As is customary, I browsed the tabloid type magazines that border the check out lines at the grocery store when my eye landed on a Life and Style cover that read "Why is Angelina Turning Shiloh into a Boy?" Interesting article, at least what I read from the website...no I didn't buy a copy of the magazine. So, many are worried that Angelina and Brad are giving too much freedom to Shiloh...calling her "John", cutting her hair short, and letting her wear boy clothes. "Shiloh is pushing the boundaries of a tomboy look and crossing over to cross-dresser territory," is what fashion expert from Vh1, Alana Kelen said about it. But what does a fashion expert really need to say...is gender identity a mere fashion statement? Should style and fashion magazine look towards fashion experts for valid information on gender? Another stylist said "Hopefully we won't be seeing Maddox in one of Shiloh's dresses any time soon." WHAT?! There is not enough information in our culture that defines cross dressing, transexual, sexuality and gender identity. I'm proud of Angelina and Brad for letting their child experience gender as a fluid movement especially when the world is documenting every second of this experience.
Here's what ticked me off completely from the article:
"Little girls have never been women before," Glenn Stanton, director of Family Formation Studies at the conservative organization Focus on the Family, tells Life & Style. "They need help, they need guidance of what that looks like. It's important to teach our children that gender distinction is very healthy."
Okay yes, good job on understanding that gender is a social formation, not biological. We are taught to be boys and we are taught to be girls. Meaning this is all just a charade and none of it really matters...at all. We think that if we take this biological determinism, and just throw it off a steep jagged cliff, then males won't know how to reproduce, and will start trying to pollinate trees, and women will start opening their legs to the moon unable because they have lost their femininity. Does being feminine make women more fertile? Does showing traits of aggressiveness increase sperm count? Talk of gender identity and debates on procreation are two separate discussions. Sexuality...now we can talk procreation. Sexuality and gender identity can be related but are different. What does "turning into a boy" really mean? What are the negative connotations this article portrays? That it is possible to turn into a boy? If it is possible does it mean that it is wrong or right? That Shiloh will no longer be a girl? And what does that mean...that Shiloh will loose her vagina? (Social/Biological dichotomy...we'll get it one day) Are they saying that tomboys are reduced to horrible confusing lives riddled with mental illness and unemployment? Really Shiloh will be just fine even if she is "turning into a boy". As long as she has a family that supports her and loves her regardless, sadly, unlike the majority of our society.
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