Little children assigned as boys who are effeminate, flamey, into ‘girls’ toys’ or cross-gender identified have always received attention but most of it has been decidedly negative, ranging from [NOTE: possible triggers in these articles!] Dr. Phil’s recent nonsense to decidedly creepy gay panic to disturbing, abusive, and of course completely unscientific “therapies” (more on these later) and all the way to murder.
That’s why it’s been decidedly refreshing over the last few months that there’s been a minor drumroll of books and blogs by parents raising their fey kids: Cheryl Kilodavis’s book My Princess Boy, the went-viral post “My Son is Gay” at Nerdy Apple Bottom, and Raising My Rainbow are just a few of them.
What wigs me out a little bit is the reaction that some of these parents get: concern trolls freaking out about the irreparable harm they may be doing to their sons by — what? letting them dress in pink and play with My Little Ponies?
Never, for these folks, does it enter the equation that just maybe they might be doing more harm by forcing the kid to stifle their gender identity and their harmless self-expression, learn to hate and be afraid of femininity in themself and others, and come to understand they disappoint and frighten their parents and other grown-ups just by being themself.
I’m not a parent, I don’t plan to be a parent (I can’t even deal with my cats), and I wasn’t extraordinarily girly as a child, although I definitely wasn’t what you’d call boyish either. But I have to say kudos to these parents for loving their children and being committed to encouraging them in being who they are and pushing others to do likewise.
p.s. As full of fail as I understand the show is in so many ways, I’d like to give it up to Glee for portraying not only a sympathetic, unabashedly effeminate male character in Kurt Hummel, portrayed by the adorable Chris Colfer, but also showing the tender, loving, and accepting relationship between him and his very traditionally masculine dad. I sort of wish I had a TV and the time necessary to watch the show (and could stomach its transphobia, racism, ableism, and other kinds of nonsense), just so I could follow how Kurt is doing.
femme guy! 
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February 28, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Michael
I am a parent. With our first child, my wife and I made the mistake of trying to repress his desire for candies and sweets. Now, as a teenager, he is addicted, while our second, with whom we were more relaxed, is not obsessed with tooth rotting snacks. On the other hand, while neither were offered TV, and both had mostly gender-neutral toys or access to whichever they preferred, and their dad is a gender-queer femme and mum is a bit of a butchy woman; our son is manly and our daughter a very female woman. Both of course, are very tolerant of difference. Anecdotal, I know.
I’m still avidly following your blog, thanks for your support to those of us living outside the gender binary.
March 5, 2011 at 1:50 pm
London Mabel
A friend directed me to your site, and I hope to do some poking around later when my chores are done! 🙂
I liked the Princess Boy story too. And the Kurt story on Glee is one of the few remaining aspects I’ll still occasionally tune in to it for.
The other TV “femme guy” who recently caught my attention (and this is why my friend directed me here) was a contestant on American Idol, who made it to the Top 24, but didn’t make the Top 10 cut. He mentioned early in the show that he’d been teased since childhood, but eventually decided that being different was good, and he embraced this about himself. You could see he was very huggy and hand-holdee and super-positive-praise-everyone-guy, but it was only at his top 24 performance that I realized why he’s always been teased.
He’s very feminine. Probably too feminine for people to be comfortable with. And he doesn’t dress “stereotypically gay” so not easy to pigeonhole either.
You might be interested to check him out on youtube:
Brett Loewenstern. I suspect he got a lot of votes, but the femme-ee-ness was a bit too much to get him into the top 10. He’s really awesome.
Anyway, just thought this might be the sort of thing to interest you. 🙂