Transgender, Queerness, and Gender Roles?

[midoskeek]

Shiloh, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's four-year-old daughter, has unwittingly made headlines for her adorable tomboy style. There's nothing unusual about that, says Chaz Bono -- but the story has helped the general public think more about gender identity, notes the fellow child of celebs (Cher and the late Sonny Bono), formerly known as Chastity

Comments

[insane_duckfish]

I am so impressed with your daughter right now, omg.

[mswyrr]

Your daughter sounds super cool. :)

[midoskeek]

Sounds like a radfem in the making!! :)

[spyral_path]

Shiloh is four years old. She might not even be picking out her own clothes. Even if she is, it's a huge leap from "wears pants" to "transgender."

[mswyrr]

All the media attention for the fact that she dresses comfortably is itself a really problematic expression of how sexualized/girlified little girls have become. As if, if they're not all in prettypretty princess dresses and itty-bitty ballet shoes and whatever-the-hell Something Must Be Up.

WTF

I remember getting so angry at the itchy, hot pretty clothes I was stuffed into as a little girl that I would tear handfuls of my own hair out just to be rid of the hair-bows. And cry like I was being tortured. I did it because I hated the discomfort.

I grew up to be a plain straight girl who likes to wear long hair, no makeup, jeans, and a t-shirt everywhere.

/cool story, sis

[danceprincess20]

Exactly. To me, the fact that she's 4 is the end of it.

[mswyrr]

He's obviously got good intent going on, and he did say "should they ever need [the resources]" rather than "when" they need them. But... it does kind of erase the existence of butch lesbians, butchy straight women, and, I think, boys who like femme-y stuff. It's possible to be a boy who really, truly likes skirts and dolls.

[mswyrr]

Er. To clarify: if a child says "I'm a boy" he should be given support and respect whether or not he likes to wear butch clothes. His taste in clothes should not be the metric by which people judge whether or not he's a boy.

And if another child says "I'm a girl" and wants to dress butch, people should respect that, too. Taste in clothes/hair styles/whatever shouldn't be the standard that's used to determine the authenticity of someone's gender.

speaking here as a trans dude

[static_hiss]

Well, on the other hand, hearing "but butch women exist! you don't have to be a boy!" all the time was detrimental to me when I was younger, and delayed my coming out/transitioning process for years. I mean, I'm not saying that every kid who was assigned female at birth who prefers "boy" clothes and toys is trans, but I'm just sayin', I'm real sick of hearing "BUT MAYBE YOU'RE NOT A GUY MAYBE YOU'RE JUST A GIRL WHO LIKES JEANS"

[seasontoseason]

can I ask a 101 question? What is the difference between a woman who wants to and does present 'as a guy' in the eyes of the general culture and a trans guy? Is it an 'inner feeling' of guy- or girl-ness?

[frelling_tralk]

As far as anyone knows right now, Shiloh is just as much a little girl as one who likes to dress up in frilly dresses, she just expresses herself in a different way. He should have just stopped at there's nothing unusual about her tomboy style. To say he would love to talk to her parents about it strikes me as very presumptuous

[strong_delicate]

I watched Chaz's documentary last night [ok I saw most of it, I feel asleep towards the end]. But it seems like he was really big on gender roles and made a big deal about as a child he was more interested in boy things. Obviously Chaz made the decision to transition, but Shiloh is what 5 years old? I think at the most right now she is just playing and taking on an identity for fun.

Lets wait before we start planning her sexual reassignment surgery.

[slurp]

Yeah. Kids see gender as pretty fluid at a young age. Like, they know there's boys and girls but it's not that constant. I was a "tomboy" and I remember being like 4, 5 and when I went to the bathroom I thought I could magically get a penis or something. And I'm straight, cis etc. Kids develop, they don't need labels from day 1.

[midoskeek]

That's the thing I was kind of worried about. It would be (and already is) so awful for little girls to feel like they're not a "real" girl because they don't fit stereotypical gender roles. I think even the suggestion that they might be transmen is really damaging.