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Gender identity and sexual orientation are different concepts. Exploring gender identity is not the same as exploring sexuality. Children are constantly explori

Gender identity and sexual orientation are different concepts. Exploring gender identity is not the same as exploring sexuality. Children are constantly exploring identity, as I'm sure you have observed. For instance, I am a straight man, but when I was a child I sometimes stole my mother's lipstick and tried to put it on, or I would play with Barbie dolls. I saw that other people incorporated these activities in their identities, and I wanted to try it. This was no more sexual than when I play acted as a soldier or decided I liked to wear cargo pants; I was experimenting with who I was or could become, because that is what children do. This is a convenient segue to heteronormativity. Heteronormativity is the societal pressure to conform to the traditional gender roles of men and women who pursue heterosexual relationships. My parents didn't like me playing with Barbie dolls; they explicitly told me that it wasn't something boys did. This transmits a set of expectations about how I should behave, based on my gender. Notice that their telling me it was wrong to play with dolls was no more sexual than if they had allowed me to play with the dolls.

mc32 4y ago
My take is kids play with whatever is around. If your dad has acetylene torches around and your mom has axes around the house you’re going to play with them. It does not mean or imply or predict that you want to burn the house down or you want to become a butcher or axe murderer. You’re not exploring being a pyromaniac or a murderer. You’re just playing, that’s it. Same with high heels, smoking pipes, hunting rifles or lipstick. Kids don’t know their meaning yet (context of usage).
refurb 4y ago
For instance, I am a straight man, but when I was a child I sometimes stole my mother's lipstick and tried to put it on, or I would play with Barbie dolls. I wouldn't see trying on lipstick or playing with Barbie dolls as "exploring a gender identity" as neither of those are exclusive to one gender, even in a heteronormative world.
- maxbond 4y ago
  I'm not saying you are wrong, but in the culture of my household, my school, and the people I had contact with as a child, this was seen as strange and something to be discouraged, because these things were seen as gendered. I think these things were much more gendered at the time, as well. It is crazy for me to look back and remember how there was a time when I hadn't made up my mind about whether gay marriage was okay or not. Things have changed a lot over the past 20 years or so.
- zztop44 4y ago
  I think you might be missing the forest for the trees. Barbies and lipstick are not exclusive to one gender, but they are associated with one gender. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that people in general will respond differently to a little boy who likes playing with lipstick and barbie dolls compared to a little girl.
- rendall 4y ago
  I dunno. My social set would never discourage a child from this at all. However, of those of us who had children, only one (out of, like 50+ children in our extended set) was gender non-conforming boy at 3 and liked to wear girl's clothes and play with dolls.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
rendall 4y ago
> Gender identity and sexual orientation are different concepts. Exploring gender identity is not the same as exploring sexuality. While true, to be fair GP was responding to this: >>> "For the last several decades society put massive pressure on kids to conform to *heteronormativity*. With these pressures lessening more and more people are feeling empowered to explore their *sexuality*." [emphasis mine] To muddy the distinction further, there is a small minority of men whose sexual kink is to be perceived as women. These seem to be the people who are making the most trouble for trans women who just want to quietly go about living as women without fuss.
- maxbond 4y ago
  Kinks are impossible to pin down or fence in, people can get turned on by literally anything. https://xkcd.com/468/ https://xkcd.com/468/ This doesn't really muddy the waters; the concepts remain distinct, and people making it a kink to conflate them is kinda like how a joke isn't true but is only funny if you know the truth it refers to. Heteronormativity conflates gender and sexuality; I'd guess (while acknowledging I don't know the content of anyone else's mind) that is what is responsible for their confusion, because they have been raised in a heteronormative society, the distinction doesn't exist in their mind.
  - rendall 4y ago
    > Kinks are impossible to pin down or fence in, people can get turned on by literally anything. While a true statement it's also a non-sequitur. Anglosphere society is roiled with social turmoil about trans-gender identity. One faction would like society to recognize that some people's gender does not fit their sex, and to normalize accommodating these people's gender expression without intrusive and oppressive questioning. Another faction, perhaps motivated by genuine concern, or perhaps by simple hatred of difference and change, throw a spanner into the works by asking hard questions about bathrooms and prisons and athletics and such. If the only people interested in entering women's bathrooms and prisons were genuinely only women who happened to be born in a male body, then everything would be clear and unmuddied. However, the existence of some fraction of men who would happily identify as women in order to gain easier sexual access to women does complicate the simple distinction. Is a trans woman lesbian with a penis really trans, or a predatory man with a kink? Ignoring or dismissing the muddy implications of the question will not make the second faction go away.
blueflow 4y ago
> My parents didn't like me playing with Barbie dolls; they explicitly told me that it wasn't something boys did. Same with me, but let me ask you a question. Were you the sort of kid that actually listens to their parents? Because i didn't, and most of my peers didn't, either.
- maxbond 4y ago
  No, I was stubborn like mule. I wore my parents down until they caved. That doesn't mean it didn't have an impact though, I certainly picked up what they were putting down. Now, the reaction of my friends when they came over and looked at me funny when I tried to show them my awesome Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders doll (it had wings and could fly if you pulled a ripcord! That's objectively cool. Also, dangerous, especially to taller adults in the area.), that was painful.
- ryanbrunner 4y ago
  If it's your parents and your peers and virtually all popular media, it's massively naive to think that isn't going to have a normalizing effect on people.
  - blueflow 4y ago
    For people with your attitude, yes.
    - ryanbrunner 4y ago
      To be clear, I'm making a descriptive and not a prescriptive statement. I'm not saying that people should conform to societal norms, just that right now they do (and that doesn't seem like a trivial thing to change).
      - blueflow 4y ago
        I'm sorry, it should have been: For people with that attitude, yes.
zozbot234 4y ago
- maxbond 4y ago
  This is a straw man. 1. This is not a good faith representation of what trans people are arguing for; no one is saying that playing with dolls makes you trans. 2. Trans healthcare for kids does not involve surgery. Surgeries are not performed for people under the age of 18. Trans healthcare for kids largely involves letting them choose what clothes they wear, pronouns they use, perhaps changing their name. The most that might happen is that they take puberty blockers, a reversible and safe treatment. 3. I can see why people would be upset by your straw man, were it the reality, but trans people are not an abomination, and directing dehumanizing language towards a group of people who are frequently targeted for violence is profoundly not okay. It's been less than 3 weeks since a terrorist entered an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs and opened fire, and this has happened more times than anyone can count; don't contribute to this. And your straw man is just that.
  - zozbot234 4y ago
    > no one is saying That's a rather extreme claim, don't you think? There's been a significant shift in recent years from "gender fluid" behavior being considered a matter of expression, to it being regarded as an almost mandatory matter of identity - either as a sign of identifying with the opposite gender, or as being "non binary". > Trans healthcare for kids does not involve surgery. The heavy medicalization of "trans healthcare" creates a rigid path from "affirmation" of the supposedly expressed gender, to puberty blockers/hormones, to surgical reassignment. There are significant social drawbacks for those who choose to stray, since 'community' support is conditional on picking the "right" choices at any given step. > I can see why people would be upset by your straw man, were it the reality, but trans people are not an abomination The latter is not something I ever said, of course. You might be pattern-matching my comment with things that are just not there. I agree that most trans people just want to live their lives and not be at risk for violence, but this much is obvious. In general, the most extreme "activism" on either side gets a lot of visibility while being unrepresentative of what real people think.

mc32 4y ago

My take is kids play with whatever is around. If your dad has acetylene torches around and your mom has axes around the house you’re going to play with them. It does not mean or imply or predict that you want to burn the house down or you want to become a butcher or axe murderer. You’re not exploring being a pyromaniac or a murderer. You’re just playing, that’s it. Same with high heels, smoking pipes, hunting rifles or lipstick. Kids don’t know their meaning yet (context of usage).

refurb 4y ago

For instance, I am a straight man, but when I was a child I sometimes stole my mother's lipstick and tried to put it on, or I would play with Barbie dolls. I wouldn't see trying on lipstick or playing with Barbie dolls as "exploring a gender identity" as neither of those are exclusive to one gender, even in a heteronormative world.

maxbond 4y ago
I'm not saying you are wrong, but in the culture of my household, my school, and the people I had contact with as a child, this was seen as strange and something to be discouraged, because these things were seen as gendered. I think these things were much more gendered at the time, as well. It is crazy for me to look back and remember how there was a time when I hadn't made up my mind about whether gay marriage was okay or not. Things have changed a lot over the past 20 years or so.
zztop44 4y ago
I think you might be missing the forest for the trees. Barbies and lipstick are not exclusive to one gender, but they are associated with one gender. I don’t think it’s controversial to say that people in general will respond differently to a little boy who likes playing with lipstick and barbie dolls compared to a little girl.
rendall 4y ago
I dunno. My social set would never discourage a child from this at all. However, of those of us who had children, only one (out of, like 50+ children in our extended set) was gender non-conforming boy at 3 and liked to wear girl's clothes and play with dolls.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

rendall 4y ago

> Gender identity and sexual orientation are different concepts. Exploring gender identity is not the same as exploring sexuality. While true, to be fair GP was responding to this: >>> "For the last several decades society put massive pressure on kids to conform to *heteronormativity*. With these pressures lessening more and more people are feeling empowered to explore their *sexuality*." [emphasis mine] To muddy the distinction further, there is a small minority of men whose sexual kink is to be perceived as women. These seem to be the people who are making the most trouble for trans women who just want to quietly go about living as women without fuss.

maxbond 4y ago
Kinks are impossible to pin down or fence in, people can get turned on by literally anything. https://xkcd.com/468/ https://xkcd.com/468/ This doesn't really muddy the waters; the concepts remain distinct, and people making it a kink to conflate them is kinda like how a joke isn't true but is only funny if you know the truth it refers to. Heteronormativity conflates gender and sexuality; I'd guess (while acknowledging I don't know the content of anyone else's mind) that is what is responsible for their confusion, because they have been raised in a heteronormative society, the distinction doesn't exist in their mind.
- rendall 4y ago
  > Kinks are impossible to pin down or fence in, people can get turned on by literally anything. While a true statement it's also a non-sequitur. Anglosphere society is roiled with social turmoil about trans-gender identity. One faction would like society to recognize that some people's gender does not fit their sex, and to normalize accommodating these people's gender expression without intrusive and oppressive questioning. Another faction, perhaps motivated by genuine concern, or perhaps by simple hatred of difference and change, throw a spanner into the works by asking hard questions about bathrooms and prisons and athletics and such. If the only people interested in entering women's bathrooms and prisons were genuinely only women who happened to be born in a male body, then everything would be clear and unmuddied. However, the existence of some fraction of men who would happily identify as women in order to gain easier sexual access to women does complicate the simple distinction. Is a trans woman lesbian with a penis really trans, or a predatory man with a kink? Ignoring or dismissing the muddy implications of the question will not make the second faction go away.

blueflow 4y ago

> My parents didn't like me playing with Barbie dolls; they explicitly told me that it wasn't something boys did. Same with me, but let me ask you a question. Were you the sort of kid that actually listens to their parents? Because i didn't, and most of my peers didn't, either.

maxbond 4y ago
No, I was stubborn like mule. I wore my parents down until they caved. That doesn't mean it didn't have an impact though, I certainly picked up what they were putting down. Now, the reaction of my friends when they came over and looked at me funny when I tried to show them my awesome Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders doll (it had wings and could fly if you pulled a ripcord! That's objectively cool. Also, dangerous, especially to taller adults in the area.), that was painful.
ryanbrunner 4y ago
If it's your parents and your peers and virtually all popular media, it's massively naive to think that isn't going to have a normalizing effect on people.
- blueflow 4y ago
  For people with your attitude, yes.
  - ryanbrunner 4y ago
    To be clear, I'm making a descriptive and not a prescriptive statement. I'm not saying that people should conform to societal norms, just that right now they do (and that doesn't seem like a trivial thing to change).
    - blueflow 4y ago
      I'm sorry, it should have been: For people with that attitude, yes.

zozbot234 4y ago

maxbond 4y ago
This is a straw man. 1. This is not a good faith representation of what trans people are arguing for; no one is saying that playing with dolls makes you trans. 2. Trans healthcare for kids does not involve surgery. Surgeries are not performed for people under the age of 18. Trans healthcare for kids largely involves letting them choose what clothes they wear, pronouns they use, perhaps changing their name. The most that might happen is that they take puberty blockers, a reversible and safe treatment. 3. I can see why people would be upset by your straw man, were it the reality, but trans people are not an abomination, and directing dehumanizing language towards a group of people who are frequently targeted for violence is profoundly not okay. It's been less than 3 weeks since a terrorist entered an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs and opened fire, and this has happened more times than anyone can count; don't contribute to this. And your straw man is just that.
- zozbot234 4y ago
  > no one is saying That's a rather extreme claim, don't you think? There's been a significant shift in recent years from "gender fluid" behavior being considered a matter of expression, to it being regarded as an almost mandatory matter of identity - either as a sign of identifying with the opposite gender, or as being "non binary". > Trans healthcare for kids does not involve surgery. The heavy medicalization of "trans healthcare" creates a rigid path from "affirmation" of the supposedly expressed gender, to puberty blockers/hormones, to surgical reassignment. There are significant social drawbacks for those who choose to stray, since 'community' support is conditional on picking the "right" choices at any given step. > I can see why people would be upset by your straw man, were it the reality, but trans people are not an abomination The latter is not something I ever said, of course. You might be pattern-matching my comment with things that are just not there. I agree that most trans people just want to live their lives and not be at risk for violence, but this much is obvious. In general, the most extreme "activism" on either side gets a lot of visibility while being unrepresentative of what real people think.