Gender in Our World Today
The podcast I chose for this paper is How to Be a Girl, a podcast created by Marlo Mack, a mother of a transgender girl. I also use the Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies textbook created by Anne Braithwaite and Catherine M. Orr. How to Be a Girl is a mother and daughters inspiring story going through the process and transition of being/having a transgender girl. The four episodes I chose told background history of her daughter coming out, how her mother felt about it, and how life had changed since. It also talks about her daughter’s school experience during her early childhood and how assumption filled parents can be. From the Everyday Women’s and Genders Studies textbook, I have chosen to shed light on the terms Normative Assumptions, Stereotypes, and transgender Identity. Gender in our world today has a bad stigma around it due to stereotypes, assumptions, and people not accepting identities, especially transgender ones.
Gender is particularly hard to talk about in our world today due to the absurd assumptions people withhold today. “Universalizing the history and experience of a particular group- and therefore making the histories and experiences of everyone else all but invisible- produces what we call normative assumptions (Braithwaite & Orr pg. 19).” In our society today, everyone assumes that all transgender people are the same and look the same. Some assumptions our world has today include things like: all transgender people feel trapped in the wrong body, all transgender people want to legally change their gender, and all transgender people want to change their bodies/sex with surgery. Our world today universalizes and generalizes every transgender persons story, which isn’t the case. Every person has their own story, their own look, their own feelings, and their own identity. While these may be true to some people in the transgender community, it is not true for everyone.
In the podcast, the mother reversed the assumptions that are pushed onto transgender people and put them on her friends who have cis-gendered children. “So, did he tell you he was a boy? Did he tell me he was a boy?! He did not tell me he was a boy, no (How to Be a Girl, Episode 3, Minute 1)” This quote relates to normative assumptions because Marlo Mack takes the assumptions she is asked about her transgender child and asks her friends the same questions to her friends with cis-gendered children just to show them there’s no difference. No matter if the child is transgender or cis-gender those types of questions with assumptions rooted into them are uncomfortable for any person being asked them about their child. You can tell by the friends reaction that she thinks Marlo assuming her child might be a different gender is ridiculous and clearly makes her uncomfortable. But, it is just as ridiculous and uncomfortable when Marlo gets asked the same question.
In the podcast, assumptions are brought into their real life when parents in their old preschool didn’t really like the fact that they were left in the dark about her daughters’ transgender identity. “When they found out one of the girls at school has a penis, they kind of freaked out. They said they had a right to know (How to Be a Girl, Episode 3, Minute 3).” At her school parents just assumed they had the right to know about her daughter’s transgender identity. But, I guarantee they didn’t go around demanding parents of cis-gender children to let them know their children were cis-gendered. This just shows that as soon as the word “transgender” is said, our world today thinks they have the right to know everything about that person’s identity. Which isn’t okay, transgender people should have just a much privacy as cis-gender people do.
In our world today, there an abundance of stereotypes around the transgender community. “Transgender is much a more complicated notion that just cross dressing, changing sex, or playing with cultural stereotypes (Braithwaite & Orr pg. 57).” In our society today many people think have negative stereotypes around the transgender community. They say things like “oh they’re just crossdresser”, “they’re just drag queens”, “it’s just a phase” and so many other disrespectful and false stereotypes. These stereotypes are the reason the transgender community constantly feels attacked and feels they never can truly embrace themselves. These stereotypes are due to lack of knowledge, if people in our world were willing to be educated on the transgender community, a lot of stereotypes would be erased.
In the podcast, Marlo talks about how she spent a year trying to convince her daughter she wasn’t transgender. “And that I spent a year trying to convince her that she was probably just a boy who liked girl stuff (How to Be a Girl, Episode 2, Second 48).” The stereotypes her daughter as being a tomboy, and brining the stereotype that a lot of parents that get involved with the LGBTQ+ community say “it’s just a phase”. Having spent a year telling her daughter these stereotypes, her daughter probably felt very misheard, discouraged, and uncomfortable. Stereotypes are thrown around so much in our world today that people don’t realize how they emotionally can hurt and damage the person they are being aimed at.
In the podcast, a real-world example is when Marlo talks about how her family placed stereotypes on her daughter when she told them that she was transgender. “Even though everything my child lived was completely girlie, my family and friends would watch my child play and remark on how energetic he was, how strong, confident, and active like a boy they’d say (How to Be a Girl, Episode 4, Minute 1).” These stereotypes can make not only Marlo but her daughter feel like her identity is invalid and incorrect because she “acts like a boy.” Stereotypes like this are the reason the transgender community is often times not displayed and embraced everywhere like it should be. It puts transgender people in a corner and makes them feel unwelcomed, misplaced, and wrong in our world.
Lastly, in our world today identity is a very tough subject, especially for the transgender community. “Transgender shakes up and subverts the “” usual”” culturally acceptable versions of sex and gender, male and female, femininity and masculinity, normativity and derivation, and so on (Braithwaite & Orr pg. 57).” In our society today often, times people like to push aside transgender identity saying it’s not real. For example, President Trump wanting to change all the gender options back to just male and female. This leaves a whole community of people in the dark. It is very hard for transgender people to truly be themselves due to this horrible backlash from our world today. Identity is something that is meant to be embraced and expressed, not hidden and pushed away.
In the podcast, a main example to the term transgender identity is when Marlo’s daughter tells her she is a girl, not a boy. “My child told me that he was actually a girl, not a boy (How to Be a Girl, Episode 1, Minute 1).” Marlo’s daughter realized she wanted to be a girl at a very young age, and from then on lived her life being the girl she knew she was meant to be. In our society today, being anything other than cis-gender is seen as so negative and “unique” that its truly amazing that she is so bashful and excited about her identity. That is something that unfortunately due to the negative notion our society gives off, not a lot of transgender people are able to do, embrace their identity.
A real-world example from the podcast is when her daughter explains why her transgender identity happened. “He told me something had gone wrong in my tummy that made him come out as a boy instead of a girl (How to Be a Girl, Episode 1, Minute 1).” Her daughter has always known her true identity all along, she claims it was something with her mother that made it go wrong, not her. If her mom’s tummy wouldn’t have messed up, she would have been the correct gender at birth. It’s really beautiful to see throughout this podcast series how much Marlo’s daughter embraces herself. Of course, she had backlash from a multitude of people. But, that didn’t stop her from showing her true beautiful identity.
In conclusion, the How to Be A girl podcast and Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies textbook both bring great examples and arguments involving gender. In the podcast, Marlo Mack and her daughter show how stereotypes and assumptions affect transgender people today, as well as beautifully embrace identity. The text book gives various definitions and examples to help us understand what the terms mean for gender in a whole. Gender today is a very sensitive topic due to unfair assumptions, heinous stereotypes, and ignorant people not accepting the identities that exist our world today like transgender. The ideas mentioned in this paper are super important because every day in our world people feel excluded and misplaced because society is harsh and ignorant towards them. I chose to write about this podcast because I personally feel like I am not very educated when it comes to the transgender community. I support it one hundred percent but, I just wasn’t as educated as I should have been. This podcast taught me so much and really opened my eyes into the transgender community. Ultimately, this matters to me because I wanted to be more educated on the matter and I want to shed light on a very special and important community.