And he likes to wear sparkly tutus
A Facebook post by Jen Anderson Shattuck:
My three-and-a-half-year-old son likes to play trucks. He likes to do jigsaw puzzles. He likes to eat plums. And he likes to wear sparkly tutus. If asked, he will say the tutus make him feel beautiful and brave. If asked, he will say there are no rules about what boys can wear or what girls can wear.
My son has worn tutus to church. He has worn tutus to the grocery store. He has worn tutus on the train and in the sandbox. It has been, in our part of the world, a non-issue. We have been asked some well-intentioned questions; we’ve answered them; it has been fine. It WAS fine, until yesterday.
Yesterday, on our walk to the park, my son and I were accosted by someone who demanded to know why my son was wearing a skirt. We didn’t know him, but he appeared to have been watching us for some time.
“I’m just curious,” the man said. “Why do you keep doing this to your son?”
He wasn’t curious. He didn’t want answers. He wanted to make sure we both knew that what my son was doing—what I was ALLOWING him to do—was wrong.
“She shouldn’t keep doing this to you,” he said. He spoke directly to my son. “You’re a boy. She’s a bad mommy. It’s child abuse.”
He took pictures of us, although I asked him not to; he threatened me. “Now everyone will know,” he said. “You’ll see.”
I called the police. They came, they took their report, they complimented the skirt. Still, my son does not feel safe today. He wants to know: “Is the man coming back? The bad man? Is he going to shout more unkind things about my skirt? Is he going to take more pictures?”
I can’t say for sure. But I can say this: I will not be intimidated. I will not be made to feel vulnerable or afraid. I will not let angry strangers tell my son what he can or cannot wear.
The world may not love my son for who he is, but I do. I was put on this earth to make sure he knows it.
I will shout my love from street corners.
I will defend, shouting, his right to walk down the street in peace, wearing whatever items of clothing he wants to wear.
I will show him, in whatever way I can, that I value the person he is, trust in his vision for himself, and support his choices—no matter what anybody else says, no matter who tries to stop him or how often.
Our family has a motto. The motto is this:
We are loving.
We are kind.
We are determined and persistent.
We are beautiful and brave.
We know who we are. Angry strangers will not change who we are. The world will not change who we are—we will change the world.
EDITED TO ADD: This post is public and able to be shared. We are so grateful for your love and support!
As of two hours ago, she said it had been shared more than 30 thousand times.
Editing to add: Actually the number under the post at this moment is 31,839 shares.
Why wouldn’t a little boy want to wear something bright and loud and shiny and ruffly? Oh yeah, because then people will tell him he’s not a boy, he’s (ultimate insult) a girl.
It’s utterly ridiculous. Anyone should be able to wear what they want when they want. Good on that parent and that congregation.
When I started school, girls couldn’t wear pants to school. In Maine. In the winter. Because, well, girls. I rarely wear skirts anymore, because now I get to wear what I want to. And so should this little boy.
Who made the law about boys clothes and girls clothes, anyway? Clothes evolve. People change. We should be able to wear what feels right for us. Mark Twain got a lot of guff for wearing white in the winter, but he felt better wearing his white suit; it felt more comfortable to him. If he’d wanted to wear a tutu, that should have been OK, too.
Is the idea that this kid must not actually be a boy because he likes tutus? Is wearing a tutu really about this kid’s “vision for himself”?
I think the appropriate response in such cases is to whip out your sillyfone and start filming the perpetrator. Document the harassment, for later use by law enforcement and/or social media — the latter especially if he is dumm enuf to expose himself trying to expose you.
Someone I know works at a kindergarten, and a colleague had to intervene when someone was taking photos of the kids from the street. He evaporated when threatened with police, but before that he had tried to bully the staff by claiming to be with the press (although a paper no longer in high esteem). Pity she didn’t take any pictures, said the police when she did call.
That’s the picture I was hoping to see here; don’t do Facepalm myself.
And this kid obviously likes purple plums. :-) Good for you! Likes to see a lake too, or is that sea? ;-)
“Is the idea that this kid must not actually be a boy because he likes tutus? ”
Who said that? The mother didn’t say that.
“Is wearing a tutu really about this kid’s “vision for himself”?”
That’s an odd way to put it, I agree, but if it’s what the kid wants to wear, why not?
“It’s utterly ridiculous. Anyone should be able to wear what they want when they want. Good on that parent and that congregation.”
Amen. And be called [boy/girl] what they want to be called?
#MasculinitySoFragile it feels threatened by the sight of a little boy in a tutu.
Kevin Kirkpatrick @ 6 –
Being called X is not the same category of thing as being able to wear whatever one wants. The latter requires nothing of other people, the former requires other people to obey requests or demands.
And it’s a silly question. It’s laughably easy to think of examples that would require the answer to that question to be No. No, people don’t get to be called what they want to be called no matter what. Being called something is social, so it can’t be 100% individualistic, can it.
Dan @5:
Well, it wasn’t said explicitly, no, but in the other post on the topic, the person is quoted as saying, “I am proud to serve as a Director of Religious Education in a Unitarian Universalist faith community that joins me in honoring the idea that gender is a spectrum, not a binary, and that we need to support how our kids are expressing themselves.”
This made me think the preference for wearing tutus was being interpreted as an expression of “gender identity” and not merely… a preference for wearing tutus. As though this boy’s preference for tutus was in and of itself evidence of the idea that “gender is a spectrum.”
But if not conforming exactly to societal gender expectations means gender is a spectrum… then I guess I don’t understand the “spectrum” idea. I am a man who doesn’t wear tutus or dresses, but who also doesn’t care about cars or football, and who is vegan. So I’m, what, only 63% man? Or I’m somehow or other between the two poles of Man and Woman? (If I had a beard, would I inch a bit closer to Man? But then if I preferred cats to dogs, I’d slide back?)
Of course I believe this kid (and any kid or adult) should be free to dress, behave, and live as he sees fit.
Yeah I actually don’t like what the UU guy said about that part, but I like what he did and the picture he shared, so I went with it anyway. But yes I WISH to hell we could just drop the whole tutu=girl thing rather than saying it’s cool if the kid is a little bit girl and blathering about gender-as-a-spectrum.
He’s a boy who likes wearing a tutu, Kevin. There’s nothing in that article about the child’s thoughts about gender, just that he enjoys wearing an article of clothing arbitrarily associated with girls. Why bring up gender identity in a thread about the right to wear what one likes without social stigma?
Well, I suppose it’s okay as long as he doesn’t go to Butchart Gardens. That might distract from the flowers.
Oh, zing, Silentbob, you really got me there! Is my face red! I’m so embarrassed to be caught out in my hypocrisy and confusion and postmodernist anything goesism. Thank fuck I have you around to drop these little zingers whenever you spot me being stupid and dishonest and wrong.
Except no you didn’t. The two aren’t the same thing. A dress code for a particular public place is not at all similar to a bully in a public park telling a little boy he can’t wear a tutu.
And the reality is that I’m getting increasingly fed up with your drive-by zingers.