“You are encouraging her to be a boy”
“it’s not right to call her he because she’s not a boy”
I feel these two comments will haunt me for the rest of my existence – the two things that people feel they have right to say to me because I choose to let my child be who they want to be! People presume (I assume by these comments) that I have chosen to call Ben ‘he’ lightly and that I am not bothered in the slightest about him being potentially transgender – this is not the case I can tell you now . . . . It has taken me a lot of soul-searching to become accepting of Ben. As a parent all I want is for my child to be happy and as long as he is not harming anyone else I will always support whatever decisions he makes – If Ben continues to live as a male for the rest of his life I will love him, if he grow’s out of it and go’s back to living as a girl I will love him, if he wants to be gender fluid and live his life between both I will love him and I will NEVER be ashamed of my decision to do so.
My response to these negative comments would be – how do you think I am encouraging it? By letting him wear boys clothes, by letting him play with boys toys? Who decided that those were ‘boys’ things anyway? Oh yes . . . . a society that needs everyone to be in a category and my very clever marketing companies who realised that they could make a whole lot of money from all who by into the blue is for boys and pink is for girls – I always give Ben the choice, I allow him to look in the boys and girls sections in shops and let HIM decide what he wants to wear / play with. recently on a trip to Alnwick Castle he chose a pink princess t-shirt with the slogan “im an Alnwick garden princess” over a blue knight’s t-shirt and in actual fact I was quite proud, he still clearly stated he wanted to stay being a boy and asked “is it okay to be a boy and like pink mummy” WHAT ARE WE DOING TO OUR POOR LITTLE CHILDREN MAN – WHY ARE WE MAKING IT SO HARD FOR THEM TO JUST BE WHO THEY ARE! Of course its okay for boys to like pink and princesses but even at age 4 Ben (and all other children) know that other people will look at them funny or pick on them for having something more commonly associated with the opposite gender! I appreciate that some kids do fit very clearly into they typical male or female categories but we do need to ask ourselves is that because we have molded them that way from the moment they entered the world (if not before). I bet 90% of people who read this blog will be guilty of saying to their child at some point you don’t what that it’s for boys / girls or its pink / blue – Next tine your out shopping listen out for it, it is amazing how many people say it probably without thinking. The first thing we do when a baby is born is state its gender “its a boy” or “its a girl”we almost celebrate the gender more than celebrating the fact another wonderful human has just come into the world – it’s so sad!
I think before people criticize our decision they should think to themselves what actually defines a person’s gender – obviously we all have an anatomical gender but it really is much deeper than that!
The definition of gender in the oxford dictionary is [mass noun] The state of being male or female (typically used with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones): I do not need to be told that Ben is really a girl, I am fully aware of this fact and I feel sad every single day when I imagine him being bullied or left out at school. I dont see it as encouraging I see it as supporting and I hope that as Ben grows he will find strength in that support.
SUMMERBENANDME 