Seeping Toxicity

 Sometimes, I have thoughts that pop into my head that no matter where I look, can't find what brought it on.  My mind then explores it, and tries to take it apart, and I wind up in a weird sort of space where I question a lot of things.

And one night, I was contemplating gender, and what can affect it.  More specifically, our closed ideas of gender roles.  From the moment most people are born, they're told how to look, what to think, what to enjoy and how to behave purely by the genitals they have.  They're put in boxes with labels and requirements that we press on them, creating expectations that may not have anything to do with who a person is, or even healthy behaviors.

It's why we have the insecure concepts of fragile toxic masculinity, like my brother refusing to use a lip balm, even if his lips were bleeding, because it might be mistaken as makeup and feminine.  Which got me thinking, if we weren't forcing thoughts on kids, and these specific ideas of what a gender is, would we have so many people identifying as trans today?

Someone AMAB grows up being told never to cry, not to feel, not to take care of his appearance, and to behave in a cold, aggressive manner.  The child instead grows up taking baths, and wearing colorful clothes.  They like polishing their nails, and spend their birthday money on a rainbow of colors.  They are concerned about their friends, and tries to support them, while backing down to bullies because they don't want to see anyone hurt.  Rather than sports, they like adventuring in the woods behind their house.  By every other male figure in their life, both adults and other kids, they're called a girl as an insult, told that they have feminine and girly behavior, and will need to be more of a man.  The child tries to change and fit the box of expectations everyone places on them, but it feels wrong.  So the child thinks about how often they've been called a girl, and decide they must be one.  They come out as transgender, going about a process to be seen as something society will no longer shun them for, so they can do things that make them happy.

Now, this kid could have been a transgirl all along, as we don't know the thoughts going through their mind.  They also could be non-binary in some form, for the same reasons.  They could however, be entirely cis-gender, and just not fit the mold society tried to jam them into.  Had they been been encouraged to do things they enjoyed, without any sort of gendered labels onto their preferences and behaviors, would they have seen their gender differently?

I think this is why we have no idea on the actual number of transgender people.  Before we can figure out any sort of answer, we need to destroy the horribly toxic and narrow minded concepts of gender we have right now.