If a girl likes "boy activities" like jumping and running around, she's trans

submitted by WildApples from self.GenderCritical

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[–]persistentlywoman 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

this is so absolutely sick to me and hits a little too close to home.

my amazingly vibrant, active, adventurous 9 year old niece is already too well aware of the enormous pressures put on women, expressed through repeated declarations that she's not going to have a husband or kids. recently, I overheard an exchange between her and my nephew where he said "I thought you wanted to be a boy?" and she replied "I do". when I heard this, my heart sank straight into my stomach. I know exactly what she meant - little girls have been saying they want to be boys since forever, because they can see boys have more freedom, even just the freedom to keep running around shirtless (which she is no longer allowed to do). they can see boys don't have as many expectations placed on them, not so much pressure. but in today's world, this perfectly normal time-true expression of little girls resisting the restrictions of misogyny and sexism would be immediately pounced on and exploited as a trans narrative if she had any people like that in her life. thank god she doesn't - but I have no idea how safe she'll be at school or once she starts using the internet. this insane and extreme binary is pure poison to a child's mind and the pathway of surgery and drugs that follows is something I wouldn't want anyone I love to have to endure. this movement has distorted itself beyond all ethical consideration. they won't get my niece.

[–]MarkTwainiac 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

they can see boys don't have as many expectations placed on them, not so much pressure.

Sorry, I think you and your niece are not seeing the full picture here. Sexist people who stereotype others tend to be sexist and stereotyping to/of male and female children alike. So a lot of boys do have many expectations and a good deal of pressure put on them too. The expectations are different, but they are definitely there.

little girls have been saying they want to be boys since forever, because they can see boys have more freedom, even just the freedom to keep running around shirtless (which she is no longer allowed to do).

I don't think children of either sex are always the best judges of what's going on, so I wouldn't put too much stock into the perceptions and assumptions that little girls - or little boys - have about what it's like to grow up as a member of the opposite sex. The focus on "running around shirtless" is telling - once again, sex stereotypes that children get hung up are so much about clothing.

To me, the more fundamental issue is whether a child has the freedom to go "running around" in the first place, not what the child might be wearing, or not wearing, whilst doing so or not doing so. And the fact is, just as adults put many constraints on girls' behaviors, they do the same to boys too. For every boy today who is allowed to run amok, be boisterous, physically active and aggressive coz "boys will be boys" and "that's how boys are," there's another boy who's been put on ADHD drugs and other medications to get him to sit still - and who's been shamed, hit and punished for being "too active," "too antsy" and "too aggressive."

The grass on the other side of the sex divide isn't always as green as it seems when viewed from the other side by someone only aware of, and looking for, the plusses. Also, the sort of black-and-white thinking that portrays one sex as having it totally tough and the other sex as living on free-and-easy street with no sexist pressures or expectations placed on them is the very reason "trans" has become such a huge craze amongst young people today.

[–]persistentlywoman 8 insightful - 3 fun8 insightful - 2 fun9 insightful - 3 fun -  (0 children)

I can see from your comment history you have a vested need to challenge others and leverage a false intellectual superiority over them. perhaps this is the way you deal with your own internalised misogyny, I don’t care - you can keep it away from me, thanks. it’s not your job to run around correcting women and girls on how we parse our experiences of misogyny and sexism, especially if your view is that other women and girls must always be stupider than you.