Chatting with my dear friend Casey (F, NY), we were discussing gender issues, and I’d suggested to her – in what I hope was a not-at-all-weird way – that I wished she had been my mother (no, seriously, in context it wasn’t weird, and I’m not really at liberty to explain the context). And Casey asked: “Serious question, if you were my little boy(?) what would you have liked to hear growing up?”
I replied
“That’s a good question.
I’ll try to answer it, but not here.
There’s a ton of pain [to] get through to answer that.”
So I’m going to answer it here, with my SG family. I did the pain bit. So now the actual answer.
Firstly, let me state that this hypothetical situation must exist out of our timeline. It can’t be set now, as the question as posed (in reference to gender) might not be relevant in the near future. I hope so. It can’t be set in my childhood time, as there could not have been any concept of the issues then. So it’s set in a hypothetical parallel 1960s.
What would I have liked to hear growing up? I think the most important thing would be what I didn’t hear. “You’re a boy, these are girls”. But as that’s not possible, I’d like to have heard that whether I’m a boy or a girl depends only on whether I feel like a boy or a girl. Or neither, something else. It’s all fine. “How do you feel Nicholas?” “I don’t know.” “That’s fine. “But I don’t like playing with boys.” “Then you can play only with girls. That’s fine, too.”
“How do you feel now?” “I don’t know.” “Do you feel like a boy?” “No.” “Do you feel like a girl?” “I don’t know.” “That’s fine.”
That would have been good. Who knows what I’d have become, but I’d have been me¹. I would have been happy. That would be nice.
¹One thing for sure, I’d have liked girls, and not boys. That I can be certain of. And I wouldn’t have been a boy. Also certain.