Go Team Green!

Call me old fashioned, but when I was pregnant, we never “found out” what our kids were. They were healthy babies as far as our prenatal scans could indicate, and we would “find out” soon enough. Although my children were both born before gender reveal parties became common in our area, learning if they were on Team Blue or Team Pink at a twenty-week sonogram was a rite of passage for most of my pregnant peers. We opted out.

I only know a handful of other parents that took a wait-and-see approach, and most people would react in amazement when we would disclose we were happily Team Green.  Oh!  I’m too much of a planner!” most of my girlfriends would say. My counter was that my kids—regardless of whether they were boys or girls—would have clothing and a crib. What was there to plan, really?

Our gender reveal party went something like this: the baby came out, its gender was revealed. Or rather, its sex was revealed. Regardless, observing our children’s genitalia in the delivery room did next to nothing to inform us about who they were as people. Waiting until they were born felt like prioritizing the “who” over the “what,” and to us, the “what” was not that important.

My oldest son started middle school this week. On a recent back-to-school shopping trip, I asked—while we were in the car, because that is the best time for conversations with adolescents—if he had anything to talk about before starting middle school. I’ve always parented with a commitment to tell my kids the truth using accurate terminology, but only up to the extent that the information was important for them to know. For example, “from mommies’ tummies” is a perfectly fine answer for a three-year-old inquiring about the origin of babies, but that response is wholly inadequate for pre-teens who may be sexually curious and are most definitely talking to their friends with older siblings.

We talked about a few minor things like changing classes and using a combination lock, but a few minutes into the conversation he said, “I will respect people’s pronouns, Mom!” This was quite a shift in the conversation, and a bit out of left field for me, because he and I had not ever had a conversation about people who are transgender or how that status related to pronouns.

As a one-time English major and a generally skeptical parent, I wanted to base my response around what his understanding of this issue even was. There was no need to take the conversation past where he needed it to go. I bought some time in asking him to define what a pronoun was and asked why he felt strongly about respecting them. I then tip-toed into a discussion about what it means to be transgender with an eleven-year-old.

In the end, we had a good talk. He likes watching a Youtuber who happens to be trans. We decided navigating pronouns can be hard sometimes, and even if you unintentionally refer to someone differently than they’d prefer, respecting other people was the most important concept. Demi Lovato had made headlines the same week for “switching” her pronouns back from they and them to she and her, so we talked about giving people space to discover themselves. Most people—even non-transgender ones—grow and change over time. Middle school is a great time to learn more about who you are as a person.

I have written several pieces which touch on gender issues for OT. I do struggle with the idea that all it takes to be a man or woman is to identify as one, and I did not need to watch the Matt Walsh mockumentary to establish a belief that if anyone can be a man or woman, the concept of either is meaningless. I’m not sure everyone is totally on board with throwing out Title IX or the Equal Pay Act. My science-y mind knows that there are real biological differences between the sexes, and my English language-y mind trips over using plurals for singular.

I am a woman.  In recent years, I’ve taken to occasionally saying that I am gender non-conforming.  Sometimes for shock value, but mostly to make a point. I love being a woman, I love being a mother. But I am the primary earner in our household. I like shooting sports and fishing. I am fulfilled by a career in a male-dominated industry. I’d rather discuss earnings reports, investment strategies, politics, and classic cars than interior decorating, facial creams, reality TV, or anyone who is Instagram-famous. I’ll laugh at a “dirty” joke, swear like a sailor, and take shots of whiskey in the right company. Does that make me a man?  No, but it does make me a gender non-stereotypically-conforming woman.  I thank God I was privileged to grow up with a dad that took me hunting and a mom who told me I could be anything.

As such, I reject a strict binary concept of gender, but also, as an alternative:  a genderless extreme. As a mom raising kids today, I am intrigued by the messages young people are receiving. That my son even thought to say he would respect people’s pronouns was a bit of an eye-opener.

Do male adolescents know that they can be a boy without liking sports or feeling attracted to girls? Do female adolescents know they can be a girl even if they do not look like Instagram influencers or enjoy shopping? As school administrators, parents, and politicians are dug in to debates about sports teams, who is using which restroom, and “grooming,” are we all doing enough to let kids know they are individuals uniquely made?

Although there are some biologically based exceptions, I don’t think every middle schooler who is identifying as trans is really saying “I am not a male, and I am a girl” or “I am not a female, and I am a boy.” Perhaps these kids—some of them, many of them?—are really saying they don’t know how to express that they aren’t stereotypical boys or girls and we haven’t given them any words or concepts besides transgender to identify with. There must be a way to acknowledge an infinite number of ways to be a girl or boy without rushing kids through social transitions or medical interventions.

Recently, I read the comments under a news article about a transgender female inmate impregnating other inmates at a women’s prison with wide-eyed fascination and a few eyerolls. Despite how people are labeled, it would appear that biological material from males mixed with biological material from females makes babies. This is somehow newsworthy? Science and biology must be laughing at us.

While it may seem elementary that in species of mammals—with a few exceptions—there are definitely males and definitely females, it also makes perfect sense that male and female human beings are extremely diverse within those categories. There is simply not one right way to be a boy nor one right way to be a girl. Is it possible to push back a little on the “some men have periods” messaging without really caring if a boy wants to wear a skirt or if a girl wants to cut her hair short?  I have yet to see an ad for treatment of erectile dysfunction targeting women with penises, so I suppose there is still time to hit pause on the preoccupation with gender without the world spinning off its axis. Give these kids some space and love them through it.

Which leads me back to Team Green. What does it say about a society that normalizes finding out what is between a person’s legs before knowing anything else about them? By throwing parties to cut into cakes with blue filling or release boxes full of pink balloons and then restricting kids with the equivalent of pink and blue handcuffs for the next decade or so, adults are the ones making gender a really big deal. Is it any wonder that teenagers are rejecting the narrow definitions of gender they’ve been saddled with since before birth? It should come as a surprise to no one that teenagers rebel.

Transgender kids aren’t any more guilty of elevating the importance of gender than most of their parents, it just happens at different times. Frankly, I’d take all the hand wringing over trans kids a lot more seriously if the people griping about it can also say they did not find out their kids’ sex until they were born and gave them wide berth in exploring their interests and style throughout childhood. Maybe there should be a pledge or something: I promise to never buy my daughter pink Legos and I will not care one iota if my son plays with dolls.

Ease at navigating gender issues in adolescence was not a factor in passing on finding out early if I was having sons or daughters, but more than twelve years later, it is another reason I’m glad we waited. Our kids are still telling us who they are. The fact that they are male is just a small part of the people they are becoming. When my son volunteered that he intends to “respect people’s pronouns,” I took that to mean that he intends to be kind, and that made me proud he was my kid. He is also probably going to play both nose tackle and clarinet this year. Pretty good for a Team Greener.