any HUMAN to get to that point, to feel like you can own your space and body and image without agonizing over the perceptions of other people. I am terrified that he'll wonder if he was born wrong, and because he doesn't fit into a fluid, changing, nonbinary stereotype, he'll want to alter his healthy, growing, changing body in unhealthy ways.
You tell me I'm wrong for feeling this. For wanting him to celebrate him in all of his uniqueness. You threaten to make me feel wrong for loving him as he came when you shut me down and threaten me with labels like transgender-phobic, anti-human rights, old-fashioned, uneducated.
So educate me. If I feel strong, powerful, want to play football, or punch someone in the face, does that make me masculine? Male? Because, and forgive me if this is insensitive, I want to have my cake and eat it too in this regard. I want to love the body I was born with, and be able to explore and experience the world around me, and all the messy, human emotions and experiences that I damn well choose to, without spending an iota of wasted time wondering if my enjoyment of said experience or emotions means that my anatomy is screwed up. I don't have time for that.
If you want to start a war on typical gender stereotypes, sign me up. But please, never again suggest to me that I should insinuate in any way to my children that their bodies might be wrong, and they should wait till later to understand how their emotions are driving their bodies, rather than how their biology is affecting their emotions.
I want my children to own their space, their bodies, and their choices. I don't want them to spend their lives chasing fluid stereotypes that the world can't seem to define. If you think I'm wrong, like I said before, I want to listen. But I'll need some specific definitions before I'll engage in any discussion if you think you are going to change my mind on this.
***Now, I feel like I should clarify, I understand that for some people, their biology is unique, and doesn't fit neatly into one category or another - you still should be able to celebrate your body in its uniqueness: I'm speaking specifically to those who want me to tell my very biologically male child that he should wait to "choose his gender when he discovers it based on how he feels."
