Guest post by MOIRA MCDONALD (Written three years ago).

“I want to be Jane,” repeats my two year old, this time bringing his face very close to mine for special emphasis.  “He has to be Michael. Michael is the boy” says his nearly four year old sister Naomi who is oh-so aware of her budding gender identity.  “Honey, you know in our family, anyone can pretend to be anything.  Someday you may want to pretend to be boy, or a cow for that matter,” I explain. She shrugs agreeing to his choice as long as she can be Mary Poppins.   I wish the contradictions surrounding gender identity were as easily resolved for the other adults in our lives.

My son turned two this month, which brought the grandparents from out of town for the annual Birthday fiesta. I called in advance to warn them about Jonah’s emerging sense of style, “Hi dad, have I told you that Jonah likes to wear dresses now?” My dad is a touchy feeling social worker, but I could hear my heart beating as I waited for a response.  “He just loves his sister and wants to do everything she does, including wearing lots of pink and lots of dresses,” I explained before he had a chance to say anything.  “He’s too young for gender identity, I’m not worried about it.”  I said a little too forcefully. When he responded with  “Well, if you are not worried about it, I am not worried about it,”  I suspected he was lying too, but was happy that at least he pretended to understand.

It all started a few months ago when I put a dress on Jonah one morning, over his “regular” boy clothes.  He had been asking to wear a dress and frankly, I thought if I put his older sister’s clothes on him, it might entice her to wear them too –she has always been impossible to dress!  I took them to school and the teachers giggled.  The most outgoing one said, “who wouldn’t want a fun twirly dress like that.”  But later I got a curious call from the teacher wanting to explain that she took the dress off because Jonah wanted it off, not because she felt he shouldn’t wear it.  It’s funny, I thought, she changes his clothes a few times a week because they get wet or dirty and never calls to tell me.

My trick worked for Naomi.  The next day she insisted on wearing what Jonah wore, the very dress she had refused so many times.  But it also worked for Jonah who grew more and more interested in anything pink and was drawn to Naomi’s wardrobe.   At first, I did not think anything about it.  I grew up being deeply politicized by the woman’s movement and believe strongly that no one should be bound by socially-constructed ideas about how girls and boys should dress.  I understand that gender identity exists on spectrum, not in black and white.  So, I dressed him in his own clothes every morning and then put something pink of Naomi’s on top.  At school the teacher could take it off, we could all laugh about it.   I think the guards at the metal detector (they go to school in a federal building) thought it a little strange to see my son in a pink oversized shirt every day, but who cares?

But this system began to break down.  As Jonah grew more opinionated about his clothes, he demanded to wear only Naomi’s clothes – specifically dresses.  I am familiar with problems dressing children form my daughter.  I still laugh about the day when she was 15 months old and over the 90-minutes I spent trying to dress her we both eventually broke into tears.  So, I am inclined to avoid conflict, not to sweat the little stuff, and let the kids wear what they want.  However, I had to really work with myself the first time I let him wear a skirt to school.  I stuck him in a stroller to minimize attention from the guard. All my feminist training and I still worry that people will think badly of me for sending my kid to school in a skirt.  Is it natural to have some discomfort?  Does it play on an insecurity I have about being a lesbian mother to a son?

It is an interesting experience having a cross-dressing kid.   Some mothers don’t believe me when I explain that despite the pink, he is a boy.  I wonder if they want proof, but whipping out the penis in the middle of Chuck E Cheese also creates friction with my feminist sensibilities (as well as my sense of decorum!).  I know lots of people who seem accepting are really just glad their sons don’t wear pink. Others flash a slightly smug smile that leads me to believe that they think that this would not happen to them because they would not allow it.  This may be true, but I wonder how headstrong their toddlers are.  The other GLBT parents seem vaguely envious.  “Wow, we should really have that sort of stuff around the house for our kids,” says Seth, the psychologist and father of three-year-old twins boys.  Another GLBT mom tells me, “I saved my daughter’s dress up stuff just in case my son will use it.  I want him to know it is an option.”

To me this does not seem like a choice or an option, it is what my child wants, right now more than anything else.  My partner’s mother thinks we should set limits, let him wear whatever he wants at home, but insist on boy clothes when we go out. She is worried that he will be teased and feels I should protect him from that.  While she is visiting, I try the wear boy clothes out rule a bit, he does not go for it and I relent and let him wear what he wants.  I worry about teasing and how mean other children can be, but I think it is far worse for him to feel that his parents don’t support his choice.

It is the morning of the party, Jonah chooses to wear a pink girls bathing suit to celebrate his second birthday.  One friend, knowing that I have a hard time fending off all the discussion about gender calls to ask if it would help if he dressed his almost two-year-old boy in a pink in solidarity.  “It might just reorient the norm a little” he suggests.  I thank him for the gesture and pull out a pink shirt for his son to wear. As our friends arrive, no one is fazed by Jonah’s outfit.  Seth the psychologist sits and talks with my partner’s mother (who is also a therapist).  “What is Jonah wearing today, he asks, a pink dress?”  “A pink swimsuit,” grandma Susan explains.  After some additional discussion in which the therapists affirm to each other that he is to young to have any sense of gender identity, Seth says, “No matter how it turns out, he’s a lucky kid to be born into such an accepting family.”  I smile, uncomfortable with the compliment, but hoping that he is right.

My partner and I talk casually about how you might go about raising a trans-kid, would it change the way that we choose schools?  Even where we live?