Complex Numbers

Humans.

Today, I'm going to wade into a minefield.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/06/imagining-a-better-boyhood/56...

In hindsight, our son was gearing up to wear a dress to school for quite some time. For months, he wore dresses—or his purple-and-green mermaid costume—on weekends and after school. Then he began wearing them to sleep in lieu of pajamas, changing out of them after breakfast. Finally, one morning, I brought him his clean pants and shirt, and he looked at me and said, “I’m already dressed.”

Don't care.

He walked the half block to school with a bounce in his step, chest proud. “My friends are going to say dresses aren’t for boys,” he told me casually over his shoulder. “They might,” I agreed. “You can just tell them you are comfortable with yourself and that’s all that matters.”

Beginning to detect the faint, familiar odor of bovine excrement.

When he walked into his classroom, sure enough, one child immediately remarked, “Why are you wearing a dress? Dresses are for girls.” A teacher swiftly and gently shut down the child’s commentary and hugged my son tightly.

Ah, yes... homegrown fertilizer. Teachers don't hug, nowadays. They get investigated and fired for that shit.

One day when my husband dropped him off, he heard a little girl stand up to a naysayer and shout, “Boys can like beautiful things, too!”

Sure he did.

Thing is, though, possibly bullshit anecdotes aside, the author makes, in my opinion, excellent points.

Maybe you weren't expecting me, a middle-aged man, to say that. I'm supposed to be the Enemy here, trying to hold on to antiquated ideas of gender norms in the face of a rethinking of everything that "gender" means.

Fuck that.

Like I said, I don't care - one way or the other.

Thing is, though - I don't always understand. I feel like there's a subtext to every conversation about sex and gender that I'm not a party to; I'm not even invited to the party. Maybe that's because, like I said, I'm a middle-aged man and thus subject to the social expectations thereof - in short, I'm put in a box as much as anyone else is. Maybe it's because, when I was a kid, my parents were progressive enough not to put all those "this is what boys do" crap in my head. Probably it's something else entirely; I don't know, because whatever it is, I'm missing it.

But it doesn't matter. I don't have to understand why some penis-owners insist that they're women, or the other way around; I just have to accept it - or not. I do accept it, because, clearly, it happens. I don't have to understand why anyone does anything, for that matter, and as long as they're not hurting anyone else in the process, I find it difficult to give a shit.

Way I see it, everyone - everyone - has stereotypical "masculine" and stereotypical "feminine" traits, likes, and dislikes, in varying degrees. As with most social things, it's not binary, but on a continuum. For instance, I know a guy whose hobby is collecting vintage Barbie dolls and making little dresses for them. I know another one who likes to enjoy a "Princess Cake" for his birthday every year, complete with pink flower frosting. Not that it matters, but both these people identify and present as men, and they've each been married (to women) way longer than I ever was; I only say this to point out that their other traits are in no way stereotypically effeminate.

So, I don't know what I'm missing about this conversation. People like what they like. To shame them into not liking something is basically making it clear that you don't accept them as a person, to attempt to suppress their expression of creativity or joy or whatever.

And that sucks, no matter who you are.

Therefore, I keep reading about it, and I attempt to have conversations about it, but I feel like every time I bring it up, someone decides I'm not, I dunno, ideologically pure enough to even have the discussion with, and I'm left even more bewildered than before. Just let people be who they are, is my view - again, excluding those who want to do harm; I'm not advocating, say, letting pedophiles have their way. Or, maybe they don't know who they are; in which case, let them explore.

Anyway, yeah, I know I'm rambling. That happens when I can't quite wrap my head around something. Maybe someone else can shed some light on the subject for me.