By conservative standards I think I may have just last weekend bore witness to one of the most distgusting displays of public transvestism and blatant godless homosexualty. Our local High school every year has a fundraiser called a “powder puff football game” where the cheerleaders dress up in uniforms and play football, and the football players dress as cheerleaders! Christ in a sidecar! No wonder the repugs won on tuesday

Is the problem with the mother or with the people who criticize her?

I, too, am uncomfortable with sending a boy to school dressed as a girl, even if only for Halloween.  I can try to justify it by saying society will reject and torment this boy.

But isn’t that same argument made against interracial marriages: “Think of your children”.  Perhaps a viewing of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” is order.

And yet, if a little girl wanted to come to school dressed as Peter Pan or Zorro, we’d find it cute. Thus it is our conditioning that creates the negative emotional response. I have it.  Rico has it. Queenie has it.

But rather than justifying our emotional reaction, it is wiser to make our emotions slaves to our intellect, logic and reason, not the other way around.  And when we can’t, we need to ensure that the intellect rules.

Yet, in Britain, no comedy team can exist without a drag act:  Think of Monty Python or Benny Hill.  Even in the USA both Dustin Hoffman and Robin Williams had great success doing it in Tootsie and Mrs. Doubtfire.

Food for thought as against raw meat.

It’s like this: gender is a system of oppression, like race.  Now, theoretically, you could have ‘races’ without oppression, and you could have genders without oppression, but that’s not the way it works.  If, at some point, you decide to live in truth and reason instead of succumb to the malign fables most people believe in, sooner or later you’re going to find yourself on the front lines facing the Beast.  But, worse, if you have children and they take on the burden of your enlightenment, then they, too, will have to face the Beast.  And so, fifty years ago, some little Black children had to be chosen, had to choose, to walk to school through the howling of racist mobs.  Today, it’s the homophobic mob.

It’s hard to know what to do.  You have to pick your battles carefully because the Beast is very evil and very powerful, although fortunately also pretty stupid.  But sometimes you just have to fight, or your children do; you can’t run away any more.

kerryrose: Actually she did more than support his decision. I read the whole blog post. When the boy got to the school, he didn’t want to go in. He had second thoughts. She actually coerced him against his will.

It’s women like this mother that give liberals a bad rap, and justifiably so.

And, yes, I am intolerant of child abuse in any form.

rico

Admit it.  You were once a progressive, grew middle aged and conservative, but nostaligia for the idealistic days bring you to TD.

Deep down, you are waiting for someone to convince you back to idealism.

Queenie

Your self righeousness in deciding what a mother’s ‘protection’ of children consists of smacks of intolerance.  She supported his decision.  She did not make the decision for him.

Teaching children from the get-go to conform to society has made such timid soldiers of us all.  He will grow to be a strong and independent boy with this remarkably brave mother’s support.

reynolds:

I’m sorry. Did I attack you somehow?

No, I don’t attack opinion, I attack sloppy reasoning and hyperbolic pronunciamentoes. And, with this exception, I try to ignore people with nothing meaningful to say.

Queenie:

Great post.

What’s a mom to do. If she doesn’t protect her child like a mama grizzly, then she’s criticized for allowing her boy to be attacked, and if she does, it’s called exploiting her child. She did not ‘encourage’ the boy to dress up as a girl - few straight kids could be so encouraged. Identity is set at an early age - like at birth - that would include homosexuality. Good for her. (Mama and/or son)

sicko rave; truthdig has but one page. you ought to
know, it’s your address. you wouldn’t exist without
it, if one exists in the form of an electronic
onanism. the alleged princeton graduate who can’t
reconcile number and tense. yeah, right.
you don’t so much express an opinion as attack
anyone who does, like a yapping, harrying, goddamn
spaniel; like a frustrated, impotent fool.
puerile nonsense, a nine-to-nine ad hominem
harangue, that’s all you have. that’s all you are.
and poof, like that, you’re gone.

A mother’s job is to protect their offspring, not throw them to the lions. She needs her head examined.
Sorry, TD. Nerdy Apple Bottom is using her son to challenge homophobia. That in itself may be a worthy goal, but one does not use their children as bait. Brave little Daphne may love his Mommy now but he may not feel the same after a few thrashings from schoolyard bullies.
And, yes, I would like to know what her husband thinks.

THIS makes the front page of truthdig??? Oh, the horror.

I can’t wait for the breathless coverage from TD about the mom who has to endure “funny looks” and “snide remarks” when she sends her kids to school for the “Winter Festival” play dressed as the Three Wise Men.

I suspect gender identity is formed in the first 5 years of life through imitation and encouragement of parents or other role models. I may be wrong. Maybe a fellow commenter with a Psych degree could correct me or help me understand it.

Aren’t children essentially ingenuous and mostly asexual at this age? A 5-year-old doesn’t know the brutal schoolyard environment they’ll soon face, but their parents do. Is his mother really doing him a favor here? His picture will be everywhere now, and in the age of Facebook and Google, he will not be able to escape it. An adult will see the harmlessness and innocence of the costume, but kids and teenagers are not so mature.

Years of psychic torture at the hands of schoolyard bullies could harm and confuse him when he searches for his identity six or seven years from now. What does the boy’s father think about it?

Hopefully the boy will be able to brush off any criticism and come off stronger for it. I still feel his mother could have been a bit wiser.