Submitted by sometimescoherent:
So I’m over at a friends house for the xmas (even though I’m an atheist) and my friend and her parents are skypeing with her brother, who is now married and has two kids. The kids have been assigned as a “boy” and a “girl,” Elijah and Nevaeh respectively. For the most part it was just banter with kids as they were opening gifts and then I heard this: “Elijah put that down! You are not a girl!”
And it went downhill from there.
By this time my friend was sitting next to me and we both looked at each other. It became apparent that the above comment was prompted by Elijah picking up Nevaeh’s dress/shoes. This apparently is horrible. We started both loudly saying let the kid play with the dress!
Then: Mother: “Go do boy things.” Dad: “Go play with your truck.”
This prompted more shouting from us in the vein of there are no girl and boy things, play is gender neutral, etc. This went on for a bit and I left the room to go to the bathroom. I heard my friend telling her brother that I use gender-neutral pronouns and prefer “they/them.”
Then when I came back the brother (the dad of the two kids) said that they is not singular and then started trolling. At one point earlier on my friend said don’t give this side of the room an aneurysm (because of the first couple of comments). The brother asked if it was a “girl aneurysm or a boy aneurysm” with an almost audible trollface.jpg
She replied that it’s a gender-neutral thing.
(Insert even more trolling about how everything is either a boy thing or a girl thing)
It’s not like I can change much. My friend is plotting to rectify this situation with future presents… A dress up kit, science kits, and other ideas to drive the point home: DON’T FUCKING GENDER POLICE YOUR KIDS! Le sigh. Well there is hard cider!
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Moderator note: This submission is an account of someone's personal experience, feelings, and coping mechanisms from the author's point of view. No one means of coping is advocated by GqC.
Labels: family, holidays, personal essay
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