Back in the PQ7800 stacks on the third floor of Stanford library, Moomin asked me out of the blue, “How do you tell the difference between boys… men and women, or male and female?” in a high, clear, piping voice. He doesn’t often ask questions so I was glad to have the chance to have that discussion, even though I was on the spot.
We talked about bodies a little bit. I ducked a lot of things by saying that “usually” males have a penis and females have a vulva. We talked about what masculine and feminine mean with behavior and stuff… on the level of “some people think only girls should like pink and barbie and only boys should play boy games… but this isn’t true.” Then he was back to what’s in your pants vs. what you’re signifying, like, “How come usually I can tell if people are men or women, even though they have clothes on?” A good question. His “It’s So Amazing” book doesn’t go into that. “How come I can tell Daddy is a boy, even though he has long hair that’s sort of like a girl?” I talked for a bit but ended up… perhaps unconvincingly… with the question “how do you tell” and my ultimate answer which is:
a) why would you care?
b) if you really want to know you have to ask because it’s up to that person to decide.
I know, because we’ve talked about it before, that he’s thinking of this kid in his class, José Luis, and how “everyone says José Luis is like a girl.”
All I really want from this discussion is for him not to be mean to José Luis!
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They like to put everything into little boxes, don't they? I don't know if it would work for you, but I really liked "What's the Big Secret?" by that guy who does the Arthur books. It talks about basic gender differences, but it doesn't get into transgender, of course. Is that book out there?Anyway, I'm with you–who cares?
I think I might have to save this entry somewhere, just in case I have kids someday, and just in case those kids ever ask me a similar question, I'll be prepared. I'm always amazed at parental ability to explain things like this so sensibly. I don't think I have this ability. I sometimes imagine having to explain things like this to a little person and I draw an immediate blank or all I can think of are really stereotypical, run of the mill things that don't really come close to approximating how I really think about such things, or how I would want my child to view them.Usually what I fall back on is "go ask your mother" but of course that won't work if I AM the mother.