Both: What causes extreme gender nonconformity in young children?

submitted by worried19 from self.GCdebatesQT

This is a repeat from the old sub, but I thought it might provoke interesting discussion. Mostly directed at GC, but anyone can answer. I know we don't believe in "man brain" and "lady brain," but what exactly do you think causes extreme gender nonconformity in young children?

I can't think of a good explanation for it, myself. The best I can work out, most children are born somewhere towards the middle and are easily malleable. They are willing to go with the flow and will follow along with however they're socialized, so boys are socialized into masculinity and girls into femininity, and the vast majority will not object.

A minority of children are born towards the end of the bell curve. Very masculine boys and very feminine girls will be absorbed into their assigned social category with no one noticing, but very feminine boys and very masculine girls are the outliers, the ones who cannot go against their true nature to follow the others, despite repeated, insistent, or even violent socialization.

I think it makes sense that there is a natural variation among human beings, but my question is what causes this latter category to occur? Where does it come from, that a child should be so unable to follow what society expects, even under threat of severe social ostracism, violence, or even death? What has caused that condition in us? If it is something biological, what is it?

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[–]CatbugMods allow rape victim blaming in this sub :) 13 insightful - 1 fun13 insightful - 0 fun14 insightful - 1 fun -  (20 children)

Personalities. There’s always folks that prefer to buck the norm. Gnc kids are no different. Personality at odds with socialisation.

It’s bizarre to entertain the idea that there is any biological reason for gender anything when gender is not a static thing. Nobody is biologically wired for any other fashion trend.

[–]worried19[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (19 children)

But I guess where I get stuck is why there are children who feel so strongly about it that they are willing to die rather than conform. I'm not 100% convinced there's something biological at play, but I feel like there has got to be something beyond just "personality."

[–]CatbugMods allow rape victim blaming in this sub :) 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (18 children)

You don’t think stubbornness or wilfulness are personality traits? People aren’t perfect conformists and some just hate it. Why can’t it be personality? Gender is a social phenomenon and nobody out there conforms to all social norms and phenomenons.

What purpose does gender serve biologically? How can we be a species biologically wired for something that we invented and regularly change the rules of?

Is there a biological cause for punk? They aren’t conforming and many would rather start.

[–]worried19[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

They can be, but take myself for example. I was an otherwise obedient child. I was not stubborn or willful in any other aspect of life. So what was so special about gender that made it impossible for me to conform when I conformed perfectly well to other things adults expected of me? I didn't care about God, but I didn't throw violent tantrums about going to church. I copied the adults and pretended to pray like they did.

I feel like I was born different in some way. I don't know how I would explain it. I don't think I have a different brain. I don't believe I have different hormone levels, although I don't know for sure. But there's something in me that made me different. All I know is that it's not supernatural or mystical. I don't have a "gender soul." But I'm physically as well as socially masculine, and I think that points to something.

[–]CatbugMods allow rape victim blaming in this sub :) 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

And what about that was biologically hardwired and what does that wiring serve in terms of survival or reproduction?

If it’s not faith based like a soul, not biological, and there is no reason to think it is, what’s left but personality?

What’s so impossible about a child preferring something not prescribed to them? It’s not like gnc kids are rare. There’s a handful at any school. A girl liking bugs and trucks and not long annoying hair and dresses is not in anyway biologically different to other girls and it sounds weirdly close to tra girly brains thinking to suggest she is.

Why do some kids scream until they puke over Peppa pig? Probably the same reasons they do it over being put into pigtails. They’re kids and have strong feelings about the pig or the pigtail. What makes gender norms different to any other thing a kid may or may not conform to?

Is the kid who hates anime at the school where anime is king have a different brain? Could that be his personality?

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (15 children)

I think it's in some way connected to homosexuality. Most extremely masculine women are lesbian or at least bisexual. There are some of us who are straight, but not as many. We still don't know for sure why some people are homosexual. I think it could potentially be related to hormone levels in the womb.

So it could be biological in some way, just not "man brain" vs. "lady brain." And I don't know how it affects survival or reproduction but gay people wouldn't keep getting born if they were contrary to nature, either.

What’s so impossible about a child preferring something not prescribed to them?

Preferring is different from refusing to conform even when beaten. Preferring is also different from a child saying they will die and being willing to follow through on that threat.

It’s not like gnc kids are rare. There’s a handful at any school.

Extremely GNC children seem to be rare. There were none at any of my schools except me.

Perhaps it's different from other personality traits because society places so much more importance on gender. I could see that mattering to a large extent, but I don't get why self preservation for some of us doesn't win out. Human beings are born to want to survive. The fact that some of us are willing to die, even though we're otherwise completely logical and rational, it doesn't make sense to me.

[–]CatbugMods allow rape victim blaming in this sub :) 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

Beating children does not stop them from dressing like punks or listening to whatever music either.

Do you feel that gender nonconformity is really the only thing that kids really cling to despite getting poor treatment for it?

Like, did you miss out on hearing about all the goth kids who got their asses beat daily? There was no biological cause for me to get into the emo trends fifteen years ago and keep it up despite being handed blades and instructed to kill myself with them. People do this with trends other than gender. People are willing to die over all sorts of things despite being rational otherwise. I honestly think you’re putting way more weight behind gnc than anything else despite those other things actually being just as big.

I don’t think lesbians are naturally more masculine by any means, so I disagree that it has anything to do with homosexuality.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I don’t think lesbians are naturally more masculine by any means, so I disagree that it has anything to do with homosexuality.

I’m not sure if lesbians are naturally more masculine, but masculine girls are more likely to be lesbians. This effect is even stronger with feminine boys being gay (like 90% iirc). I’ll see if I can find the studies. It’s sad all our saved posts from the Reddit sub are gone.

[–]worried19[S] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think it's something like 50% for masculine girls and 90% for feminine boys. There's definitely a correlation of some type, but it does appear much stronger on the male end.

[–]CatbugMods allow rape victim blaming in this sub :) 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Both phrasings sound the same to me tbh. I’m not a lesbian and just prefer not to speak about lesbians as a group of masculine women. Feels like I’m no different than the dudes who see a woman with short hair and go “DYKE”. I’m not part of the group so I can’t fairly stereotype it.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

But you don't think there's a higher proportion of extremely masculine lesbian women than extremely masculine straight women? Women who look and act like Lea DeLaria, Ivan Coyote, and Leslie Feinberg, for example?

Do you feel that gender nonconformity is really the only thing that kids really cling to despite getting poor treatment for it?

Maybe not, but I think it's the chief one. I don't know much about goths, but they're not young children. They're teenagers. I can understand teens feel strongly about whatever identity they've adopted, but would you have actually killed yourself if you've been put into a school that forced you to give up your goth clothing? I've never heard of someone doing that.

[–]CatbugMods allow rape victim blaming in this sub :) 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

I’m saying I’m not gonna apply the masculine stereotype to lesbians because it feels shitty.

At 14 I absolutely did try and kill myself over receiving acceptance only if I abandoned my self expression.

Any small child threatening suicide or death over being gnc has bigger issues than their brain gender not being what’s prescribed to them. Five year olds expressing any degree of suicidal ideation need immediate therapy and an investigation into what sort of monstrous family it takes for a kid that young to even think of death.

Are you telling me that you’d have genuinely killed yourself in kindergarten over a skirt? Cause nobody has ever heard of someone doing that.

[–]worried19[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

I'm sorry to hear you went through that. It was because people didn't accept you if you wore goth clothing? Granted, I've never met a goth, so I didn't know it was something teens could feel that strongly about.

Are you telling me that you’d have genuinely killed yourself in kindergarten over a skirt? Cause nobody has ever heard of someone doing that.

I don't know if I would have had the capacity to kill myself at that age. There are cases of children that young committing suicide, although it's rare. You do hear of young GNC children threatening suicide; however, I don't know if any have carried it out at that young of an age. I would say it would become more of a real possibility in later elementary school.

Yes, I absolutely would have killed myself in later elementary or middle school. I had suicidal ideation by 13 or 14, at the latest. And that was with my family accepting my gender nonconformity. If they hadn't, I don't believe I would ever have survived to that age. It's not logical. I'm a logical person, so I recognize it's not rational to kill oneself over clothing and hairstyles. But I would have and still would, if forced into that situation.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I feel strongly that there are extremely masculine and feminine children in a way that isn’t a choice (or at least we don’t experience it that way). There is so much pressure on GNC children to fit in or change themselves, but some of us won’t or can’t. It feels like its more than just personality because we aren’t always stubborn or disagreeable (I’m not, usually the opposite). My femininity didn’t feel like a choice and I would have chosen to fit in if I could have, but I couldn’t and the pressure to be that way made me want to die.

[–]worried19[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

I feel exactly the same. There's something going on beyond mere preferences. I wonder how many of the other commenters were highly GNC children themselves.

[–]anfd 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

My working hypothesis is that sexual orientation is mostly innate. It would make evolutionary sense that people are innately attracted to the opposite sex because that's the only way that will lead to successful procreation. The way this could be connected to gender conforming is that in order to effectively realise the (mostly) innate attraction you need to recognise the target of your sexual attraction, and while you can do this by "natural physiological differences" between men and women (voice, size, body shape), cultural gender markers work towards this as well. Maybe for a connected reason you also have an "innate psychological need" to appear yourself as a member of your sex too.

Not everyone does it to the same extent, there's variation (like you said, the bell curve etc.). But I guess there's an evolutionary reason why heterosexual attraction is by far the most common outcome.

So this would be the standard, evolutionary useful development path. But of course there's some atypical development paths, like there are with other things and not just sexuality. Same-sex attraction could be like this (it's basically just flipping the target of sexual attraction, but it's still sexual attraction), and maybe the need to conform to the ways of one sex over another is another atypical development compared to the one that from the evolutionary point of view makes the best sense. Extreme GNC could be the flipside development of extreme gender conforming, analogous to same-sex attraction.

I'm not claiming that this is much more than an evolutionary just so story, and I don't mean to say that culture and socialization don't matter just because I didn't write about them here (also I didn't mention other factors like personality which I do think matters). But evolutionary just so stories aren't any worse than similar kind of just so stories where the explanation is socialization. It seems clear to me it needs to be both, even though many things will not need an evolutionary explanation, and I don't think there's going to be some one thing (evolutionary pshychology, personality, socialization etc.) that explains everything else. Sex and anything directly to do with sexual reproduction though seem pretty central, evolutionary speaking, so it would be surprising to me if there wasn't any "psychological adaptations" and innate stuff there having to do with sex and sexual attraction.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Makes sense. I feel like extreme gender nonconformity is along the lines of same-sex attraction, although there's not a perfect correlation.

For whatever odd reason, I'm GNC and attracted to men. But most other women like me are attracted to women. I figure there's got to be some reason for that. It's not just coincidence. But at the same time, I'm a gender abolitionist. I do believe gender is false. So I guess I'm trying to reconcile the two perspectives.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

The Gender Role test you posted seems to indicate most are somewhat GNC, but maybe not highly so? It’s seems like so many people don’t really understand this experience and just say we were being brave or stubborn. I wish I understood more why it happens.

[–]worried19[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think it's somehow connected to same-sex attraction. Even if a few of us are not attracted to the same natal sex, the correlation is too strong to be written off as a mere coincidence.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think you may be right. It definitely seems like they are related. It’s not like a perfect connection though and I wouldn’t want to ignore the experiences of GNC kids who wouldn’t grow up to be same-sex attracted and it seems less connected with females than males (still highly correlated though).

[–]worried19[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think it's possible that GNC straight people are just outliers. I've always felt like nature "intended" for me to be a lesbian. Perhaps something got mixed up somewhere, either in my brain's wiring or prenatal hormones. Obviously I can't know for sure, but straight women are typically not as masculine as I am. I also have more physical masculinization than average. I'd be shocked if there wasn't something in the womb environment that affected me. I used to wonder if I was secretly intersex, which appears to be unlikely, given that I do menstruate and appear to have normal genitalia. But I've never been tested by a doctor, so I don't know for sure.

[–]levoyageur718293 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's because gender conformity is kind of shit. Both genders were designed by patriarchal authority to be useful to them when embodied in their subjects. Manly men are obedient to the demands of the group, stoically throwing themselves into war & work for the benefit of their masters, while womanly women are obedient to the demands of their menfolk, creating a sub-class that keeps the manly men happy and obedient to their own masters. It's a bad game for everyone.

[–]grixitperson 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

Children are individuals with preferences. Those preferences are personal to them and only become noncomforming when some adult decides they fall onto the wrong side of some checklist.

[–]worried19[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

But I guess my question is what causes a young child to persist with a preference in the face of violent censure. Even to the point of being willing to die for it. Yeah, some kids prefer trains and others prefer dinosaurs, but no 4 year old is going to seriously threaten suicide if you take away Thomas the Tank Engine and give them a toy velociraptor.

[–]grixitperson 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

I believe it is possible for a chid to become neurotically fixated on an individual item, no reference to cultural norms is necessary. I also suspect that a lot of parents exagerate and mis remember unconnected episodes as a trend, especially after someone advises them that their child is asserting an identity.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

I'm sure that can be true. I suppose my question was more from the perspective of the person who's had those strong preferences their entire lives.

I don't doubt that Jazz Jennings was a very GNC preschooler. I question the parents' narrative that this made him trans.

[–]grixitperson 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

I reject the term GNC.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Do you not believe in gender as a social construct?

[–]grixitperson 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Sure, just as i believe in religion as a social construct. But not buying into it doesn't make me "faith non conforming". That's their term, not mine.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I see where you're coming from on that. Is there another term that you would use, or do you think it's useful to have a word to differentiate between people who conform to gender and those who can't or won't?

[–]grixitperson 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

there's a term that covers both groups: individual.

[–]worried19[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

But you don't think it's useful to have a word to distinguish between them? The life of a gender-role nonconforming child is going to be very different from the life of a conforming one. They will be subject to different treatment and different abuses.

[–]luckystar 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

In my case it was sibling envy, had older brothers and no sisters. I wore boys clothes, played video games, wanted to join boy scouts (because they had more fun activities like shooting BB guns while girl scouts sat around making bead lanyards), I liked catching frogs and snakes down by the river. I grew up to be a pretty feminine woman and among the most "normie/basic bitch" of all of my friends. I am so so grateful that my mom was a hippy who told me that girls could do anything boys can, rather than "affirming" my childhood desire to be a boy.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

I think it can happen that way for some kids. Out of curiosity, what made you change? I remember being a GNC child and feeling so resolute that I would never let anyone change me, no matter what. It surprises me that some kids who feel similarly all of a sudden are able to do an about face on that. What age did you change, and what made you no longer hate the idea of being feminine?

[–]luckystar 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Hmm... let me try to remember. My tomboy phase was up until about puberty, upon which I began a series of counter culture/weeb phases (punk, ska, emo, scene kid, gothic lolita, cosplayer, gyaru...) In my 20s, especially during the latter part of and immediately following college, I just became "normal" (read: feminine in the way society expects). The question "what made you change?" I can't easily answer, I have to think more about that.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Interesting how much variation there can be in one person's lifetime. Was being a tomboy part of your core identity as a young child?

[–]luckystar 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

It was around the ages maybe 6-10? When I was very little I don't remember thinking about gender one way or another, and around puberty I went hard into punk stuff.

I think I am basically the poster child for the "they grow out of it" argument, but I'm also aware that's not always the case. It seems like a really tough catch 22, since the people I know who grew up to be actual transsexuals (diagnosed with GD, made a transition) do say they "knew" even as kids, but I have no idea how we disinguishh one kid's "I wanna be a boy [because I like "boy things" and want to be like my sibling]" vs another kid's "I wanna be a boy [because I have a mental/hormonal imbalance causing the condition of gender dysphoria]". It seems like the science around a lot of this stuff is just not as advanced as it could be yet, and I fear the political climate makes research difficult.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's just crazy that girls as young as 8 are being medicalized when there is simply no way at that age to tell who will persist with cross-sex identification into adulthood.

Not to mention, many of us who do persist with gender nonconformity do not reject our biological sex. I have always been thoroughly masculine but have never once hated my breasts, vagina, or female body in general. On the contrary, I feel like I have a much healthier relationship with my body than many gender conforming women who have been taught by the culture to hate the way they look.

[–]DistantGlimmer 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Do you know anything about GNC people (women especially) in societies that are very conservative where it might actually be life or death to be GNC? Obviously there'd be gay people in these countries who may be GNC as part of that but I am wondering if there are straight people in these countries who just can't accept their strict gender roles no matter how much pressure is on them.

It's not something I know a lot about but I am curious about it. Personally, while I've always felt more comfortable being at least somewhat GNC at least as long as I can remember I do view it as very much a choice and something I can dial back or accentuate as needed although I'd hate to live in a more conservative society where gender was more harshly imposed and would consider this a strong limit on my freedom.

[–]worried19[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think those are probably the people who ran off to disguise themselves as the opposite sex. Throughout history, there have been women who masqueraded as men. Some of those women were found to have been pregnant at some point, although that's not an indication of heterosexuality because the pregnancies could easily have been the result of rape. In Afghanistan, there are women who continue the basha posh tradition into adulthood, in defiance of their country's sexism, although whether or not they're straight is an open question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1E9uWm9nJc

There's a quite obvious GNC teenage girl in this video who chooses to present as male. Whether she would continue to do so if she were threatened with death instead of just heavy disapproval, I don't know.

[–]DistantGlimmer 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

That's interesting. I remember someone (perhaps you?) bringing up those Afghan women in the old sub and I found it really interesting as they were being compared to transmen and they were mostly very conflicted because it gave them a way to sort of escape the misogyny in that culture at least for a while but they still did not feel totally like boys. Anyway, I don't believe there is anything biological about gender itself but I wouldn't be surprised if there is something natural about come people really rebelling against these imposed social roles from a very young age.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That was probably me. I've linked that video several times before.

Misogyny is another complicating factor in all this. If misogyny did not exist, then femininity would not exist in its current form. And if femininity didn't exist, could there even be GNC women at all?

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Kids try on all sorts of activities and identities as they grow and develop. Not all kids neatly fit into stereotyped gender ”norms”.

This used to be considered typical kid behavior until the TRAS came along and medicalized this behavior.

When I was a kid and played house with my little friends, sometimes I would be the dad and sometimes I would be the mom. Today, my mother would probably have been browbeaten by a FB group into thinking that I was “assigned” female at birth and that I should be given puberty blockers and testosterone so I could play at being a man permanently.

Good thing the gender idiocy and FB wasn’t created yet when I was growing up. Too late for Jazz Jennings and other kids like Jazz.

[–]questioningtw 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I think temperaments are very much biological; and it is just denying reality to think that everything is completely nurture. Being GNC is absolutely a type of temperament. Even men and women that defy many gender roles by their interests and personality are usually not that gender non conforming. That said, really bothers me when people act like all highly GNC kids are really trans.

[–]peakingatthemomentTranssexual (natal male), HSTS 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That said, really bothers me when people act like all highly GNC kids are really trans.

So true. I worry so much about GNC kids today. Also, glad you are here! 😊

[–]Omina_SentenziosaSarcastic Ovalord 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (18 children)

I remember a similar thread in the old sub, even though I don't remember if it was the same you are referring to, but I am going to answer in the same way I did in that convo: extreme non-conformity in children is caused by the same thing that causes children to prefer chocolate ice cream over strawberry ice cream.

I don't understand why there should be a special something that explains why a child prefers climbing trees over playing with Barbies besides the fact that our society is obsessed with this shit more than we are obsessed with ice cream flavors.

You are making it a question of something preventing children to follow society's rules: the reality is that society's rules on the matter are preventing children to follow their natural inclinations, not the other way around. Non conformity (or conformity for that matter) are a human invention.

Do you think there is something special that explains someone's desire to get married (or to not get married)? Someone' s dislike for school? Someone's hatred for paying taxes? Someone's deciding to not get a driving license? A child under 18/21 wanting to try drinking alcohol?

Those are all society's rules with people not following them: do you think there's something that makes them do it besides them just not having the inclination to do it?

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (17 children)

Yes, that was my old thread. I found it in the Google cache, so I was able to repost it here.

I see where you're coming from, but most young children want approval from adults. They want their parents' love and acceptance. They don't want to be beaten or ostracized. Children from normal, loving homes would have no reason to threaten suicide over hair and clothing. The vast majority of children will go along to get along, even if it's not what they prefer. I'm talking about the small minority who can't or won't.

I just find it curious because people like u/peakingatthemoment and I were otherwise affable, obedient children. But in this one matter, we could not conform or even pretend to conform without wanting to die.

[–]Omina_SentenziosaSarcastic Ovalord 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (16 children)

Children from loving homes still live in a society obsessed with this stuff. Just because their parents don't care if their son wears a skirt, it doesn't mean that the rest of the people that child knows are fine with it.

That child is still bombarded with media products that tell him that wearing a skirt is for sissies, not to mention other relatives, classmates, teachers, people on the internet...

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (15 children)

Right, but that's part of my point. It doesn't take much effort for a child to conform. Most young children conform unthinkingly. Society wants a boy to wear pants and a girl to wear a dress. Society wants a boy to have short hair and a girl to have long hair. So why are there some children who are distressed by those expectations to the point of wanting to die?

[–]Omina_SentenziosaSarcastic Ovalord 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

Because they are taught that being "normal" means following those rules, but their personal inclinations and preferences tell them otherwise, so they feel like freaks. Add some other issues like depression and there you go.

People want to die for all sorts of reasons, why should this be different?

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

But preschoolers, though? Kids that age are aware of some things, certainly, but systemic misogyny is not one of them.

I don't recall feeling like a freak in preschool or elementary school. I just knew in no uncertain terms that I could not perform any aspect of femininity.

[–]Omina_SentenziosaSarcastic Ovalord 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

Preschoolers watch cartoons and television, and have their parents read books and stories to them.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (11 children)

It just doesn't make any sense to me. Take myself as a preschooler. The message that I got was that femininity was normal for girls. So why would I have wanted to kill myself if forced to wear a dress?

[–]Omina_SentenziosaSarcastic Ovalord 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Because you didn't want to wear that dress and being forced to do something you didn't want to do was upsetting.

It's not gender conformity/non conformity the problem, it's the fact that you were pressured, by either your parents or society, to do something you didn't want to do.

[–]worried19[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

But I guess what I'm trying to get at is why the thought of wearing a dress induced thoughts of suicide, both then and now. A dress is just a piece of cloth. It's not worth killing yourself over. It's certainly not worth a young child forfeiting their life. What makes that preference so extreme in some young children that they are dead serious about dying over it? Society says it's normal for a girl to wear girls' clothing. Why couldn't I simply have conformed like all the other girls?