littleelk:

Basically somebody was showing me a video this morning of some 5 year old who was apparently trans and the parents were being supportive.  There were clips of the kid tottering around and the voice over of the mom being like “he always headed straight for the girl things, his favourite colour was always pink, always wore dresses…”

I know the person had good intentions upon showing me but.  I absolutely hate this kind of dialogue lead in to anything trans-related.  It’s like the person has to be justified by all the stereotypes so they clear the highbar of whatever packaged and processed gender in the audience’s minds.

If the kid didn’t actually like pink or dresses or dolls, I guess it wouldn’t make a very interesting story for the viewers.  And then how would people describe how the kid was trans?

Do you know what makes someone a girl?  Being a girl.  Not liking pink or dresses or dolls and having to justify it by rattling off these things pisses me off.  Because you can be a boy who likes pink and dresses and dolls.  You don’t HAVE to be a girl to like those things.  But do you know what it tells me when people talk like this?  It tells me that they think that little boys CAN’T like those things while being little boys.  It tells LITTLE BOYS that they can’t be little boys while liking this stuff.  If a little boy likes those things, people just question his sexuality or gender.  

If this kid DIDN’T like pink or dresses or dolls, they’d be fucked because nobody would believe a thing they claimed.  

You wanna claim you’re a boy or a girl?  You better make it fucking easy for people to talk about in terms of easily gender-identifiable signifiers, likes and hobbies.