Gender Through My Eyes

When you were a child, were you raised as your biological sex or were you given options? I wore pink and the boys I knew wore blue. There was never a middle-ground for me. Now after realizing there is a very large middle ground, gender is a more controversial topic then I ever imagined it could be. Some children today face internal gender battles and are very misunderstood by a majority of adults and other children, just because of a lack of circulating information about this topic. Before I read “It’s OK to Be Neither: Teaching That Supports Gender-Variant Children”, “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story” and “Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?” I had no idea how much of a controversial issue gender really was. I didn’t understand anything about it because I had never been exposed to anything on the topic. But now I see how important it is to educate both adults and children on the true meaning of gender and all of its complexities.

Twelve years ago when I entered elementary school, gender was never confronted or discussed. Before school however, I was raised to play with dolls and tea sets, I wore pink, flowery clothes and my hair was always in a bow. I was daddy’s little girl and mommy’s princess. I was a feminine girl before I even knew I had a choice of anything different. In my school, as far as I know, there was never an issue that involved gender therefore it was never a relevant subject to talk about. My teachers addressed us as “boys and girls” and we lined up according to gender. In “It’s OK to Be Neither: Teaching That Supports Gender-Variant Children”, author Melissa Bollow Tempel tries her best to stay away from these gender specific methods. When walking her students to the bathroom she would have them form single line then split into their appropriate bathrooms when they got there. “When the kids came out of the bathroom, they wanted to line up as most classrooms do, in boys' and girls' lines. Instead, I thought up a new way for them to line up each day. For example: "If you like popsicles, line up here. If you like ice cream, line up here." They loved this, and it kept them entertained while they waited for their classmates” (Tempel 2). She used this technique in various ways to split up her class. She also chose to not use the phrase “boys and girls” but used “students” or “children” instead. Tempel explains that she wanted to successfully prepare her students for life, society and all the different people they will encounter. She believes teaching about gender is just as important as talking about racism or how to protect the environment (Tempel 4). If more teachers approached gender like she did, I believe that there would be a chance that we would live in a less discriminatory world.  

Never being exposed to any gender issues in the past has opened my eyes to a new light and way of thinking about gender. When I was younger, the boys wore shirts with trucks and dinosaurs on them and had short hair and the girls wore dresses and flowery shirts and had long hair. In my second grade class, there were two girls with shorter hair who were the tomboys of the class but we knew that’s just what they liked and none of us ever thought any differently of them. I have realized that it is important for children to learn the basics of gender-variance at a young age in order to enable them to accept their potential future peers. Lois Gould touches on this subject in her piece “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story”. This tale is a wonderful portrayal of a couple, Ms. and Mr. Jones, undergoing an experiment with a “Baby X”. The purpose of this experiment is to raise a child that does not fall under any specific gender stereotype with the help of a seemingly endless instruction manual. As X grew and started school, it had a great impact on the children in its class such as “Susie, who sat next to X in class, suddenly refused to wear pink dresses to school any more She insisted on wearing red-and-white checked overalls—just like X’s . . . [and] Jim, the class football nut, started wheeling his little sister’s doll carriage around the football field . . . He told his family that X did the same thing, so it must be okay” (Gould 4). This story portrays gender variance affecting children that have not been exposed to different gender categories and their characteristics. The children in the story all thought that since X liked to do everything that both boys and girls liked to do, that it must be having twice the amount of fun that they were all having. If there had been an X in my elementary school, my classmates all would have reacted the same way. The boys would want X on their kickball team and the girls would have wanted X to jump rope with them.

One gender related topic that has come up in my life since elementary school has been the bisexual, gay and lesbian community in both my high school and here at Fitchburg State. I was first introduced to these classmates in high school. I went to a catholic school so sexual orientation was something we were not allowed to speak about and these students could not fully express themselves. We had to wear uniforms, boys had to wear pants and girls were allowed to wear skirts or pants and we all wore polo’s or dress shirts. I never came across one, but if a boy wanted to wear a skirt, he was not allowed to. Here at Fitchburg State, most of the LGB community is much more open about their sexuality because they are allowed to be. They are supported and are not discriminated against. Unfortunately this is not the case for all schools. A lot of students have severe anxiety about their sexuality and some of this comes from restrictions on what kids are allowed to wear to school. Jan Hoffman observes that dress codes in high schools affect these limitations on gender and sexuality expression, just like my high school. Students today are growing up in a more accepting culture than most adults grew up in and this generation difference reflects the arguments involving dress code (Hoffman 1). “This generation is really challenging the gender norms we grew up with,” said Diane Ehrensaft, an Oakland psychologist who writes about gender. “A lot of youths say they won’t be bound by boys having to wear this or girls wearing that. For them, gender is a creative playing field” (qtd. in Hoffman 2).

Gender is a much broader topic than I originally thought. These articles helped me form an educated opinion on the topic. In the future, if I ever encounter a little boy in a skirt or a little girl playing with trucks, I will now realize that they are in a middle ground and might be gender-variant children and that is perfectly okay.