Scarleteen

Most people have had times when something about being -- or more to the point, ideas bout being -- a certain gender or sex felt uncomfortable, weird, wrong or just not-okay. For most of us, we probably had at least one time back in childhood -- and for some of us, many times, and for others still, ALL the times -- we can remember and perhaps even pinpoint as a first time we felt not-so-awesome or conflicted about our gender.

Can you remember the first time, or one of the first times, you heard someone say that you couldn't do something, or shouldn't do something, just because you were a boy or a girl? Or a time someone treated you "like a girl," or "like a boy" in a way that made you feel conflicted or upset? Or maybe when someone expected of you as a boy or a girl was not something you liked or wanted, and you had to deal with pushback?

What was it? How do you feel about it now?

I have a very clear memory of this! When I was about 7 years old, I was hiking with my mom and older brother on a very hot day. The trail ended at a park that had a wading pool, and when we went splashing around in it, my brother took his shirt off first. I wanted to take mine off, because I was really hot and it seemed like a good idea, but my mom wouldn't let me.

My response was to say "well... I'll take off my PANTS then!" but she didn't approve of that plan either. She just said "it isn't appropriate" because I was a girl, but I didn't actually understand why. All I knew, at the time, was that it was deeply unfair for reasons I didn't understand. This wasn't a particularly traumatic or limiting experience, but it was the first time I ever had someone tell me I wanted something that was gender-appropriate.

This isn't the first time, but it's a quite recent and somewhat troubling thing. There has been a trend in groups I'm part of online (chronic illness groups) toward 'making a change' by shaving hair short. Every time I mention it to...anyone, really, I'm told things like 'girls don't shave their heads', 'you'll look like a boy then!', 'what if your boyfriend doesn't like you after you shave your head?' and 'why would you want to look like a cancer patient anyway? it doesn't suit your face, everyone will think you're sick.' My boyfriend has even chimed in: 'even in the army, women don't shave their head completely, so I don't see how it would look good on any woman.'

I want to shave my head but I fear backlash from a lot of people if I do so, and that's really the only thing stopping me.

I don't specifically remember an experience of my own, but I remember my best friend, who was male, being told at the age of 5 that he couldn't like his favorite color (pink), or his favorite toys (Polly Pockets) by some of our classmates. It made him incredibly self conscious, to the point where he felt like he couldn't openly admit to liking what he liked! All at the age of five!

It's interesting, though, to recognize the way he was perceived by male and female classmates; while the boys were usually thrown off by his being drawn to "feminine" things, the girls were more likely to embrace it.

Sitting. Every time. When I was younger, I had a lot of dresses that I liked and would wear often. However, I would often , and still do, most of the time sit "like a boy", you know, with the knees spread or with their ankle on their knee instead of just crossing their legs. So I can't count the number of times I heard "sit like a lady", "Stop sitting like that", "girls don't sit like that" ect., as a child. And, though I rarely wear dresses anymore -because of that reason-, and instead wear jeans the majority of the time, I'm still corrected by some of my family "you don't sit like that". Now, at the same time, my younger brother is sitting the exact same way I am and no one's correcting him...

I guess it was around age 5, when I first realised that my brothers thought I couldn't play video games with them, even though I loved playing with them. For years at such a young age I would hear them make jokes about how "Girls can't beat boys at video games, they are physically and mentally inferior hahha!" whenever we competed.

Context: I am a trans woman who acts and dresses inappropriately to gender traditions. I dress what I want, how I want, where I want. Also, I came out in Houston, Texas, but no longer live there (thankfully), so I've been through some messed up situations when it comes to social interactions.

At my grandmothers funeral, I dressed myself, and in a skirt, which was brave for me. I had a young pastor who basically tried to convert me while giving the eulogy for my grandmother which made my aunts a little mad. This was her funeral for goodness sake, but he felt it necessary to inject his opinion on the pulpit. Good thing her pastor stepped in.


This one happened recently, was told that I shouldn't wear combat boots (they were affordable/comfortable) because I'm a girl. He happens to be a gay friend at work, which led me further to hold his opinion to more scrutiny.

Since I can't edit the above I wanted to add that, it may seem humdrum to others, but again most of my social experiences have been backwards.