When a person becomes a parent (or we learn that an acquaintance is a parent), one of the very first questions we typically ask is whether the child is a girl or a boy.  In fact, when we become parents, we are accustomed to spreading “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” to announce the birth.  The “boy or girl?” query is so commonplace that most of us give little to no thought to the question or the answer.  Nevertheless, this nonchalant, reflexive kind of chitchat begs so many more questions and feels particularly irrelevant if you are the parent of a transgender child (or are a transgender individual).

Why do people want to know the child’s gender?  Does the answer really tell them anything factual about the child?  Or does this FAQ simply allow for assumptions to be made that are based upon stereotypes?  Do we find comfort in identifying the appropriate binary checkbox because we can then simply follow the “boy” instructions or the “girl” instructions and move forward with confidence (as misguided as it may be) about how to socialize and communicate with this other human being?  The truth is that a parent knows the gender assigned to a child at birth based upon genitalia, and this “assigned” gender may not be consistent with the child’s gender identity.

We seem to polarize so much in life, to talk in terms of either/or, and to think of things as mutually exclusive.  But very little exists at each end of the spectrum.  Most of us exist and have experiences that fall somewhere between the extremes, somewhere in the middle of the continuum of life.  Isn’t it about time that we recognize that girls and boys are not opposites, that there is significant overlap of the characteristics possessed by males and females?  Can we stop trying to cram everybody into one of two possible gender checkboxes?  Wouldn’t it be nice if, instead of asking the gender of a child, we asked the parent to tell us about their child’s interests, abilities, and qualities, and then the parent responded without feeling compelled to mention whether the child possesses a vagina or a penis?  I know it’s a leap, but imagine if we were secure enough to get to know others without first encaging them in stereotyped boxes.