09/10/2020
Two years ago, when my older son was five and my younger son two, we walked into a clothing store. Shopping for new clothes is something we do very, very rarely (we are all about second-hand threads) so my older boy was excited.
I told him he could pick one thing that he really, really, wanted and I would buy it.
I left with two very happy boys in multi-coloured sequin skirts half an hour later.
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When I was a child, in the early 90s, my mother sewed me a stunning princess dress in pink that I adored. At 7 years old, my hair had never been cut and reached down to my hips. I loved being a princess.
My mother also sewed me, at my request, pyjamas with tassels resembling a Native American outfit (we were a Russian family living in Germany, there was no concept of cultural appropriation or real Native Americans at the time; we played at being Cowboys and Indians like we played Princesses and Knights or Power Rangers). I made my own bow and arrows using twigs, sticks and yarn and I climbed trees and “shot down” apples.
I was always comfortable being a girl. But I never spent a lot of time thinking about what it meant, to be a girl. I liked the things I liked because I was me. Dolls, toy cars, marbles, sparkly dresses, cool trainers, video games, matches of different colours. Making mud pies and climbing things and racing around on my bicycle over fields and down hills. Drawing and stories and singing and dancing. I played handball and I did ballet. I dissected a dead mouse with a pocket knife (for science) and I played with my mother’s make-up.
I’m sure that somebody must have said the words “that’s not for girls” or “it’s not very ladylike” to me, at one time or another, but I don’t remember taking them very seriously. I always had the innate conviction that, boy or girl, people were people. My mother strongly reinforced this view and it was reflected in the mixed-gender groups of friends I surrounded myself with.
I grew up not caring about gender very much – unsurprisingly, it turned out I was pansexual – and while later in life remaining “gender-blind” has not always been possible or easy much of the time, I still strive to see a person first before I see their gender. Because so much of the time, the latter isn’t relevant at all in everyday interactions.
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So when my son grabbed the sequin skirt excitedly – “Mummy, I want this!” – I told him very plainly: “It’s beautiful. I like it. Just so you know, some people will tell you it’s for girls.”
“I know,” he said with a shrug, “That’s okay, I want it.”
He wore the skirt to summer camp the next day and I was the English language teaching assistant (we live in Spain) so I witnessed the reactions. Sure enough, the other children stared when he first walked in. And then there were shrieks of laughter and shouts of “Skirts are for girls! You can’t do that!”
I waited to see what my son would do. Cool as a cucumber, he walked over to the other children and simply said, “Yeah, I can. It’s the new fashion.”
None of the children quite knew what to say to that. I went on to show them some pictures of male runway models in skirts on my phone. And that was that. The entire class of five-and six-year-olds went about their business for the rest of the day, playing together as usual. Not another word or glance was wasted on the skirt, other than to admire how it shimmered in the sunlight.
Acceptance is uncomplicated for children, if the environment facilitates it. We are not born into two separate groups of beings. We are all born people. My boys play with dinosaurs and paint their nails. They like glittery things and necklaces and trucks and toy trains. Sword fighting and wrestling and dancing and painting.
I see no reason to limit self-expression because of something as changeable and inconstant as fashion. The way we choose to present to the world doesn’t dictate our gender or sexuality any more than dressing up in alien costumes would make us extraterrestrials.
It’s lovely to see that gender roles and stereotypes, as well as stereotypes regarding sexuality, are being challenged and questioned by the younger generations. We have gone from a binary understanding of gender to the desire and ability to categorise gender in much more detail, with a lot more nuance. And I think that’s an important process.
But what I hope this is leading to, is a society where gender and sexuality are not disputed, nor fought over or imposed, nor have to be worn as a badge of pride in defiance of discrimination.
What I hope for is a society where gender and sexual orientation are no longer of much consequence. And we can look at one another and simply see in the other a multi-faceted, unique human being – such as ourselves.
My older son picked another article of clothing that day, also from the girls’ section, unbeknownst to him. It was a black jumper with a sequin rainbow which spells: KIDS WILL CHANGE THE WORLD.
The same jumper was not available in the boys’ section. Because, I can only assume, rainbows are “not for boys”.
My boy loves to wear his rainbow jumper, thus proving its message true.
