My BFF came charging out of the bathroom at the internet café on the island of Mykonos where we were chatting up the kiddos via FaceTime. As the oldest child, C.J.’s Brother dutifully held the iPad back in Cali. When he wasn’t looking for boogers up his nose via the small screen in the upper right-hand corner he had the camera pointing towards the ceiling. So, we could see daily that our ceiling was in a state of good repair and our son was picking his nose with the utmost attention to detail.
“You HAVE GOT to go to the bathroom!” she said to me with a giddy urgency.
Naturally I hopped right up and headed to the tinkle-torium, not knowing what I was going to see. Blood, guts, gore, pubic hair, diamonds, Ryan Gosling? My bestie, she always keeps me guessing that way.
I go through the door to the unisex shared sink area, which is the usual in Greece (and other parts of Europe, I suppose). I never got used to sharing a portion of the powder room. I constantly felt like I had entered the men’s room on accident and, at the same time, it reminded me of that one night at M.J.’s in Silverlake, sharing a bathroom with the mixed masses.
I get to the side-by-side toilet doors (one for women and one for men) and this is what I see.
A pair of Sylvester little boys underwear indicate the “Men’s Room” and Sleeping Beauty little girls underwear indicate the “Ladies’ Room.”
C.J. would insist, of course, on making a number one and two with Aurora.
I whipped out my iPhone to snap a pic for all of you and the man washing his hands at the sink stared at me and escaped the confined space quickly. I walked out smiling; thanking the Grecian stars that no establishment in Orange County would do such a thing. Little things like that give me pause when C.J. is with me, but make me smile at our quirky adventures when he isn’t around. People now associate me with children’s underwear (read this post to learn why). Is it weird to admit that I’m kind of flattered, because if it is I won’t admit it.
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In the news this week: A little boy wants to join the Girl Scouts. My initial thought: Holy crap, I haven’t even considered that the scouting age is around the corner and C.J., most likely, will prefer the Girl Scout Friendship Circle to the Boy Scout Wolf Den. Great. My initial thought on the coverage: Good for the Girl Scouts for having a decent, coherent statement. I don’t, however, like that they use the term “transgender” when they should be saying “gender variant” or “gender nonconforming. Overall: The story may be a step forward for gender creative families.
Jenna Lyons, the exec from J. Crew who caused “Toemaggeden,” has left her husband of nine years for, allegedly, a woman.
Raising My Rainbow 
I’m not trying to be rude or oversensitive here, but “tranny” is an incredibly offensive term. If you aren’t a DMAB transfeminine individual attempting to reclaim the word (which has been historically used as a hate slur, oftentimes accompanied by physical violence), you really shouldn’t use it. Sorry to be a downer 😦
On a lighter note, heck yes Girl Scouts! I was so happy to hear how progressive they are being. Boy Scouts, on the other hand … maybe some day.
I’d prefer Girl Scouts, anyway. Boy Scouts of America has a policy against allowing LGBTQI people or Atheists as members. If the idea of a Wiccan organization doesn’t freak you out (my understanding is that in this particular context, it’s just how the group was founded, not what they teach) the Spiral Scouts sound like a cool, coed option.
Can I recommend checking out Campfire USA? They used to be Campfire Girls and have been around just as long as Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, but since they no longer divide their groups based on gender, they might be a better fit for CJ.
I appreciate your interest in doing what’s right for CJ, but I do think the distinction made by Girl Scouts is an important one. They are an organization for girls, so transgender was the right term for them to use. They welcome transgender girls (I didn’t read the article you linked, but the reporting on that story has been a bit sloppy), but they don’t welcome boys who simply prefer girly things. Yes, that means their doors are closed to kids like CJ. And, yes, Boy Scouts might not be a good fit for him either. In Campfire, he’ll find a group of boys and girls working together on a variety of activities, crafts, games, and leadership skills.
Hi! I’m Maíra and I live in Brazil! I’m a teacher here and i love your blog! You say everything with true and inspire people to think in a education more human! Congratulations!!!! I’m always here reading your posts! My english isn’t so good to write, so, sorry for a possible wrong word. And thank you for every post!!!
All I wanted as a child was to join the Boy Scouts. I identified as a boy but I was told they wouldn’t let me join (though I doubt my mom actually asked). I am still to this day in awe of what people learn in Boy Scouts and have a long track record of (inadvertently) dating Eagle Scouts. Maybe there is a psychological connection somewhere in there…
It seemed unclear from the reporting whether the child (wanting to join girl scouts) was living as a boy or a girl. If he were living as a boy I think it might be harder to make the argument that he could join girl scouts just because of the common interests/attire/behavior. I would think they might have to limit joining to kids living as girls – but maybe they would make an exception in this case.
I was thrilled with the girl scouts statement – that was wonderful.
I didn’t feel very comfortable with the descriptions they used, either. It is definitely an issue wit ha lot of sides, but I can’t help but see things from the viewpoint of “what if this was my child?”
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Thinking about underwear (because that’s what this blog brings me to): just wondering if you could find someone talented and willing enough to make CJ some boxers out of Disney princess fabric or whatever. He could wear whatever he wants without y’all having to have the discussion all the time, and the trip to Jo-Ann’s or local equivalent to pick out fabric would be heaven to him. I have a hunch someone reading this blog is, or knows, someone who can seriously sew. Would he wear custom princess boxers?
I understand your point that private groups should be allowed to define themselves against the other. I’m grateful Girl Scouts is inclusive and that’s why my daughter can participate. No one is forcing GS to be inclusive.
The Boy Scouts are the opposite with policies excluding people based on religion and sexual orientation, identity or expression all the while getting government subsidies. BSA should be forced to stop discrimination or loose all government support.
Great. That last link on Lyons will surely bring out the “see, I told you” so’s, that it the the gay community that is causing our children to not be the men and women they should become. Great.
here is a posting I made re: the subject of the boy who wanted to be in girl scouts.
“while I’m all for inclusiveness in the area of gender creativity, I do think boundaries need to be in place for entire organizations to be able to deal with it appropriately. Boys and girls, women and men should be able to freely express their feelings and beliefs about themselves. If a boy is comfortable with himself of wearing skirts, or anything else generally considered normative for girls, then he should be freely accepted as such, because it certainly is not hurting anybody else. Vice versa a girl that chooses to present masculine, so what? she hurts nobody by doing so.
But I really think that the girl scouts for a boy, or boy scouts for a girl is inapropriate boundary crossing because the vast majority of the girls for example are there for their own gender bonding experience and the same for the boys in scouts. This imposes, to me in this case, the individual boys desire OVER the preference of majority of the the girls’ wishes, and that isn’t right in my opinion.
This all got started awhile ago I think when there was this feminist push to allow girls to play boy’s sports, and then it kinda got out of hand. There are some really good girl baseball players at younger ages, but I think that it was the politics of feminism that pushed this too hard and negated the wishes of many boys for the one individual’s wishes.
So I think that while I understand from some perspective the freedom of the individual to do what they wish, I don’t think that that gives anyone the right to basically invalidate the feelings of an entire group of others, especially when it involves something as definitive as gender. or maybe even religion. I’m sure that if I was a christian yet wanted to join a jewish or muslim social group, yet refused to convert that I would be easily welcomed into that structure, nor should I expect to be. I think in this regard the parents should say no to the child, and the organization also should say no. “
I’m sorry, but this is a horribly ignorant statement. Some young trans* people are very firm in their gender identities. What you are saying is that you don’t believe in trans* people, you don’t respect their identities, and you think anatomy is the ultimate definer of what people should be allowed to do. The “boy” whose opinion you are in such a huff about is not a boy, she is a girl. She lives as a girl, presents as a girl, calls herself a girl. She is not a boy who is ‘comfortable in skirts.’ Going along with a cisgender person’s opinion about her identity would be ignoring her own right to be who she is. For someone who is reading a blog about a gender creative child you sure are judgemental about people’s genders. I’m shocked and apalled that you would say something like this to a parent of a gender creative child. No one “should become” whatever gender they were assigned at birth. Everyone has the right to determine their own gender. Some people do this earlier than others. Just because most people agree with their assigned gender doesn’t mean anyone who doesn’t is not doing what they “should” be doing.
No, I really don’t think you are sorry Kaye, because of your rather harsh statements, but I do understand your point, but it’s just a more in your face POV than I am at right now, and I don’t believe my point is being disrespectful to anyone. I am certainly not in a huff about anything the boy is, or said, or thinks or anything else, and that you seem to have taken that point as the key take away seems to be your issue not mine. And you know exactly that Bobby thinks acts, believes and even IS a girl, how? By listening to a 15 second or so video clip? That is certainly presumptuous of you. Do you know the child?
We as a species have not even begun to understand what it REALLY means to be a girl, or what is a boy much beyond anatomical differences. It is politically correct to say we do, and that unfortunately cause alot of fighting rather than debate. You know how YOU think what is a girl, but you cannot possibly KNOW what it is to be a boy, much less what this child thinks. But just because Bobby says he’s a girl, what does that mean to you? I’m pretty sure it means what you think of as being a girl, not his viewpoint of what he means. All he wants to do is be in the GS, ok. But what about what the other girls think, does that not matter at all? I think that’s a somewhat selfish view.
If we talk about older teens it will be a different issue. So indeed I support what this blog is about, and the parents, the sibling and the child that is experiencing it, but just because I don’t happen to embrace all of the frontiersman approach to this as you might does not make me judgmental, or making horrible statements. It just means that at this point in time, I have reservations about the rights of the individual over the group in alot of situations, which causes enough debate as it is. But this is alot of what our cultural thought process has become-a kind of you are either with us or against us mentality. We seem to have lost the ability to discuss.
This is an area that really is breaking new ground, and to force the issue by force will not make it easier, be more accepted, be a new way off cultural being no matter how much we’d like that to happen. The GLBT community is just starting to see results from years of being “out”, yet still today many of the GLBT crowd still feel that it needs to be not “out”. Add into this about kids, and you’ll have a heckuva mess on your hands. I’m sorry, and I really am, if I’m not getting my viewpoint across because I may not be at where you are on this.
Ehrensaft literally just published the FIRST real book on this subject, and much more work is sure to follow, which will allow much more acceptance and growth in this area for the society as well as the individual. I hardly feel that your viewpoint surpasses Ehrensaft who at this point is the most respected viewpoint on this side of the coin, and unfortunately there are far too many on the other side. But your passion for the individual is certainly evident and in that regard I appreciate that.
“…if I was a christian yet wanted to join a jewish or muslim social group, yet refused to convert…”
But the child *has* “converted”, as much as is possible for a child whose parents probably don’t want to subject her to surgery.
Yes, I get that point too, which is well taken from one perspective, but in a sense there is no “conversion” that needs to happen, because it just is. Maybe. But looking at it from the other persons perspective, TO THEM, I am still not one of them. Again, only from that other person’s perspective, and if I want their respect than I must also respect their perspective too. None of this is an all OR nothing kind of thing. I think it’s easy to start from there, but it is part of the spectrum of who we are, and until we understand the range of the spectrum we’ll still be stuck in the this OR that mode.
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And the libations on Mykonos are hearty too, one assumes. You go gurl!