我们称那些跨越性别界限的年轻人为“勇敢的人”。但如果成年人真的想支持他们，我们需要表现出一些勇气，接受一些不安，米歇尔•尤罗(Michele Yulo)和奥黛丽•梅森-海德(Audrey Mason-Hyde)说。
“当我们发现有人要生孩子时，我们问的第一个问题是什么?”“男孩还是女孩?’”米歇尔·尤罗在TEDxUtica的一次演讲中说道。从蓝色或粉色的墙纸开始，一直到卡车或洋娃娃，这种区分让孩子们走上了不同的性别道路，而这可能会影响他们的生活。但有必要吗?或者，我们有没有办法让孩子们更自由地发现自己是谁?下面，Yulo和青少年Audrey Mason-Hyde给出了他们的建议。
米歇尔·尤罗(Michele Yulo)的女儿加贝(Gabby)刚开始学走路和说话时，她对所谓的“娘娘腔”没有表现出任何兴趣。“事实上，”亚特兰大儿童服装品牌公主自由区(Princess Free Zone)的创始人遇洛(Yulo)说，“她根本不想成为我这样的人;她想要更像我的丈夫。”
Yulo做了一个有意识的决定来支持Gabby的喜好，并且，如果可能的话，不限制她做她想做的，穿她想穿的。对于洛来说，加贝七岁的时候是一个转折点。
她已经留了短发。有一天她对我说:“妈妈，如果男孩可以剪寸头，为什么女孩不能?”“Yulo回忆说。对此我无话可说。她说得完全正确;是她的头发，是她的选择。我确实对她说过，‘加贝，如果你给你的头发弄乱，我只是想让你知道人们可能会觉得你很滑稽。’”但是加贝告诉她妈妈她可以接受，所以他们去给她剪了个寸头。
结果是值得的，Yulo说。“加贝非常开心，那一刻我就知道，让她以自己想要的方式走进这个世界才是最重要的。”
我们该如何把这句话传达给我们生活中的孩子们呢?据Yulo说，成年人需要学会接受他们和他们的选择。“有时候，那些跨越性别界限的孩子被认为是勇敢的，但我不认为孩子们应该勇敢地做自己。作为父母，我们必须这样。”
这意味着，当他们违反刻板印象时，要在公共场合为他们挺身而出。例如，当Yulo和她的家人去迪斯尼世界的时候，一个酒店员工问Yulo: Gabby是她的小王子吗?
Yulo回答:“不，她也不是公主。”
然而，这并不意味着孩子们不能享受他们天生喜欢的东西。但我们应该考虑何时、何地以及如何引导他们适应这些准则。Yulo回忆说，当她看到父母把女儿从她和加贝浏览的男生服装货架旁推开时，她的心都凉了。
人们很容易会想，“这有什么大不了的?”我们的孩子长大后有足够的时间做出自己的选择。“但童年是我们的许多信念和自我概念形成的时候，当我们的许多信念和自我概念形成时，我们就很难再去改变。”正如Yulo所说，“现实是，这些刻板印象就像第二层皮肤一样附着在孩子身上，并一直伴随着他们长大成人。”
归根结底，这取决于我们对孩子的期望。Yulo问道:“作为父母，我们有能力打开他们的世界，让他们真正拥有无穷无尽的选择机会。这难道不是我们所有人都想为我们的孩子做的吗?”
如果我们真的有兴趣为所有的孩子——不仅仅是我们熟悉的孩子——我们需要看看我们如何处理我们随意的互动。在2017年的TEDxAdelaide演讲中，当时12岁的奥德丽·梅森-海德(Audrey Mason-Hyde)公开谈论陌生人如何在不知不觉中侵犯个人自由。“以我的经验，人们做的第一件事就是假设我是男孩，或者不确定我是女孩还是男孩。”
奥黛丽的独特风格包括西装、领结和火烈鸟袜。通过时尚和服装探索世界是奥黛丽与性别关系的关键。奥黛丽说:“直到九岁的时候，如果有人把我错当成男孩，我会很自然地回答说我是女孩。”但最终，它不再感觉对了;事情发生得越多，我反而失去了信心。‘女孩’感觉不对，但‘男孩’也感觉不对。”
现在14岁的Audrey被定义为非二进制，或者简单的Audrey(使用代词they/their/them)。但这在公共空间中带来了一些意想不到的复杂情况。“我记得我上学的第一天，我在女厕所里，两个我认识的女孩走过来对我说，‘看，这里有个男孩，’”奥黛丽回忆道。我扭头一看，却一个人也没有。于是我问他们:‘在哪里?我意识到他们指的是我。我真的很震惊，因为我身边只有认识和理解我的人。我感到不安和疏离。”
类似的事件发生在校外的洗手间。奥黛丽说:“我经常听到这样的话，‘你为什么在这里?或“卫生间不对”。’这最终导致我在公共场合上甚至都有些犹豫和不自信。”
这些经历让奥黛丽更坚定了做自己的决心。奥黛丽说:“我意识到，对我来说，性别是一个范围。我的性别表达和身份完全是关于我自己的，而不是其他人如何看待我。”
对奥黛丽来说，必须努力思考该使用哪个厕所，人们可能会如何反应，这是一种压力，有点不人道。奥黛丽说:“使用女厕所，我从来没有感觉很好，我仍然有和别人一起去的倾向。虽然我不是标记为一个特定的性别当我去残疾人厕所,我不感觉很棒,因为它只是提醒我,对于像我这样不认同性别二元对立的人几乎没有厕所,厕所只是另一种对人分类的方式。”
那么，当我们发现自己和一个不能确定性别身份的人在浴室时，我们该怎么办呢?奥黛丽的建议:接受未知。
奥黛丽说:“不知道别人的性别会伤害到你吗?尽管这会让你觉得很不舒服，但你假设我的性别让我每天都觉得不舒服。我所要求的只是你带着那一点点不舒服坐着，让别人感觉好一点。”
来源：TED
原文：
We call young people who step outside gender lines “brave.” But if adults truly want to support them, we need to be willing to show some courage and embrace some discomfort, say Michele Yulo and Audrey Mason-Hyde.
“When we find out that someone is having a baby, what is the very first question we ask? ‘Boy or girl?’” says Michele Yulo in a talk given at TEDxUtica. Beginning with the blue or pink wallpaper and continuing to trucks or dolls, this distinction sets children on separate gender paths that can shape much of their lives. But does it need to? Or, are there ways in which we can offer kids more freedom to discover who they are? Below, Yulo and teenager Audrey Mason-Hyde offer their suggestions.
When Michele Yulo’s daughter Gabby first learned to walk and talk, she didn’t show any interest in so-called “girly” things. “In fact,” says Yulo, the Atlanta-based founder of kids’ clothing brand Princess Free Zone, “she didn’t want to be anything like me; she wanted to be more like my husband.”
Yulo made a conscious decision to support Gabby’s preferences, and, when possible, not restrict her from doing and wearing what she wanted. For Yulo, a turning point came when Gabby was seven.
“She already had short hair. One day she said to me, ‘Mom, if boys can have a buzz cut, why can’t girls?’” recalls Yulo. “And there was nothing I could say to that. She was absolutely right; it was her hair, it was her choice. I did say to her, ‘Gabby, if you buzz your hair, I just want you to know people might look at you funny.’” But Gabby told her mother she was fine with that, so they went out to get her a buzz cut.
The result was worth it, says Yulo. “Gabby could not have been happier, and I knew right at that moment that allowing her to walk out into the world how she wanted to walk out into the world was what mattered.”
How can we translate this to the kids in our own lives? Adults need to learn to embrace them and their choices, according to Yulo. “Sometimes, kids who step outside gender lines are viewed as courageous, but I don’t believe that kids should have to be brave to be who they are. As parents, we have to be.”
This means standing up for them in public when they go against the stereotypes. For example, when Yulo and her family went to Disney World, a hotel employee asked Yulo: Was Gabby her little prince?
Yulo’s response: “No, and she’s not a princess either.’”
However, this doesn’t mean that children can’t enjoy the things they’re naturally drawn to. But we should think about when, where and how we may be directing them to fit the norms. Yulo recalls feeling her heart sink on seeing parents shoo their girls away from the boys’ clothing aisles where she and Gabby were browsing.
It’s easy to think, “What’s the big deal? Our kids have plenty of time to make their own choices when they’re grownups.” But childhood is when so many of our beliefs and self-conceptions are formed, work that it’s much harder to undo later. As Yulo says, “The reality is that these stereotypes set in and attach themselves like a second skin that will follow a child all the way through adulthood.”
Ultimately, this comes down to the aspirations that we hold for our children. Yulo asks, “We have the capability as parents to open up their worlds so that they truly have endless opportunities from which to choose. Isn’t that what we all want for our kids?”
And if we’re truly interested in expanding the possibilities for all children — not just the ones we know well — we need to look at how we handle our casual interactions. In a 2017 TEDxAdelaide talk, Audrey Mason-Hyde, then 12 years old, speaks openly about how strangers can unwittingly impose on one’s personal freedom. “In my experience, one of the first things people do is assume I’m a boy, or aren’t sure whether I’m a girl or a boy.”
Audrey’s distinctive style includes suits, bow ties, and flamingo socks. Exploring the world through fashion and clothing has been key to Audrey’s relationship with gender. “Until about the age of nine, when someone mistook me for a boy, I would reply comfortably that I’m a girl,” says Audrey. “But eventually, it stopped feeling right; instead of gaining confidence the more it happened, I lost it. ‘Girl’ didn’t feel right, but ‘boy’ didn’t feel correct either.”
Now 14, Audrey identifies as non-binary, or just simply Audrey (and uses the pronouns they/their/them). But this comes with some unexpected complications in public spaces. “I remember one of my first days at school, and I was in the girls’ toilet when two girls I knew came near me and said, ‘Look, there’s a boy in here,’” Audrey recalls. “I looked over my shoulder, but there was no one there. So I asked them, ‘Where?’ I realized they meant me. I was really shocked, as I’d only been around people who knew and understood me. I felt upset and alienated.”
Similar incidents happened in restrooms outside school. Audrey says, “Often, I would get things like ‘Why are you in here?’ or ‘Wrong bathroom.’ This eventually led to me being hesitant and tentative about even going to the bathroom in public.”
These experiences made Audrey only more determined to be themselves. Audrey says, “I’ve realized that, for me, gender is a spectrum. What my gender expression and identity is, is entirely about me and not about how other people perceive me.”
For Audrey, having to think hard about which toilets to use and how people may respond is stressful and a bit dehumanizing. Audrey says, “Using the girls’ toilets, I never feel good, and I still have a tendency to go with someone else. Though I’m not labeled as a particular gender when I go to the disabled toilets, I don’t feel great still, because it just reminds me that there are mostly no toilets for people like me, who don’t identify within the gender binary, and that toilets are just another way we categorize people.”
So, what should we do when find ourselves in a bathroom with someone who has a gender identity that we can’t quite place? Audrey’s advice: Accept not knowing.
Audrey says, “Would it hurt you not to know someone’s gender? Despite how uncomfortable it might make you feel, you assuming my gender makes me feel uncomfortable every day. All I’m asking is for you to just sit with that little bit of uncomfortable to make someone else feel better.”
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