Finnegan, I disagree completely.

Forcing little kids to hew to the regressive, rigid sex stereotypes some of today's adults have around things like clothing and toys is indeed precisely a big part of the reason so many young people are IDing as trans and non-binary.

Another big part of the problem is shaming children and calling them "abnormal" for not fitting neatly and entirely into the very narrow, confining blue or pink gender boxes the way you appear to be advocating should be done.

It is indeed crucially important for parents and other adults to have the guts to tell children what reality is. Children need to know the reality of their sex, that there are two sexes, why that is so, and that our sex can't be changed.

But the reality is, clothing styles change all the time. And they have always varied widely across cultures and through history. Lots of men around the world at this very moment are wearing gowns, frocks, robes, long tunics that are essentially dresses; many wear sarongs, wrap skirts or kilts too. Men in the Western world used to routinely wear makeup, frilly clothes, high heels, stockings with garters, wigs and their hair very long. Huge variations across cultures and time have been the case since clothing first became a thing.

Informing children about "what reality is" means teaching them that it's a very big world we live in and that history is important. It means showing them that people in different cultures and in our own cultures/societies at different times in history have dressed and groomed in all sorts of different ways - and there is no one way that can be deemed "normal" or "abnormal."

One of the tasks of raising children well is to acquaint them with the norms of their own culture, help them navigate those norms and understand why they came into being, and understand the consequences for bucking those norms. But at the same time, it's also important to acquaint them with the norms of other cultures, particularly those they might be visiting or coming into contact with in the immediate term. Children need to be taught from an early age what is considered appropriate and inappropriate in any given social or cultural setting can vary dramatically - even within their own social/cultural and geographical sphere - and that sometimes respecting other people's cultures and boundaries means sucking it up and dressing and behaving in ways that don't feel right to you personally but others require so that they feel comfortable.

For example, it's important for kids to know that behaviors and manners of dress that might be perfectly acceptable within the privacy of their own homes are not acceptable in the homes of various families down the street or across town, or in places like school, sites of religious worship, a restaurant, the supermarket, the subway, etc. Similarly, what's acceptable in a child's own home or school might be considered untoward when visiting the grandparents or great-grandparents.

But teaching kids about norms and what's appropriate and not in different settings doesn't mean forcing them to swallow, rigidly adhere to and not question or complain about all those norms, particularly the regressive sexist dress norms you seem to be promoting. And it certainly doesn't involve telling them they are "abnormal" for disliking or wanting to buck those norms.

Would you say that in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iran, Somalia, Afghanistan and other countries where veiling of female persons is compulsory that girls and women must accept without question that "the reality is" they can't go out with their hair uncovered or ever show their bare arms or necks because they aren't male? Would you tell all the girls and women who resent and are fighting against forced hijabs, burkas, abayas and chadors that their behavior is abnormal and bound to fuck them up in the head?

What next, a return to sumptuary laws?