“Is that a boy or a girl?”
My child is what you might call gender non-conforming, or gender fluid. You could also call it being a kid. She’s OK with the female pronouns, but she consistently requests short hair “like a boy.” The haircut seems to throw people off most of all, because it does look very much like a typical boy haircut. And if she is mixing what you would consider “boy” clothes with her gold shoes? It seems to really confuse people…
When you have a child who wants to dress a certain way, or play with a certain toy, and you tell them they can’t because you’re worried what someone else might think, or because you are uncomfortable with it because of your own gender bias – you’re essentially modeling that the child should view themselves externally. That how they see themselves is not as important as how others see them. That’s not the message I want to send to my children.
— Author Erika Kleinman explains why she and her husband aren’t pressuring their youngest child to fulfill stereotypical gender norms at Role Reboot.
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