The Toddler's A-Gender
The other night, The Small Person asked that I read Jacinta Bunnell and Irit Reinheimer's Girls Will Be Boys Will Be Girls at bed time. After we read it, The Small Person announced "My gender is purple." It is certainly true that The Small Person strongly identifies with purple at the moment. For the first time, The Small Person talks about having a favorite. Most mornings at breakfast The Small Person wants purple eggs. For the first time, The Small Person has asked that we buy particular clothes - apparently there are not enough purple shirts or shoes in the house. Purple flowers get exclaimed over, purple toys are preferred and it is generally clear that purple is the best, red's okay too, but purple is better. So okay, The Small Person's gender is purple.
Of course, other people seldom read the Small Person as a purple. With so many people in North America so heavily invested in a gender binary, where "girl" and "boy" are the two boxes it is assumed all children belong in, people don't immediately understand that The Small Person is a purple. What they see is this:
What they see is a small person in action, all enthusiasm and curiosity. The person they see is usually wearing pants or shorts, and has long curly ringlets clipped back. Most people who see this small person, this chatty, friendly, outgoing small person assign the small person to the gender of "girl". It's fascinating to me that long hair seems to be the strongest gender signifier that our toddler currently has. One of the things that I find particularly fascinating is that at the moment, all desires for purple clothes aside, our toddler has very little choice in hir appearance. Sure, The Small Person gets to choose what clothes ze puts on on any given day, but ze chooses out of the clothes we have provided. It's also true that while ze chooses what clip to put in hir hair, we, the grown people, are the ones who have made the conscious choice not to cut those gorgeous ringlets. The visual clues that strangers often rely on to assign gender are not The Small Person's authentic expression of self - they are much more about us as parents.
As a parent who's invested in preserving options for the small around gender, it's always felt awkward when strangers assign a gender to The Small Person. Initially I would thank people for their compliments about my "beautiful daughter" and go on to talk about "him". I didn't want to say "He's not a girl." because well, she might be, but also I don't want to teach him that being a girl is in any way wrong or bad (whether The Small Person is a girl or not). I also recognise that a significant part of my role as a parent is to advocate on behalf of The Small Person, and I've struggled to come up with how best to advocate in those moments. I finally settled on "That's an interesting gender assumption" until The Small Person gave me indication of what kind of advocacy ze wants. Ze is starting to tell us.
In addition to "My gender is purple." The Small Person has made two other gender statements in recent weeks - curiously enough both in trans spaces. While we were at the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference there was a particularly high frequency of people commenting that The Small Person is "a beautiful girl". The Small Person responded with "I am not a girl. I am a toddler." The conference program encouraged people not to make assumptions about the gender(s) of other people, to allow people to self-identify and to ask respectfully if people needed to know. No-one ever asked The Small Person, and more that the usual number of people assumed "girl". While I am confident it was all intended to be positive, it felt like people were not able to apply the conference guidelines to someone so young.
At the Trans March on Friday we twice had similar experiences. Both times, a stranger complimented The Small Person saying "What a beautiful girl". Both times he responded "I'm a boy." Both times the adults either could not hear him or ignored him. Both times I had to repeat what he had said. Both times the grown people seemed far more invested in their read of his gender than in his self-identification. One of them, a trans advocate, at the Trans March, responded to me saying "He's telling you he's a boy." with "Whatever.", which amazed me, as I am sure this grown person would not want others responding to her sharing her gender identity with "Whatever". At both the Toronto Trans March, and the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, as trans communities, our adultism was showing. with growing numbers of children attending both (both because they are our children and because they self-identify as belonging) we need to be doing better at including and engaging with young people. As grown trans people, we need to do better at listening to children, even very young ones. If we are going to build rich intergenerational communities we need to be doing this work now.
No matter how The Small Person personally identifies, he is both culturally queer and culturally trans. Whether he is is a purple, a toddler, a boy, or something else entirely, he belongs in our communities. We first shared the news we were expecting with friends at the first Toronto Trans March and he's attended every year since, twice he's joined his Papa on stage to host the Trans Stage afterwards. He looks forward to this - gleefully telling the staff at his day care that "Proud is loud!" in the week running up to this weekend. As communities we need to do better at listening to and believing in children, after all, he's doing what he's leared from and in trans communities - expressing his chosen identity.
Of course, other people seldom read the Small Person as a purple. With so many people in North America so heavily invested in a gender binary, where "girl" and "boy" are the two boxes it is assumed all children belong in, people don't immediately understand that The Small Person is a purple. What they see is this:
What they see is a small person in action, all enthusiasm and curiosity. The person they see is usually wearing pants or shorts, and has long curly ringlets clipped back. Most people who see this small person, this chatty, friendly, outgoing small person assign the small person to the gender of "girl". It's fascinating to me that long hair seems to be the strongest gender signifier that our toddler currently has. One of the things that I find particularly fascinating is that at the moment, all desires for purple clothes aside, our toddler has very little choice in hir appearance. Sure, The Small Person gets to choose what clothes ze puts on on any given day, but ze chooses out of the clothes we have provided. It's also true that while ze chooses what clip to put in hir hair, we, the grown people, are the ones who have made the conscious choice not to cut those gorgeous ringlets. The visual clues that strangers often rely on to assign gender are not The Small Person's authentic expression of self - they are much more about us as parents.
As a parent who's invested in preserving options for the small around gender, it's always felt awkward when strangers assign a gender to The Small Person. Initially I would thank people for their compliments about my "beautiful daughter" and go on to talk about "him". I didn't want to say "He's not a girl." because well, she might be, but also I don't want to teach him that being a girl is in any way wrong or bad (whether The Small Person is a girl or not). I also recognise that a significant part of my role as a parent is to advocate on behalf of The Small Person, and I've struggled to come up with how best to advocate in those moments. I finally settled on "That's an interesting gender assumption" until The Small Person gave me indication of what kind of advocacy ze wants. Ze is starting to tell us.
In addition to "My gender is purple." The Small Person has made two other gender statements in recent weeks - curiously enough both in trans spaces. While we were at the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference there was a particularly high frequency of people commenting that The Small Person is "a beautiful girl". The Small Person responded with "I am not a girl. I am a toddler." The conference program encouraged people not to make assumptions about the gender(s) of other people, to allow people to self-identify and to ask respectfully if people needed to know. No-one ever asked The Small Person, and more that the usual number of people assumed "girl". While I am confident it was all intended to be positive, it felt like people were not able to apply the conference guidelines to someone so young.
At the Trans March on Friday we twice had similar experiences. Both times, a stranger complimented The Small Person saying "What a beautiful girl". Both times he responded "I'm a boy." Both times the adults either could not hear him or ignored him. Both times I had to repeat what he had said. Both times the grown people seemed far more invested in their read of his gender than in his self-identification. One of them, a trans advocate, at the Trans March, responded to me saying "He's telling you he's a boy." with "Whatever.", which amazed me, as I am sure this grown person would not want others responding to her sharing her gender identity with "Whatever". At both the Toronto Trans March, and the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, as trans communities, our adultism was showing. with growing numbers of children attending both (both because they are our children and because they self-identify as belonging) we need to be doing better at including and engaging with young people. As grown trans people, we need to do better at listening to children, even very young ones. If we are going to build rich intergenerational communities we need to be doing this work now.
No matter how The Small Person personally identifies, he is both culturally queer and culturally trans. Whether he is is a purple, a toddler, a boy, or something else entirely, he belongs in our communities. We first shared the news we were expecting with friends at the first Toronto Trans March and he's attended every year since, twice he's joined his Papa on stage to host the Trans Stage afterwards. He looks forward to this - gleefully telling the staff at his day care that "Proud is loud!" in the week running up to this weekend. As communities we need to do better at listening to and believing in children, after all, he's doing what he's leared from and in trans communities - expressing his chosen identity.