Sarah & Ian Hoffman

Building a culture of kindness. One book at a time.
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Go Parenting! Now, go farther.

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I recently read the article Could Your Child Be Gay? by Stephanie Dolgoff on Parenting magazine’s website. It made my heart sing…and sink.

Dolgoff—and therefore Parenting magazine, as mainstream a parenting rag as there ever was—showed concern for the wellbeing and outcome of pink and/or proto-gay boys. The piece went farther than I’ve ever seen this magazine go into complex and painful territory, including an interview with Matthew Shepard’s mother and a conversation about bullying-related child suicide. This willingness to have a conversation about some of the scariest stuff parents may ever face makes a tremendous difference for boys like my son Sam.

Along with my praise for Dolgoff and Parenting, I have to point out where the article falls short.

Dolgoff assumes that  four-year-olds  cannot read the social cues that tell children what boys and girls are “supposed” to do. Studies show that children as young as two are aware of gender roles (research that can be confirmed anecdotally in the Petri dish of any preschool).

It’s also unfortunate Dolgoff believes that because a child is gender-nonconforming, he or she will be gay. This assumption does a disservice to the gender-noncomforming kids who will be straight, as well as to the gender-normative children who will be gay.  Frankly, assuming anything about a child, from his sexuality to his profession to the religion he will abide as an adult, is unhelpful to everyone.

Finally, Dolgoff’s assertion that “No matter how much he continues to like fuchsia as he gets older, there’s a good chance his survival instinct will tell him it’s not worth getting his butt kicked at school,” is the kind of statement that reinforces the culture of bullying pink boys.  I just don’t think she would make that comment about a child going to school in a wheelchair, or a black child going to an all-white school.  We need to start talking about these conflicts using different language, language that doesn’t blame the victims–or force them to choose between their identity and their personal safety.

But big picture, I am pleased as punch to hear Parenting magazine ask its readers to consider whether their child is gay. The more we as a society have this conversation, however imperfect, the closer we are to accepting what was once utterly unacceptable.

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Zee Utilikilt

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Today I took Sam to the Apple store to look at a Star Wars video game he wants for his birthday. He was very excited, and sat down on the floor next to the software to review his options. He looked like he wanted to settle in for a while.

An Apple employee wearing a Utilikilt walked up to us. “She looks quite happy there,” he said of Sam, who wore a black Return of the Jedi t-shirt and olive-drab pants. Even to this man in a skirt, my long-haired boy looked like a girl. “He is definitely happy about Star Wars,” I replied.

I knew that I could avoid pronouns, as I have many times in the past: “Yup, Sam is definitely happy about Star Wars.” Today, I liked the idea of letting a stranger know that boys can have long hair (and I figured that we were pretty safe, given the Utilikilt and all). But I found myself thinking that life would be easier if pronouns were gender-neutral.

It seems unfortunate that we call every child a “he” or a “she.” Why should I have to reference what’s in my child’s underwear every time I reply to a store employee, order food in a restaurant, or talk to a parent at the park? And why should my son have to defend his right, as he has for so many years, to like the things he likes and look the way he wants to look? If he had no pronoun, no one could say that boys don’t wear pink.

There has been some debate about shifting to gender-neutral pronouns like “zee” in place of “he” and “she.” Changes to language are awkward and difficult to bring into mainstream acceptance; we’ve had a hard enough time moving from “fireman” and “stewardess” to “firefighter” and “flight attendant.” I know much of our world is not ready for boys who have long hair, let alone for invented pronouns meant to draw attention away from biological gender.

But then again, a few short years ago, Apple employees weren’t walking around  in Utilikilts.

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The Omni-Gender Bathroom

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Recently, while visiting the library of a small east coast college, I found myself in need of a bathroom. I encountered this one:

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Later that day I sought out the bathroom I usually use on campus: a nondescript single-user loo in the social science department, a place I’ll call Bathroom B. I wanted to visit Bathroom B partly because I had to go, and partly to see how it had changed since my last visit to the college at the end of the summer. Unlike the Omni-Gender Bathroom, Bathroom B is still trying to figure things out.

I work at this college several times a year, and have enjoyed observing Bathroom B’s evolution.  Every time I visit, Bathroom B sports different signage.  When I first encountered Bathroom B, it had a sign that read “Women.”  On my next visit it bore a hand-lettered sign: “Unisex.” The next time I saw Bathroom B it was simply identified with a glyph not unlike that of The Artist Formerly Known as Prince.

That afternoon, I found Bathroom B marked with a strip of duct tape and the word “Women” in black marker—a return to its roots.  Given that I only visit quarterly, I imagine I’ve missed at least a few iterations of the bathroom’s identity.

What I appreciate about this particular campus is the students’ and faculty’s willingness to change with the times–only to reevaluate and change again. On the one hand there are transgender students who require a safe space in which to answer nature’s call.  On the other there are female students and professors who wish to use a cleaner bathroom than that typically frequented by male users. What’s the resolution?  No one knows.  But this once-banal bit of signage on a small room meant to satisfy a physiological function is now the hotbed of a series of wrought questions spanning biology, identity, safety, and selfhood.

Duct tape is sturdy, but not permanent, so I’m guessing Bathroom B will continue to evolve.  The Omni-Gender Bathroom seems to have found a more stable identity for itself.  Who’s to say which is the better destiny?

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