Trans-positivity is going a liiiiiittle too far...

Trust me, I am all for freedom to do whatever the hell you want with your body, and if you feel like you don't belong under the identity of a male or a female or whatever else, I don't give a single flying fedora. People are people and that's okay. Gender roles suck. It's true.

But don't push this shit on babies please.

Before y'all get up-in-arms about that statement, please let me explain.

I seriously despise when people label things unnecessarily as "boy" things and "girl" things. Pink is not a "girl" color. Neither is purple. In fact, for a very long time pink was the "boy" color, until Hitler, as big on color-coding as he was, decided to label all the gays pink, and then pink was feminine. So yeah, it's Hitler's idea that pink is a feminine color. Superheroes are for girls just as much as they are for boys, and Barbie dolls and princesses are for girls as much as they are for boys. I highly encourage this ideology. I think it's great. Raising your child not to conform to gender stereotypes is a fantastic thing.

However, I think the line between gender and biological sex is getting skewed.

Because I saw this:

And I thought...

Yes. Yes there is reason to do that.

Because it would be really freaking confusing growing up and figuring out the changes that are happening to your body when your parent(s) won't tell you which side of it all you should pay attention to. It's really confusing when you have to choose between the ladies room and the boys room when you don't have a basic concept of which one you are.

I mean think about your identity. My name is Kayleigh, I am 17 years old, and I am a girl. There's honestly a reason why the initialism A/S/L is so popular. Age? 17. Sex? Female. Location? United States. Basic shit.

Basic biology says vagina = female, penis = male. If a child decides when they grow up that they're not comfortable with the label that they have been given as such, they should absolutely have the right to change it. But babies are babies. Chill out.

Also, as a parent, what the hell are you even supposed to do without the gendered pronouns? Refer to your child as "they" or "them"? I personally tend to refer to small children as "it" because to me they're just really expensive, impressionable potatoes with arms and the ability to make noise and drip hazardous fluids onto everything they touch, but I mean come on. "Is it a boy or a girl?" "Actually it's neither, I'm letting it decide for itself, check your privilege." That's just ridiculous to me. Give your child both "boy" and "girl" toys and clothes and such in order for them to decide which one they prefer, but at the same time, teach your baby girl how to pee and wipe differently from boys because girls specifically have to wipe when they pee and boys don't so that's kinda important for a girl to know growing up. Also periods. And attraction. Without knowing your sex, you don't know what box to check when you go to the doctor. This is why gender dysphoria and depression are so rampant. There's a happy medium somewhere in between hating your child for not conforming to gender stereotypes and hating your child for conforming to gender stereotypes. Y'all gotta loosen up a bit. That's all I'm saying.

As kind of an epilogue, I would like to say that I might have contracted salmonella from my chickens and so this probably doesn't make sense but I got frustrated and that is what this is for; posts that are too long for Facebook/Twitter but are too personal for Tumblr.

It Really Does Get Better

I just read Leelah Alcorn's suicide note (Page 1, Page 2) and I have some things to say as kind of a response.

I know I'm only 17 years old and I don't have enough life experience to advise anyone on how to live (or end, for that matter) their life. But I do have clinical depression and anxiety, and there was a time when I was absolutely convinced that it would never get better. I couldn't see myself in ten years. Hell, I couldn't even see myself in five years. It seemed like too long before things were supposed to go my way. It didn't help that whenever I expressed any excitement about the future and about being an adult that everybody said, "it's not all it's cracked up to be" and "things are going to be a lot harder" and "enjoy your youth while you can because this is the best time of your life". The scary part to me was the fact that I felt awful and self-conscious 24 hours a day every day every week every month every year, and if that was going to be the best time of my life, I didn't want to see what it looked like when it got worse.

I never seriously considered or attempted suicide, though, because I had friends and family who loved me, and since I've been on the other side of a loved one dying, I didn't want to do that to anyone else. I often thought, they're only going to realize how important I was to them when I'm gone, but I knew somewhere in my heart that that wasn't true, and I knew my dad loved me. I had to stay for him to keep him sane and to be the good child to maybe convince him that he wasn't a bad father (which he wasn't, to be clear).

In the present day, I'm really glad I did find the strength to keep living, even though I now realize that I was doing it to make other people happy rather than myself, because I've had enough time to think logically about how life can happen.

The average person lives about 80-90 years, right? As a teenager, you have lived less than 20% of the life you could potentially have. Now think about the reasons why you're so unhappy you want to end your life. Is it because you don't feel like anyone cares about you? Is it because of familial abuse? Is it because of a mental illness? Is it because you're not accepted by your community for being who you are? Well, mental illnesses can't be cured, but they can be treated, and if you learn to live alongside it rather than to let it take control of you, you can realize that your disorder can only take control if you let it. Your family probably does love you and care about you, whether or not they show it in a conventional or appropriate way. As for the aspects of community and abuse, those are only your surroundings, and those can change. Surrounding yourself with people who make you happy can do so much for your self-esteem, and so can cutting off the people who make you miserable.

My point is, everything can get better with time. I am a firm believer in Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. I truly and strongly believe that everything looks better to you when you see the good side. Even if you have to "lie" to yourself to try and convince yourself that your bad day or your bad situation or your bad life can get better. It just takes time. I know it's hard to see that because nobody can actually see the future. The reason why is there is a huge tree of choices that you can make, and you can make them to better yourself or as a detriment to yourself. You have a choice though. You always have a choice in every situation. If you're in a place or around people who make you feel bad about yourself, you can leave them. You can drop them and leave them behind you so that you can focus more of your energy on finding what and/or who makes you happy.

Take off all your clothes and look at yourself in the mirror. Identify the things you hate about your physical appearance, and then question the importance of those things. Learn to say "I don't care". Every human is different, and more likely than not, you're completely normal being different. Embrace the things that make you happy whether or not they're embarrassing. It took me a long time to accept the fact that I like a lot more music than just alternative rock and 80s music. It didn't make me cool, it made me sad. Sad isn't cool, no matter how much you think it is. It's okay to sing along with Britney Spears or Beyonce or Meghan Trainor when you hear them on the radio or at a party. Do whatever makes you happy, and the people who like the same things you do and who can identify with you on a personal level will come to you eventually, but it just takes time.

Thus I will leave you with the words of August Wilson:

Confront the dark parts of yourself,

and work to banish them

with your illumination and forgiveness.

Your willingness to wrestle with your demons

will cause your angels to sing.