Gendered expectations sort of create doubles of children. There's the real child with their actual personality, interests and behaviors, and then there's the Gender Child.

My real brother hated soccer and team sports. The Gender Child that existed only the minds of the adults in his life enjoyed playing soccer because that's what a Boy Child likes.

Growing up, I always felt like adults didn't actually know me as a person and they weren't interested in getting to know me. Because they felt they'd already learned everything there was to know about me when they were told "it's a girl".

Gender ideology (the actual cishet one that dominates most of our cultures) creates doppelgangers of us the moment we're assigned a gender, thanks to ultrasound that now happens even before birth. "Oh he's going to be a soccer player" was a common thing to say about assumed-male fetuses where I'm from. Nobody would have said that about a assumed-female fetus no matter how hard they may have kicked.

I also think this is why so many parents struggle with accepting their trans children's real identities. Because often, you never were you to them. They never saw you for who you actually are. They saw you as Gender Child and by telling them "I'm actually not the gender you thought" you might have as well told them you killed the doppelganger they had been raising all this time and shall now replace them.

The hard to swallow pill here being that many parents would absolutely prefer to have kept the doppelganger over the real you. In fact, they might be fully convinced that you are the imposter and you killed their real child. Just like how people used to think children were stolen by fae and replaced by a changeling when they started showing autistic traits.

my dad was not the greatest in all ways, but both he and my mom had their own favorite household chores, which did not always conform to gendered stereotypes. and they tasked me with helping at ALL THE CHORES without restriction.

i always had a mix of toys with an emphasis on building blocks, puzzles, stuffed animals, and trains. fewer dolls or action figures. i never really felt pushed into a gendered experience by them except when they insisted that genitals define the category you have to call yourself.

but compared to other families, they mapped way less culturally restrictive bullshit onto the categories they used. and honestly i think it's because they were "strange people," which just meant some flavor of undiagnosed neurodivergent...

Phasmid eggs | Levon Biss

‘Polluted Water Popsicles’ (2017) by: Hung I-chen, Guo Yi-hui & Chen Yu-ti

San Francisco Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis tetrataenia), family Colubridae, northern California, USA

ENDANGERED.

nautical + space themed quilt pieces by Sampaguita Quilts ! :)

Lingers