Fearless Friday - Truly Fearless This Time
If you spend any time on the #LGBT hash tag at Twitter, or if you follow It Gets Better, you may have heard about Nerdy Appleblossom's blog post,
but if you haven't, and gender and gender expression are things you care about, you should go read it now. Then come back and let me know what you think.
I think Nerdy Appleblossom is one sensitive mom. She let her son be what he wanted to be for Halloween. She stood up for him. That's the kind of mom we all should have, gay or straight.
A few other points I found interesting:
1) Boo sensed that he might face some challenges if he showed up in school dressed as a girl, even if it was his favorite character from Scooby-Doo. It would be interesting to know if he thought they would be from the other kids, which they apparently weren't, or from their parents. Kids do seem to be born with a sixth sense about how things will go over. He was one brave kid for going through with it anyway.
2) The other kids didn't have a problem with it. Good for those kids. Good also, for those mothers who pointed out that a certain amount of crossdressing is accepted as part of teen and young adult life these days, on specific occasions--Spirit Day, Powderpuff Games, or, at the summer camp for Gifted & Talented that my daughter attended, an plainspoken "Cross-Dressing Day." At least one of the three years she attended, one of her fellow students was CD, for what it's worth. The point is, acceptance of cross-dressing is growing. Accepting it in certain scripted situations is a baby step, but it's a step, and IMHO it's a bigger step than Milton Berle smirking in a dress (that always creeped me out, for some reason).
3) I don't know about you, but I'm sure Nerdy Appleblossom is right when she says that no one would have said a word if her daughter had chosen to be Batman. Talk about double standards! Why is it all right for a girl to dress like the opposite gender, but not a boy? Because, to quote Eddie Izzard, "women have total clothing rights." It took from the 1920s to the 1970s for women wearing pants to be accepted, but now it's widely accepted in western culture. It says so very much about our insecurity about masculinity that we, as a culture, deny men the freedom we now grant women.
4) Major point here: A guy wearing a skirt isn't automatically gay. Queer maybe, but sexual preference (a term I prefer to orientation, which makes me think of compasses and triangulation and do you face east or west), is not to be confused with gender and gender expression. CDs may be straight or gay or lesbian or bi. Again, what does it say about our insecurity about masculinity that we see a guy in a skirt and automatically think he must be gay?
Here's hoping that by the time Boo hits high school things have improved and he can be whoever he wants to be, whether that involves wearing a skirt or pants. That gives us a decade to make it so.
P.S. (Edited on Saturday to add) One effort to address the need to accept boys who like pretty and sparkly is being met by "My Princess Boy," a picture book written by another advocating mom. For the news story and info about the book visit their website.