It may surprise some readers to know that in spite of my parents\u2019 patriarchal beliefs, they gave one of my brothers a doll for Christmas one year\u2014because he had begged for a doll of his own.\u00a0My parents believed that my brothers were preparing to be fathers, and that that meant boys playing with dolls was perfectly acceptable.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s lots more, too. There\u2019s the brother who built his own dollhouse so that he could get in on dollhouse play with his sisters. He carefully fashioned the rooms, furnishings, and trappings, and was proud of his creation. There\u2019s the brother who wanted to learn to sew, so my mother taught him, and he then went about sewing everyone lopsided but adorable blankets. There\u2019s the brother who was into art, a passion and interest my parents supported with supplies and encouragement.<\/p>\n
But there were limits, too. When he was little, one\u00a0of my brothers had a fascination with a pink ballet leotard with puffy tutu that he found in our dress-up box. He used to wear it around the house, pretending he was a ballerina. There were no objections. Then October came, and he said he wanted to be a ballerina for the fall harvest fest at our church (we didn\u2019t do trick-or-treating, because demons). If I remember correctly, my mother didn\u2019t object. What I remember very clearly, though, is that\u00a0when my father found out about my brother\u2019s plans he stepped in and put an end to them. My brother was crushed.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure why my mother was okay with my brother wearing the ballerina costume when, to this day, she shudders at any mention of LGBTQ individuals. Perhaps because this was over a decade ago, the issue seemed less pressing? Perhaps she never thought of any connection between such childish cross-dressing and being transgender? Mind you, I am not saying that wearing a costume created\u00a0for\u00a0the other gender makes one transgender. Kids often don\u2019t notice gender in the same way we do, and this\u00a0brother has shown no signs of being transgender that I have seen. I\u2019m simply surprised that my mother didn\u2019t object, given her revulsion of LGBTQ individuals.<\/p>\n
I suspect I know why my father put the lid on my brother wearing the costume out, though. We were going to be at church, in a semi-public setting, around other people we knew or who knew of us. It\u2019s very likely that heads would have turned at a little boy in a pink ballerina costume.<\/p>\n
And so today, I\u2019m curious. Why were certain transgressions of traditional gender norms tolerated while others weren\u2019t? My parents were fine with my brothers, as future fathers, playing with dolls or dollhouses, but they weren\u2019t okay with more direct assaults on these norms, such as my brother dressing as a ballerina for Halloween. And while my mother did teach one of my brothers to sew, it was only that one and only because he asked, and she made an effort\u00a0to teach each of my sisters whether or not we were interested. Our chores, too, were gendered\u2014we girls generally did the cooking and laundry while the boys generally did outdoor chores.<\/p>\n
Musing about my own upbringing makes me wonder about society at large, too. I\u2019ve seen parents wonder whether playing with dolls will make boys grow up to be \u201csoft\u201d (whatever that means) or even gay. I worry that we may be policing the gender lines more strictly today than in the past, especially with how severely gendered advertising to children has become. I\u2019ve heard some argue that companies gender things to make more sales\u2014so that you have to buy a pink one for your girl and a blue one for your boy, rather than just getting one and passing it down\u2014but I wonder if part of the impetus behind gendering things so highly comes from the increasing success marriage equality and an internal\u00a0concern over what gender means.<\/p>\n