Exploring the Spectrum

The second chapter of Cinderella Ate My Daughter peaked my interest because of another reading assigned for class, called “How Changeable is Gender?” by Richard Friedman. On page 19, Orenstein is asking another parent why she supports princess culture. The other parent says, “I want my daughter to have a strong identity as a girl, as a woman, as a female…So if she wants to wear a princess dress and explore that side of herself, I don’t want to stand in the way.”

This mother may not be standing in the way of her child being a female, but what about the rest of the spectrum? In Friedman’s piece, he writes that gender is “a social construct and that people can move between genders to arrive at their true identity.” Gender dysphoria is very common in children. By shoving princesses down girl’s throats in order to make them feel like a female, are we in turn prohibiting them from exploring another side of themselves?

Our culture also discourages young kids from exploring different identities. On page 21, Orenstein tells the story of a seven-year-old boy who “was teased so ruthlessly about his new, beloved pink bike that within a week he refused to ride it.” We traumatize kids who are young and explore beyond social constructs of male and female. I bet this child has avoided pink for the rest of his life because one of his earliest memories is of him being bullied for owning and loving something of this color.

It is my opinion that children should use their childhood and adolescence to explore all of the identities in order to find the spot on the spectrum that makes them truly happy. It upset me to read on page 21 that “boys as young as four said their daddies would think it was ‘bad’ if they played with ‘girls’ toys, even something as innocuous as miniature dishes.”

If we just let our kids try everything and find themselves, rather than forcing them into little boxes labeled “male” and “female,” wouldn’t a whole host of other problems be solved? According to Friedman’s article, transsexuals have 19 times the rate of suicide. If we just accepted our kids from the start, I am sure this statistic would decrease.

Even if a child does play with toys that align more with another gender, it should not be a worry to the parent. In a study of 5 to 12-year-olds with gender dysphoria discussed in Friedman’s article, 70 percent of boys and 36 percent of girls were no longer gender dysphoric after a 10 year follow up, proving that for most children, it’s just exploration.

Exploration never hurt anyone. It leads to creativity and allows the imagination to exercise itself. Expectations of the varying genders should not stop something as wonderfully beautiful as that.