Sarah & Ian Hoffman

Building a culture of kindness. One book at a time.
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Queen Esther

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It’s Purim, the Jewish holiday I love for its signature cookie, Hamentashen, for its dress-up potential, and for its wonderful tale of social justice and feminine strength. I’m also loving this essay by Anat Shenker about the holiday, and her three-year-old son’s desire to dress up as Queen Esther. My son Sam dressed as Queen Esther in kindergarten, and, fortunately for Sam—and thanks to gender education in the classroom—his costume went over splendidly.

This year, Sam dressed as Anakin Skywalker from the third Star Wars movie, Revenge of the Sith (for those of you who have been reading Sam’s story, how’s that for gender-bending?). My husband and I went to Sam’s school yesterday for the annual Purim talent show. Near the school entrance, we bumped into the head of school. He was dressed as a woman. With his shaggy brown wig and beige gauze skirt, he looked more like a hippy cavewoman than the fabulous transwomen I see walking around San Francisco every day. But still, the sight of the head of school in women’s clothes made my day.

I’ve been trying to get the school to do a training for the entire school community–teachers, students, and parents–for the nearly three years that Sam has been there. We’ve found both a loving attitude toward Sam as an individual and an administrative reluctance to bring his gender nonconformity to the attention of the broader community. At times, particularly when he gets harassed in the bathroom by kids who don’t know any better (and should not be expected to know any better, until the adults in their lives commit to teaching them), this makes me furious. But yesterday, with the school’s Purim celebration in full swing and the head of school dressed as a woman, I thought: this school is modeling the message I want heard, in a language everyone can understand. It’s no replacement for gender training, but it’s a wonderful message just the same: Dare to be different. Gender lines aren’t fixed. Be yourself, and you just might end up a leader.

Katana

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I was talking with Caroline, a fellow second grade mom, setting up a playdate between her son Henry and my son Sam. Henry and Sam had never played outside of school before, but recently discovered a mutual love of Wii Star Wars.

Caroline suggested Monday, but Sam had speech therapy; I suggested Tuesday but that’s Henry’s speech therapy day. We settled on Wednesday.

The date set, Caroline asked me what Sam can eat; she knows he has celiac disease and a restricted diet. Discussing Sam’s food needs made me realize I should mention that, due to Sam’s sleep disorder, he might be very tired after school, and that he could have mood issues. I told her to call me if there were any problems.

Later I realized that I hadn’t said anything about gender to Caroline. Celiac, speech, sleep, mood—they’d all come up in a few sentences. But gender was a non-issue.

For so long, gender was the only topic that came up. If a new friend came to our home, we’d have to watch the child’s reaction when he saw the pink canopy over Sam’s bed. We’d have to watch his parents for any issues with Sam putting on a princess dress. If Sam went to a new child’s house, we’d have to manage the situation if Sam preferred his male friend’s sister’s toys to his friend’s toys.

Somehow, after five years of Sam expressing his preference for pink, gender is fading into the background. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that Sam’s favorite thing to think about and talk about these days is Star Wars. Once kids and parents get to know him, his fascination with Star Wars is more center-stage than his long hair and pink shoes.

Sam’s class is studying Japan this week. They have learned to count in Japanese, have tasted Japanese foods and listened to Japanese stories. Today, their teacher put a list of names up on the board in two columns, the male column and the female. Sam chose a female name: “Katana,” which means “sword.”

Of course. A female name signifying a weapon is just about the fullest possible expression of Sam.

“Michael made fun of me for my Japanese name,” Sam reported over dinner tonight.   I was surprised–Michael is one of Sam’s best friends.

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I told him I just like the name,” Sam said. “He stopped teasing me then.”

After a lifetime of Sam determinedly being himself and no one but himself, is it possible that people really are getting used to him?  In our small community–and for the time being–the answer may actually be…yes.

The Hot Dog Man

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Every Tuesday, Sam has hot lunch at school: a hot dog with no bun. Bunlessness is important, because Sam has celiac disease, which means he can’t eat wheat.

Last week, Sam’s hot dog came in a bun. According to his doctor, he cannot eat anything that has even touched wheat, so he went without lunch that day. I called Jeff, the lunch provider, to discuss the situation. Jeff was very nice, and promised to work harder to provide a safe lunch for my daughter.

My daughter, who is actually a boy. Jeff and I were a couple minutes into the conversation before anyone uttered a pronoun, and it was Jeff who did it, Jeff who said he cared very much about my daughter’s health. Jeff has never met Sam. Somehow, he just knew that Sam was a girl.

I understand the woman we met on a plane last week, who saw Sam’s pink shoes and long hair and thought he was a girl. I understand the many people we meet on playgrounds and in restaurants who assume the same. But someone who’s never even seen him?

The only time that anyone’s ever “mistaken” Sam for a boy was at 4am in a diner in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood. (It’s a long story.) Here, in the most densely gay part of the United States, the waiter took one look at this blond pony-tailed child in pink Crocs and asked, “Does he want whipped cream on his hot chocolate?”

Never mind what a seven-year-old was doing in an after-hours diner. How did he know Sam was a boy? Somehow, he just knew.