gender Archives | The ManifestStation

It’s (Not) All The Same To Me: On Gender, Language, and Death

March 8, 2017

By Beatriz L. Seelaender

Death is a woman in Portuguese. She is still a skull under a charcoal cloak, holding a list and a scythe, but she is a woman. It is strange, isn’t it, what one can take for granted as fact just by plain language. That Death is a He in English, and wiser and less cruel and sharper, still somewhat unsettles me. There is some sort of slight wrongness in it. No, Death is not a He. My Death is not yours. There must have been some kind of mix-up. My Death is a straight-up gal. When my time comes, she will tell me I did good in life, all things considered, and hug me like a grandmother. Then, she will kindly strangle me into oblivion- because kindness is necessary in death, and it is women that are forgiving and kind, and that is why death should be a woman.

There used to be a comic book- there probably still is, since it wasn’t so long ago that I was a kid- featuring the adventures of Mrs. Death. Despite her not being the main character in the comic- that honour had been given to the character who in English translations is renamed Bug-a-boo-, Mrs. Death did get a lot of solo stories. While I am not quite sure why a children’s comic would invest in dark humour, the stories were personal favourites of mine. One of them features Mrs. Death losing her list of errands (aka people she should kill today) and killing completely random people to make up for it. There was another where she accidentally offed the homonym of the actual man she was supposed to take. On top of it, she had to deal with a staggering amount of typos (we are led to believe that the big guys up there do not really care about Mrs. Death, who has to perform all of their grunt work and isn’t payed enough for it). All in all, they did a good job of having kids learn about death as an inoffensive old lady waiting for retirement. In a lot of ways having this image of death is more comforting than that of an arrogant shadow of a man as it is typically conveyed in English stories. On the other hand, perhaps it undermines the seriousness of the subject. Oh, well, parents should not let their kids learn about death from comics, anyhow.

I can only conceive of Death the man as patronizing: he takes pleasure in toying with people. His blood is icy blue and he probably hates Death the woman for doing better than him at the slaying business. But neither one of them can die, really; it is their greatest tragedy.

It wasn’t until my teens that I came across Death as a He. Because articles are neutral in English I had never really thought about applying gender to things in English. Although perhaps that is a lie- I am not entirely sure. It is possible I just kept on looking at things gendered according to how I knew them in my native language. There was reluctance to admitting that perhaps things in their fundamental nature weren’t as blue and pink as the world- but, then again, neither was the world, and we still see it that way nonetheless.

While we do have an “it” in Portuguese, it is hardly ever used as subject in sentences. We use he or she for everything, dead or alive; or never alive. If we really have to say “it”, we simply use the verb; the subject is assumed as it. We don’t say that it rained; we simply say “rained”. We don’t say it’s weird; we simply say “is weird”.

The rest of the time we refer to things the way Aesop referred to animals- he, the stapler and she, the copy-maker. We also refer to animals that way, as you probably must have guessed by now. And all those its, then, come alive.

See, up until my meeting with Him, Death, it had been very simple to me- a table and a chair and a bed and a house were female-bound. And there were things like school, History and art that were referred to as female, too. At least death is not alone, then, and they are not alone in death; these other words. Word is also preceded by the feminine article, in Portuguese. Forks and mattresses and napkins and hats and the radio and peaches and candy were all male-bound things.

Some of us even got confused at times; I remember once at school when a peak number of students using the wrong article for “lettuce” inspired a gender-bound-articles test, but it didn’t change anything. People were surprised, surely, that lettuce was a She- a couple of weeks later, though, everyone was still using the wrong article for lettuce.

(I don’t know why, though; lettuce is so clearly feminine, being a leaf and all; and leaves being feminine, too) (Leaves and flowers and most fruit) (Except for peaches, but we’ve been over this already) (Now, I wonder why in Brazil all seasons are male but spring) (It cannot be just because of the flowers) (It would be sort of misogynistic, if it were) (In Germany all seasons are male-bound, even spring) (But in German nothing is at it should be)

I want to try out an experiment: I will give you four words and you tell me what your immediate thought as to what their ultimate gender is; ready? Knife, Life, Book, Fox.

It has just occurred to me that I picked “knife” as the first word because of a poem by João Cabral de Melo Neto titled “The School of Knives”. In Portuguese, this word is preceded by the feminine. Most sharp things are- blades and daggers and scythes, too. In the poem de Melo Neto takes this a step further and compares women and knives, in a sort of sensual, femme-fatale way. God, I hate this word; femme-fatale- there is a song by The Velvet Underground under this title, and it is pretty catchy; and I hate myself for enjoying it. Anyway, knives are not necessarily female until some sort of personality and explanation as to why it is female is imposed to it.

In Spanish knives are male-bound. The argument for knives as male could be just as compelling as that for a femme-fatale definition; knives having the potential to be used for gratuitous violence (traditionally male) as easily as they are able to deliver beautiful and entangling performances of precision in clean, lustful cuts: this last one is epitome of the femme- fatale ideal; to destroy and look good doing it. There is also something about gluttony and lust merging together here in the Portuguese embodiment of the knife, especially in de Melo Neto’s poem.

I propose we look at this not as an instance of misogyny, or perhaps as more than an instance of misogyny. I know it is very easy to go the way of saying we need to stop gendering everything- but there are many variables going into this discussion. For one, the qualifier of gender in articles is not promoting gender stereotypes directly or even indirectly- all of them are entirely arbitrary. I don’t think anyone ever thought to themselves- knives are definitely ladies, so let’s use this article when referring to them. The problem came after- it came in the form of explanations as to why things were the gender they were. See, the way gender roles are distributed; one could arguably make a point for something as dull as a desk either as masculine or feminine simply by selecting a specific set of characteristics that matches the stereotypical definition one wishes to defend. That is obviously because like people, things also have characteristics deemed feminine and masculine inside them. All you have to do is choose.

Let’s talk about the Life with a capital L. I think most languages in use of gendered articles (that I know of, obviously) see life as female; the exception being German, in which das Leben marks a neutral noun. Surely you would think this is a sign of female emancipation- the plural in German taking for once the shape of the female pronoun being a step in the right direction as well- but I wonder how much of it is actually a sign of social progress and how much is just, you know, just something random about the German language.

When you take a closer look at it, in fact, it is hard to find direct correlations between the use of gendered articles and intolerance rates in a society. Were that the case, one would expect a country such as Poland, speaking a language which allows one to drop pronouns and exempt of articles, to be the beacon of freedom by now. Moreover, the Norwegian, known for their inclusive social measures and individual liberties, speak a language featuring article qualifiers. I do not intend to make a study out of this, and I am sure there are many more variables involved, but this goes to show problems like this can hardly ever be traced back to one simple, obvious cause.

But this is getting too derivative (you can tell by the excessive use of parenthesis) (not aesthetically pleasing) (are there things unaesthetically pleasing?) (Well, there are pleasant things that aren’t aesthetic and there are aesthetic things that aren’t pleasing) (And then there is the anaesthetic, which makes you numb to painful and beautiful things) (I hope not all beautiful things are painful) (But I don’t have any answers now) (Come back later) (We are experiencing connection problems) (Try turning your brain off and on again).

Oh, there you go. I feel fine, don’t you? Would you like to return to where we were before the whole thing became a mess?

Now, as I was saying, the best we can do with gendered articles is look for clues that could help us fight the feminist crusade, or whatever you want to call it. Instead of ignoring or denying their existence, we should take a look at what sort of symbols they promote, intentionally or not. We think about what cultural differences stand out in a place where death is a woman and a place where death is a man- and the different interpretations of death that may come from it. We ask people who speak in neutral languages to gender things for twenty-four hours, so we can see what role is predominant and, most importantly, what kind of justification is used for the answer. We get Intel on the rationalizations made in the back of our minds, and discover potential new ways to break down gender roles.

In self-indulgent speculation, I am thinking the reason why Life is “female” in so many languages is because life is brought to us by our mothers. Thus life we associate with women and water and fountains of water, because all these things symbolize fertility and birth, and rebirth as well. Goddesses of fertility- Hera and Freya and Isis and Parvati and even the Virgin Mary if you look at Christianism as a religion with multiple focuses of adoration- are generally also associated with symbols such as dawn, death, and abundance, because fertility could also mean a good harvest.

While I do get why some goddesses of life are also patrons of death, it is still strange to look at these concepts together, as dichotomies. Everyone likes the idea of going full circle, but I’ve yet to see someone capable of making one with their hands. Still, it’s a nice idea. Idea; yet another she. I guess it has something to do with the muses. The muses are also inevitably female, because the artists are usually male. As for you, female artists, there isn’t as high a demand for male muses that we feel compelled to change the rules. But I guess men would feel undermined in the role of muses, don’t you think? Well, you’re right, not all men. All men who keep saying not all men, though; those are precisely the men I’m talking about.

You see, there is a deeply rooted notion somewhere in there that an artist must tame his muses. Even if an idea, then, is a she, the framing of ideas will definitely be male. The word book is preceded by the male article in Portuguese; in German it is neutral; it never is a woman. These are only far-fetched conjectures, half joke, half real; but inside every false sentence there must be a little bit of truth. That of men taking credit for women’s ideas, after all; is hardly a new trend.

The discussion gets even more complicated once we introduce animals into it. They are the closest thing to non-human gendering experienced by the English language; just take a look at the Perry Index of Aesop’s Fables. Snakes and foxes are male, storks are female. What is interesting, however, is not the gender imposed- though this time one could question its arbitrariness- but how this translates into people’s mind sets:

All of those animals are female in Portuguese. It is even difficult for me to conceive of an animal as peculiar as a male fox. We don’t even have a male alternative for it. Once we get to snakes, it’s even worse. I recently saw the animated version of The Jungle Book with my little cousin, and I was convinced they had redubbed the old voices, because in my mind that python was a lady python. I can only assume that as a child I found the idea of there being a male snake so outlandish that I blocked it completely.

It’s not like I didn’t know there was a male snake- I just thought them unimportant. They were not allowed to talk for the species. They were not allowed to represent it. Think about what kids think sometimes; the thoughts kids have are a rare, clear perspective of a place you have been in for too long; life.

(They will take some funny things for granted) (And question what you have taken for granted without noticing) (When you play with language you feel like being a child again) (Your brain is a clean slate again) (You are innocent again).

There are other places, you know; outside of the sky; there is even a sky over the living room ceiling.

If someone were to paint clouds on my ceiling on a blue background; if I were to fall into a state of hypnosis, well, I wonder what I’d be. Maybe I shouldn’t wonder. There’s way too much randomness in this world for us not to aimlessly wonder, though. It’s what’s keeping us from crashing onto our false skies.

Author of the novel “De Volta ao Vazio” (in a rough translation, “Emptiness, Revisited”), Seelaender is a student of Literature at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

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courage, Guest Posts, Self Image, Truth, writing

Ghosts

February 28, 2016

By Helena Montanez

The thing is, you don’t have to be told that certain things are for white people.

You just know it. Or at least believe it, in the way you believe other seemingly simple and absolute truths.

The sun will rise and set every day. Queerness is for white people. The sky is blue. Only white people can be mentally ill (and normally in the form of depression, or, say, something that can be used in court to explain why a man shouldn’t be held fully responsible for his decision to shoot up a public place). The world is a sphere. White people need more thrills from life, so they mess around with ridiculous stunts like skydiving, and/or the occult.

The reality of these things aren’t as simple; there are all sorts of factors that come into play to create them, such as gravity, lack of proper representation, and the like.

Still, none of that changes the fact that I, as a queer poc with social anxiety who happens to be interested in otherworldly things, am what shouldn’t exist, what some might even go so far as to claim doesn’t exist, because I’m probably making it up, trying to be as “other” as I can be. There’s a limit to how different a person can naturally be from what is the traditional norm before it’s labeled as a ploy for attention, and the bar for that limit is quite often set impossibly low.

In fact, a common consequence of this is the person in question doubting themselves and their diagnoses, sometimes believing that they’re just making it all up, that it’s all in their head (though, of course, the nature of mental illnesses is that it too lives in the mind). These sorts of doubts can be difficult to rid yourself of, even in a span of years, and especially when you can’t see yourself, in people like you, in the media.

I think that’s why I was determined to go on a school trip to take a ghost tour in Virginia City.

It was a good trip, all in all. I’d always been interested in history, and Virginia City is full of that, both good and bad, and readily apparent in the old buildings that line the streets, the boardwalks lined over the partially collapsed tunnels that run underneath the city. You could feel it in the air as we walked from place to place, as the tour guides told us stories of people and times gone by, as they asked ghosts to appear and make their presences known. Still, something about it all bothered me slightly.

The reason why didn’t hit me until later on. Maybe it’s ridiculous, but I’ve always believed in ghosts, or if not ghosts specifically, then at least some sort of entity, whatever you’d like to call it. And more than that, I believe that though they don’t have the same physical form, they’ve still got some semblance of being, and are deserving of respect (of course, there are evil spirits out there as well, but without knowledge of their stories or how they ended up that way, I’m more inclined to feel pity or sympathy towards them, even if they might feel that is worse).

I felt that certain people didn’t always show the proper respect towards the ghosts. In particular, in one part of the city there was allegedly the spirit of a young girl, and they didn’t necessarily act as if she were just that, a child, albeit a ghostly one.

It occurred to me that the ghosts and I have a few things in common, on a few basic levels: we’re not always treated like people, don’t always command respect, and though our reasons for being unable to tell our own stories differ, we often have to rely on others who aren’t like us to do so.

I’ve wanted to be a writer for some time now, despite the fact that I don’t know very many Mexican American authors, and even because of that. And during the tour, I felt a strong urge to learn more about the stories of the people who’d lived and died in that city, and to share their stories with more people, perhaps to bring some of them some sense of justice that they didn’t get to have in life. In the end, I suppose, my wish is the same in both cases: to give a voice to the largely voiceless.

Helen Montanez is an aspiring writer, currently a junior at Sierra Nevada College working towards a bachelor’s degree in English, and well on her way in achieving her goal of ascension to “local strange cat lady” status.

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anti-bullying, courage, Gender & Sexuality, Girl Power: You Are Enough, Guest Posts

Cut The Label

December 1, 2015

By Laurie Suarez

Today is December 1^st. The start of the new month. The last month of the year. And today is the day a very important movement launches. It will be a small movement at first, but it will grow. My hope is that it will grow to be so big that it isn’t a movement at all, it is just the way we think.

My name is Laurie Suarez and today is the official launch of Cut the Label^®— the campaign I founded in honor of my daughter. The aim of Cut the Label^® is to end the practice of categorizing each other. Sometimes we assign a label without thinking, sometimes a label is assigned to be cruel. In either case, the result is the same: the person we label is reduced to quick categorization. But we are so much more than the labels we attach to each other. We are not just a Religion, a Sexual Orientation, an Addiction, a Disease, a Diagnoses, Formally Educated-Not, Republican-Not, Rich-Not.

We are so much more than that.

YOU are so much more than that.

A year ago today I had to face the world of labels the hardest way possible, through watching my child struggle. A year ago, my son told me that he can’t be my son anymore. That he knew in his heart and brain that he is a girl. I accepted this and understood that I quickly needed to learn about what we were now facing. I glued myself to the computer and researched LGBTQ and Gender Dysphoria. The medical community has recognized Gender Dysphoria as a condition that can be diagnosed and addressed. One of the biggest struggles to anyone who has Gender Dysphoria is feeling valued as a human, and not feeling defined by labels and terms that are used against them when they move around in the world.

The son I raised for nearly 14 years is in the process of transitioning to the self she knows she is, my beautiful daughter. Being a teenager is hard enough, and to layer the complexities of Gender Dysphoria onto it makes the struggle much more painful. I couldn’t possibly be more proud of her. My daughter has struggled, but she is the bravest person I know. No doubt, she deserves to be a part of a world that sees her for the person she is and not a label.

This is why I started focusing on the world beyond my daughter.

After I sank into a world of acronyms and labels, it occurred to me that I have missed opportunities to meet someone who could have been my friend due to a preconceived label. Staying away from certain people due to a label attached to them is unfair. There are good people everywhere and if someone is an A**hole (and as Jen Pastiloff says #dontbeanasshole) it has nothing to do with religion, sexual orientation or any other label. Some people are just A**holes. But just because some may act that way, it doesn’t mean that everyone who is of the same religion, or sexual orientation, or whatever is that way. Period. My daughter is and will always be loved as part of our family, but she has a long journey ahead.

The mission of Cut the Label^® is to participate in the spread of kindness and love for Humanity.

While this message is not new it cannot be overstated. We can make this world a bit “Gentler” by sticking together, let’s stop pulling each other apart into categories. Ask me my name, get to know me. I can always tell you more about me, my culture or religion and so much more if we decide to chat. But, please don’t stay away from me, my daughter or anyone else because of a label. We all deserve to be recognized and valued as a Human first.

Just step away from assigning labels and stuffing people into categories and smile at a stranger today. I promise you it’s not difficult. Together, we can do this. Together, we can make a world a more accepting place for everyone.

Cut the Label^® wants to give transgender Humans and ALL Humans hurt by discriminationion due to a Diagnoses, Religion, Sexual Orientation, Political choice, Culture, Disease – the most Gentle world possible. On this day, December 1^st, 2014, I learned I have a 3rd daughter. I feel honored to help guide her and to promote the message of Love and Acceptance.

Thank YOU for your friendship.

Learn more about Cut The Label^® here.

Follow Cut The Label^® on Facebook here.

Follow Cut The Label^® on Instagram here.

Follow Cut The Label^® on Twitter here.

Also, listen for Cut The Label^® on 97.8 LA Mega in New York and 100.3 Z100 also in New York.

And don’t forget to follow #GirlPowerYouAreEnough on Instagram — because YOU ARE ENOUGH!

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Jennifer Pastiloff, creator of Manifestation Yoga and author of the forthcoming Girl Power: You Are Enough, invites you beyond your comfort zone to explore what it means to be creative, human, and free—through writing, asana, and maybe a dance party or two! Jennifer’s focus is less on yoga postures and more on diving into life in all its unpredictable, messy beauty.
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courage, Gender & Sexuality, Guest Posts, Inspiration, Self Image, Self Love, Truth

What’s In A Name?

October 22, 2015

By Cassandra Pinkus

I never was very good at writing in cursive. I remember in the second grade hearing another student mention that the teachers in the higher grades didn’t care if your homework was written in cursive or not. Right then I figured, if they don’t care later, why should I do it now? I started turning in my homework in print on that day, and never wrote another word in cursive for years.

Sometime later in my childhood I learned that sometimes you need to put your signature on certain papers. It seemed that the only expectation for a signature was that it be written in cursive. I didn’t know what to do. It didn’t matter that much though, because I didn’t need to sign my name very often.

I thought of when I saw my mother or my father sign their name. Whether on a report card or a check, the pen-strokes were always quick. It was clear that it was not the letters that counted. When they were done, I could make out clearly the first letters of each name, and all the rest seemed to descend into mad squiggles. When I went to sign my own name, somewhere I understood that no one would read the letters.

A first mark to indicate the name’s beginning, followed by a wave of jagged ink. A second mark to indicate the name’s end, and another cacophony of squiggled lines. The signature was not a thing to be read, but an action to be performed. It was done not when it was received, the way one writes a letter. It was done when the signatory had left their essence drying on the page. Continue Reading…

Binders, feminism, Gender & Sexuality, Guest Posts

Carry-On Baggage

August 27, 2015

By Anna March

My husband, Adam, paraplegic, is waiting for a search of his wheelchair, and I am cleared but lingering for him. We are at the TSA checkpoint in the airport in Honolulu. The trade winds blow warm and humble. The sea sky and bowing palm trees frame us in the open air terminal. I am staring at a purse the color of a ballet slipper in the window of a store just beyond the stark security inspection lanes. Its Siren’s call: to feed my pocketbook-buying habit. I notice a federal guard with rigid posture frowning, staring at me. I point toward Adam, tell her, “I’m waiting for my husband,” and she says in a tone as crisp as the knife pleats in her blouse, “I know. I’m going to pass you his belongings.” I snarl, “I don’t carry his bags.” She puts her hand on her hip, bellows “EXCUSE ME?” “You heard me,” I snap.

Adam, calm as ever, smiles, put his hand on the small of my back, “Why don’t you go to the store? Leave your bag here, I’ll bring it.” I lean my heavy carry-on on the wall in front of him, glaring at the guard, taking only my phone and credit card with me. I was cracking with anger, disgusted by the agent treating me like Adam’s servant and choosing to talk to me about his things rather than directly to him. This happens many times a week, people ignoring Adam and instead speaking to me about him, but only today am I enraged over it. Why is this particular exchange scratching me so harshly? I know it has something to do with the perception that I should carry my husband’s bags but why does that rankle me this much?

I huff into a coffee shop wafting fresh brewed Kona to mull. I know that what’s bothering me is somehow mixed up with gender. Questions I’ve spent my life asking are suddenly swirling. What does gender even mean? What is perceived as womanly, manly and why? Why are we all so screwed up about gender roles to the point that we still want to squeeze everyone into a narrow binary? What do power and ability really mean?

As a woman, my whole life I have been treated as less physically capable than men. The world’s default mode when I’m with an able-bodied man has always been that he is going to be the athlete, the one to lead, drive, carry the heavy things, and that if anyone needs assistance it will be me, the woman. In the world’s hierarchy man trumps woman but woman trumps disabled. Everything about the existence of these pecking orders repels me. Yet somehow I know that I am rankled today at least in part because I want everyone to see Adam as strong, capable, like I do. But why? Continue Reading…

Gender & Sexuality, Girl Power: You Are Enough, Guest Posts

I Am Androgynous & I Want To Talk About Body Image.

May 25, 2015

By Wren Thompson-Wynn

This morning I watched Taryn Brumfitt’s video. I have watched her video more than once and read her words over and over again. I applaud her as I know many women do. However, I wondered (as I do every single time I watch body positive videos and read body positive articles) why their message doesn’t seem to translate to me. Why don’t I feel what my head tells me I should which is: Your body rocks! I look at my soon to be wife and think my god, she is stunning. There isn’t a thing I would change about her. And I know with fierce honesty that as her body changes through life, I will always be attracted to her physical beauty.

But why does this not translate to me? Then, I realized something. Women like me are kind of left out of the body positive equation. Not intentionally, but because no one notices.

I am androgynous. I identify as androgynous. This is not the same as gender fluid. I identify female in every way, but I prefer to express myself in androgynous ways. Every time I wear women’s clothing, I feel like I am in drag. Flip side to that coin is every time someone calls me “sir” it bothers me (I get extremely embarrassed for the people around me). I began to wonder how that affects my body image. Then, I started looking at what visibility androgyny, specifically for women, has in society. Every single image I found was of waif thin women. There were no “normal” sized androgynous people: male or female. And it occurred to me with the force of a jet plowing into my very ample chest: curves “give away” your gender. Being a regular size and having curves means that others see me as a masculine lesbian, not as an androgynous person. I hate the word “butch.”

My androgyny has always been a liability. In lesbian relationships, my partners have always liked that I am more masculine. However, if I pushed the line of gender expression too far, they felt I was trying to pull them into a illusory hetero coupling. They all left (though J calling it quits was because I was an ass). An ex was transgender. We began our relationship long before his transition. My androgyny helped him anchor into an identity (lesbian) that at least got him a smidge close to who he felt he was. Once he was able to accept his true gender, he transitioned. With every step of his transition, our relationship was easier to navigate the more socially accepted feminine I was. When I would wear skirts and makeup and tight girly shirts, he was nicer to me. When I would hang out in my jeans and tshirts and cut my hair, the more distance and tension and anger existed. The more androgynous I was, the more true to my own self expression I was, the more emasculated he seemed to feel because the more “butch” he felt I was…not androgynous. I hated my body. Continue Reading…

Binders, Gender & Sexuality, Guest Posts, Holidays

Valentine’s Day: My Preachable, Teachable Holiday.

February 14, 2015

By Aine Greaney.

Valentine’s is that holiday I always forget. Then, on an after-work power shop at the drugstore, foraging for emery boards or Pond’s cream, that rack of greeting cards reminds me. Oh! right. Valentine’s Day. Again.

I want to snarl at all that pink and puce, while my inner adult tells me to get over it, that there’s no need for the V-Day attitude.

And there isn’t. I’m married to a man, who, for the past 27 V-Days, has propped a card against my morning coffee mug.

So grow the heck up.

Mind you, I’m not a total Valentine’s Grinch. Here in America, I love how it’s a sort of all-age, intergenerational love fest. I love how Hallmark retails cards for Mums, Dads, grandparents, children and grandchildren. Young parents tell me that, from Kindergarten to fifth grade, their kids craft or buy a card for each little boy or girl in the classroom. If I searched long enough through that drugstore display rack, would I find a non-romantic love note for the family pet or the cable-installation girl?

The psychologists would tell me that this isn’t about forgetting, but remembering. Or it’s about memory triggers—those sights, smells, anniversaries or holidays that make us re-feel a past loss or hurt.

Jen Pastiloff is the founder of The Manifest-Station. Join her in Tuscany for her annual Manifestation Retreat. Click the Tuscan hills above. No yoga experience required. Only requirement: Just be a human being. Yoga + Writing + Connection. We go deep. Bring an open heart and a sense of humor- that’s it! Summer or Fall 2015.

Gender & Sexuality, Guest Posts, Self Image

A First Grader’s Gender Identity.

October 14, 2014

By Sarah Werthan Buttenwieser.

“Hi, Avery,” I heard my daughter’s friend, Crystal call out earlier this summer. Clad in pink tank shirt and blue skirt, Avery’s hair cupped her chin. Avery waved, and turned back to the music. Crystal and my daughter continued through the farmers market.

Avery? Last summer, Avery was Henry—about to enter kindergarten, just like Crystal and my daughter. “As soon as Crystal learned about Henry’s transition, she instantly switched not just name but pronoun, and has never made a mistake,” Crystal’s mom reported.

I wasn’t entirely surprised. Very small kids pose big gender questions: “Can boys be princesses? Why do girls get babies in their bellies?” By age five, however certain they are that boys are one way and girls another, perhaps they remain closer to more fluid, flexible notions of gender.

A small child’s interest in clothes “meant” for the opposite gender—the boy in the tutu, the girl who rejects all dresses—often passes, a “phase” dictated by a sense of style or by preferred activities, such as dance or monkey bars. Classic picture books like Charlotte Zolotow’s William’s Doll and newer ones, like Ian and Sarah Hoffman’s Jacob’s New Dress endeavor to make such explorations amongst very young children accepted (and acceptable). This takes conscious effort. For example at my house, where three sons preceded the daughter, I didn’t need to buy her a baby doll: we already had three, along with trucks and train tracks.

But what happens when a child declares, like Avery did, a territory beyond mere experimentation? What if the child’s experience is an authentic transition? How does a school respond, and how do friends rally?