Gender Fun with the Daughters of Lesbians

A couple of weeks ago before I got hit with the Pig, I was in a bit of an Una Troubridge mood.  Una, it seems, while more or less a femme--or a "false invert" in Radclyffe Hall's terms (which she basically took straight-up out of Havelock Ellis's Sexual Inversion) dressed in various gender-troubling ways on and off throughout her life/relationship with Hall (aka "John"), but basically was dressing like a girl most of the time toward the end of Hall's life.  Then, when Hall died, she had all of her (John's) suits tailored to fit her (Una) and wore them until she died.

So Cole had gone to work for the week and I was missing her, and I decided to don a shirt of hers and a tie I recently got her and cut down to make it skinny--the way she likes ties--and put a vest over it (a vest I bought long ago in the boy's department at Nordstrom's) and some trousers (girl trousers, but still) and was off to my cafe writing appointment when Nat spied me and said, "Mama Shannon!  What are you wearing?"

So I turned it back on her and asked, "what am I wearing, Nat?" to which Nat responded promptly, "You're wearing Cole-Mom!  That's silly, Mama Shannon!  You can't wear Cole-Mom!"

Now, what to make of this?  Nat gets the gender in our household and feels its rules must be followed as much as any kid of hetero-parents might?  I want to crawl into her tiny little genius brain and figure out what she sees when she sees gender.  Does she see more than two genders? She must, because she knows there are boys and there are girls.  There are moms and there are dads.  And she knows she has two moms who are both (loosely) girls.  And yet, she has developed rules for each of those moms that are at least sartorial--though then again, maybe not gender to her mind at all, I suppose.

I'd love to see what she'd say to Cole wearing a dress of mine.  Cole would love to see it too, but not nearly enough to actually put on a dress!

Comments

[Sarah Frantz]

God, aren't kids great? When he was about 18mos, I found Son#1 using anything he could find to wear as jewelry (making bangles and necklaces out of anything), it took me a few days to pull out my costume jewelry to let him play with it. It would have taken me minutes to do that for a girl, but it literally didn't OCCUR to me to do that for my son until days after he'd started the play. Gender is SUCH a funny thing.

[Shannon]

I always thought what she'd learn about gender for us was that a girl can dress like x or y or z, but instead it seems that she is learning that different kinds of girls dress in different ways.

[Shanna]

I wonder how much of it is gendered (men/boys often wear ties, and Cole Mom wears similar ties, but Mama Shannon does not, so Cole Mom must be dressing in some "boyish" way that Mama Shannon doesn't) vs. just Cole Mom Style and Mama Shannon Style. I wonder whether my kids would have the same reaction if I put on a button-down dress shirt (tailored for women, b/c this chest is not fitting into a man's shirt) and one of my suits - nothing particularly masculine, but it's a style of dress they (probably) have never seen on me - yet they see Julian in suit + shirt all the time.

Ah! I just thought of something similar - they have a friend about their age they used to hang out with every day - her mom and I both cover our hair for religious reasons, but I usually wear a hat with some hair sticking out, while she either tucks all her hair into a hat or wears a headscarf. I think it was one day last spring when I put on a big headscarf and one of my kids (wish I could remember who!) said "Why you wear that like [X]'s mommy?"

I think it is/would be awesome if Nat is picking up on the gender spectrum (is it even a spectrum? that implies two opposed extremes!) rather than just a boy/girl dichotomy. But I'm not sure that's really what this indicates - she may just be noticing that her moms have certain identifiable traits!

[LilySea]

yeah, Im not sure either, Shanna. Thats why Id like to crawl into her brain. But whatever it is its pretty rigid to her mind. She really would have stopped me leaving the house if she could have. She was that appalled. Or amused. or something. Anyway, it was all wrong to her mind.

[Shanna]

I am absolutely cackling at the image of a Nat bouncer at the door!

[Jody]

Nat could have a fine future as a junior high vice principal. She'd have dress-code enforcement down cold. :-)