[NYT] "I just wanted to check," the teacher said. "Your child wants to be called a boy, right? Or is she a boy that wants to be called a girl? Which is it again?"I cocked my head. I am used to correcting strangers, who mistake my 7-year-old daughter for a boy 100 percent of the time.
In fact, I love correcting them, making them reconsider their perceptions of what a girl looks like. But my daughter had been attending the after-school program where this woman taught for six months.
"She’s a girl," I said. The woman looked unconvinced. "Really. She’s a girl, and you can refer to her as a girl."
Later, when I relayed this conversation to my daughter, she said, "More girls should look like this so it’s more popular so grown-ups won’t be so confused."
My daughter wears track pants and T-shirts. She has shaggy short hair (the look she requested from the hairdresser was "Luke Skywalker in Episode IV"). Most, but not all, of her friends are boys. She is sporty and strong, incredibly sweet, and a girl.
And yet she is asked by the pediatrician, by her teachers, by people who have known her for many years, if she feels like, or wants to be called, or wants to be, a boy.
In many ways, this is wonderful: It shows a much-needed sensitivity to gender nonconformity and transgender issues. It is considerate of adults to ask her -- in the beginning.