The transition from childhood to adulthood can be a
confusing time. (Do I win some kind of
award for understatement of the year for that?)
Sexuality and gender identity can be especially hard to understand and
deal with if a kid suspects their answer isn’t totally aligned with the norm. This stuff can involve a lot of questioning
and soul-searching, and it’s hard to know what to ask or how or to whom when
you’re only just emerging into a world that’s willing to give you the proper
framework for it rather than tell you you’re too young to be thinking about
that stuff yet. You can end up saying a
lot of stupid things to a lot of people you care about along the way, and
however genuine and necessary those statements and questions are, years or even
decades later you might look back on those conversations and know that the
other someone still knows you said that,
and you will wish you could call them and explain yourself now that you
understand what you really meant. (But
it’s not like I’m speaking from experience or anything, here.)
We’re getting better about helping kids through this
stuff now (I hope). Acceptance of
homosexuality is on the rise, the word “transgender” appeared for the first
time ever in the President’s State of the Union address, Gamergate was a
perfect demonstration of how strong our movement for women’s equality has
become (and how far we still have to go).
So maybe this post is a little old-fashioned now – but as my kids grow
up, I fully intend to make sure these adult messages are getting passed along
to them in a way they can understand.
Here are a few of the things I wish I’d known around, say, the age of
twelve, in the interest of avoiding some of those acutely embarrassing memories
I still harbor:
1. Gender is a concept, and it’s complicated
Here is a fact which bears repeating because of how
confusing it is for most people when they first encounter it: Sex, Gender, and
Sexuality are three totally distinct things.
Your sex is (more or less) the set of genitalia you were born with. Your gender is (more or less) what’s in your
head – your feeling about what type of person you are. And your sexuality is, to put it simply, what
you’re into.
The idea of gender being in your head is especially hard
for people. It’s infinitely depressing
as I start down this path of raising a child to hear how early and often people
ascribe masculine or feminine personality traits to their children based on
their sex. It’s so deeply rooted in our
culture to have only two genders and
to have those be defined entirely by genitalia
that many people wouldn’t dream of an alternative. And it’s destructive even for cis-gendered
kids – kids whose gender identity does
happen to coincide with what’s in their pants. It makes young boys feel they can’t express
their emotions through tears. It makes
young girls feel they have to love pink.
It creates all our favorite damaging stereotypes about adult men and
women. So imagine what it does to kids
who don’t feel as canonically
masculine or feminine as their genitals dictate (and, if we’re being honest,
that’s a lot of us).
For me, the biggest revelation I came upon way too late
was the notion of male privilege. It was
never presented to me explicitly how fundamentally differently society treats
men and women. I saw it all the time, of
course, but I lived it, too – and when you live it, it’s hard to see just how
pervasive and persuasive it is. So at
the time, it was hard to see that for me
(and I stress that strongly, here), a
yearning for male privilege was a large part of my sometimes-expressed wish I’d
been born a guy. Certainly not all of it
– but a huge, undeniable part.* I didn’t
understand at the time that gender is nothing but a construct, both a social
and a personal construct – and that because it is social in addition to being
personal, it’s very easy for outside forces to influence a person’s thoughts
about what they’re really feeling.
What I would say to
Young Me now: “You may think your decisions about gender are entirely your
own, but they’re not. They can’t be,
because you’re a social creature and you belong to humanity. You don’t exist in a vacuum. The best you can do is think long and hard
about it, quiet your soul, and ask yourself: how you feel, how that feeling
impacts your daily life, and whether you need to make an external change to
reflect your inner self.”
*This is such a critical point that I don’t want it to
get lost: This was my experience, and it wasn’t all of my experience. Everyone has a different journey and my road,
thank God, has been a relatively easy one.
I applaud the courage of those whose battle with traditional gender
roles is far more personal than mine.
2. Neither your gender identity nor your sexual
orientation has to be set in stone
I’ve said before that our society (our species?) puts a
lot of stock in labeling. We want you to
tell us you’re [insert-label-here], and we want you to stay in that
bucket. Jumping buckets just might be
some kind of sin.
In high school I heard a self-identified lesbian spewing
all sorts of hatred for a girl who had previously declared herself gay and then
dated a guy. I sat quietly by and let this
person rant. And I thought, “Wow, good
thing I’m straight and don’t have to worry about this!” Ha! There are so many things wrong with that
memory. This person’s hate for someone who changed their mind
– or didn’t change their mind at all but didn’t feel the need to tell an
outside person all the minute details of her inner desires! The assumption on my part that I was straight
despite all the still-building evidence to the contrary. My fear of other people’s opinions about my
sexuality. My belief that a person could
only ever be one thing and any “deviations” along the way were nothing more
than an attempt to figure out what that one thing was. My inaction in the face of her hate.
It may not be the most relevant use of this quote, but
whenever I think about these kinds of things I’m reminded of Maya Angelou: “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I
know better, I do better.”
The more I’ve learned about gender and
sexuality, the more comfortable I am in saying simply, I like people. I can’t tell you what kinds, really, I just
know it when I see it. Or get to know
it. Or hear it from across a crowded
room. And tomorrow I might not feel the
same way. And it’s none of your damn
business anyway. And your interests and
self-identity are none of my or anyone else’s damn business, either.
What I would say to
Young Me now: “If it helps you to
think of your gender and sexuality in terms of labels, then by all means do it
– but don’t feel you have to hold onto those labels forever. Wear them while they suit you. And if anyone tries to push you into donning
an outgrown or ill-fitting coat, push
back.”
3. It is NEVER
okay to belittle someone else’s experience
I’m ashamed to admit I’ve repeatedly had to learn this
one the hard way. As a simple and
obvious example, even into high school I used to call all sorts of things ‘gay’. I said
it even though I had an amazing friend who early and often yelled at me for
it. And I’m still learning how to see
the world from other people’s eyes. Even
today I caught myself wanting to defend my hometown as I read about someone
else’s awful experience in it. #NotAllTucsonans,
style of thing. It was pathetic.
Acceptance comes up often in discussions of sexuality and
identity. We all view the world through
our singular experience, and by definition that makes it difficult to get into
the mindset of another person.
(Neuroscience tells us we get better at this as we get older, thank
goodness!) We’re called upon again and
again simply to trust that someone else is sincere when they tell us they like
people who identify as the same gender, when they say they’ve never felt
comfortable in the bodies they were born with, when they carefully explain why
the word ‘gay’, when used pejoratively, is offensive to them. And the moment we persist in arguing they
must be wrong or they shouldn’t be such a baby about things, we invalidate them
and their hard-earned sensibilities. We’re
saying our stupid comment matters more to us than the reality of their everyday
experience. We’re letting our singular, myopic
view of the world dominate the dialogue.
Wouldn’t it be nicer and easier all around to just give people the
benefit of the doubt and assume they’re intelligent people with the ability to
decide for themselves who they feel like and whom they like? Wouldn’t it be better to embrace their experience as another shining example of the vast
spectrum of human individuality?
What I would say to
Young Me now: “You will make mistakes and offend other people. That’s life.
So when someone tells you they’re
offended by your words, take the time to figure out their side. And if you still insist on saying what you’re
saying, know that you’ve just given your comment priority over someone else’s
feelings.”
I hope as my kids grow up and figure these things out for
themselves that I can direct them toward information like this to help them build
attitudes of acceptance and self-assurance.
I know as their mom I’m more or less a background voice to the tapestry
of friends and classmates and media outlets that will no doubt contribute to
their worldviews far more than I will. But
maybe, just maybe, I can at least give them a little bit of a leg up.
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