I grew up in a time in the South when gender-based clothing was strictly enforced, at least in the schools and at formal events. I did get to wear shorts in the summer, when school was not in session, but in the winter it was dresses and tights, which I hated with a passion. I'm not even trans, I'm just non-gender-conforming, and this made my life miserable. I was also compelled, for years, to have long hair which my mother put up in curlers at night -- like my insomnia wasn't bad enough.
U.S. conservatives claim to be against government overreach, and yet they are making alliances with the TERFs, who want to regulate what children can wear and how they have to dress, because it's apparently essentially that "children's actual sex must be known by everyone in school."
Honestly, ask yourself: if gender is a binary fact, as real as a rock in your fist, why does society, apparently, need to enforce it with such unrelenting zeal? It's essential that everyone around a five year old knows what genitals that five year old has? Why, exactly?
TERFs and conservatives, who claim to oppose liberal indoctrination, are really upset because they aren't being allowed to practice indoctrination on every child within their reach. It's why they want to "bring back prayer" in public schools, and why they're opposed to teaching actual history (instead of "patriotic" history), and why they're angry about books which show a world that isn't their world, and why they don't want any sort of suggestion that children other than white straight cis children matter, and so on and so on.
This is why I never believe them when they claim to want to protect children. They want to indoctrinate certain kinds of children into believing in their hateful version of reality, and make sure any other sort of child is crushed into invisibility. "Let kids be kids!" my ass. What they mean is, Let kids be forced into being what we, their owners, want them to be. Kids aren't people to these people. They're accessories to their bigoted political agenda.
At a recent UK Gender Critical event, Sex Matters, anti-trans activists espoused for gendered dress codes.
— Erin Reed (@ErinInTheMorn) September 22, 2023
US conservatives are pushing similar.
Enforcement of gendered expression and behavior standards is the natural extension recent campaigns against trans people everywhere. pic.twitter.com/anyZtdD0Wh
4 comments:
UGH UGH UGH I was forced to wear skirts/dresses through junior high and HATED wearing them. Just thinking about enforcing gender-stereotypical clothing makes me angry.
Here are my clothing rules: 1) comfortable for whatever one's doing. 2) weather appropriate*. I have a personal rule, but if they try to make me wear skirts/dresses, it goes out in the garbage: 3) doesn't get me arrested.
*For a teenager, that may mean shorts when it's really cold. Just as long as no one gets frostbite!
I hated having to wear dresses and skirts. I don't even own them anymore. I remember when I was new at my tenure track job in NC, the chair of my department scolded me gently for wearing pants (my interview suit, so it was very formal) to graduation. "We're going to get you in a dress yet, Dr. delagar," she said, and I said, "I don't even own one, so I don't think so."
We have two rules for the children's clothing: 1) won't cause heat stroke or frostbite and 2) we cover our private parts in public. That's it! I feel like that's much more in line with "let kids be kids"
Right?
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