agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Care and Feeding,

Is my sister trying to mess with me through my daughter’s birthday gift? My sister, “Ashley,” and I have never been close. Growing up, our parents always pitted us against each other because (so they have claimed) they thought this dynamic of competition would help us become successful. It did not work, and our relationship has always been strained. The last straw was when my father left more money to me than to Ashley in his will. This seemed to really bother her, and we haven’t talked much since he passed.

Last weekend, my daughter—who is trans—turned 7. My sister knows that “Isabella” is a trans girl, but for her birthday she sent a plush dinosaur. It seems to me that giving Isabella a birthday gift that isn’t girly was a passive-aggressive way of getting at me. So I asked Ashley about it. She claimed that she doesn’t see dinosaurs as particularly gendered and that she herself (supposedly) liked dinosaurs as a child. I don’t buy it. Dinosaurs are known to be a boyish interest. (For what it’s worth, Isabella seemed happy enough about the gift and thanked Ashley over the phone. But I can’t tell if she was just being polite to her aunt.) Am I overthinking this, or am I right to be suspicious?

—Dino Dig

Dear Dino,

Let me get this straight. You are a sufficiently forward-thinking person to fully support your trans child’s identity (yay for you!) but also so backwards-thinking that you have the genuinely wacky idea that dinosaurs are for boys? I will confess that it’s hard to concentrate on the meat of your question (Does my sister hate me? Is she expressing this hate by meanness toward my child?) when my brain is spinning ceaselessly around the central mystery of your letter.

But I’ll try. I don’t know if your sister hates you, though your father leaving the two of you unequal amounts of money was a seriously cruel parting gesture—unless there are extenuating circumstances you haven’t mentioned here, like Ashley is well off financially and you are desperately strapped. If addressing your years-long conflict/competition with your sister was really important to you, and your financial situations are comparable, you would have taken matters into your own hands and made the bequest equitable after the fact, so that your parents’ misguided, mean, bizarre child-rearing tactic didn’t end up getting the last word. So I would say that the troubles between you two can’t be laid entirely at Ashley’s feet. As to whether her (possible?) antipathy toward you found its expression in the gift of a stuffed dino—which is in no way I can imagine, no matter how I much I stretch my imagination, a toy that only a boy could love—the only possible answer is what on god’s green earth are you talking about?

—Michelle

https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/10/kids-skip-college-parenting-advice-care-feeding.html

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I suppose it *is* possible that LW's sister did choose to send what she considers a "boy" gift to a child she secretly still thinks of as a boy.

However, if she did that it's more likely due to misguided and transphobic "good intentions" than as a desire to piss of LW.

At any rate, if Isabella is happy with the gift then there's no use worrying about it. If Ashley really is a transphobe she can't hide it very well for very long.

What.

Dinosaurs are for EVERYONE!

Also, the traditional gift for the child of one's despised sibling is a musical instrument.

this! (on both accounts)

dinos are awesome, and anyone (of any age or gender identity) who doesn't think so is just plain rong. maybe Ashley should have gifted Isabella with a drum set. that'd be fun for the entire family! *g*

As a paleontology-obsessed cis woman/former girl-child — DINOS ARE FOR EVERYONE!!

(I understand wanting to be very careful about your trans kids’ feelings and making sure other adults respect and support them, but the LW is looking for offense here, absent other evidence.)

This is Bitch Eating Crackers Syndrome.

You all have me nodding enthusiastically. *chef's kiss*

Yep!

I feel like LW should be told how many female palaeontologists there are

and also how many cis girls love dinosaurs

and also how often cis girls get annoyed at being told "dinosaurs are only for boys"

If LW's sister had given her niece "Boys Own Book of Dinosaurs" that would be a different story, but otherwise dinosaurs are for EVERYONE

SUE the t-rex is even officially nonbinary

I'll bet that if LW's kid was a trans boy instead, and got the same gift, LW would say that a plush toy is girly and it must be Ashley's way of getting at LW, around whom the whole world revolves.

I worry for Isabella. Her mother's going to push her into being super super girly, because she seems to think that that's the "right" way to be a trans girl. I suspect there's unacknowledged transphobia behind this on LW's part; a lot of cis folks think someone's only "really" trans if they embody every social convention/stereotype about their gender. (Of course it's possible that Isabella is super super girly, but her being perfectly happy with a basically gender-neutral gift and not wishing for a girlier one suggests not.)

ETA for clarity: Isabella should be able to be as girly or not girly as she wants to be. The problem is, there's a lot of pressure on trans people, from the social expectations of strangers to actual gatekeeping in order to access medical treatment, to behave in the most conventional way for their gender. Otherwise, consequences can range from misgendering to denial of medical transition to literal violence. LW seems to have bought into this (with the extra bonus fuckery of assuming that anything her sister does is really about getting back at LW), and that's really not good for Isabella.

Edited (clarity) 2021-11-05 20:52 (UTC)

I suspect there's unacknowledged transphobia behind this on LW's part; a lot of cis folks think someone's only "really" trans if they embody every social convention/stereotype about their gender.

I was worrying about this but couldn't quite figure out how to phrase it. *agrees thoroughgoingly*

I worry for Isabella. Her mother's going to push her into being super super girly, because she seems to think that that's the "right" way to be a trans girl.

Ew yeah I suspect you're right. "You can't wear blue, that's a boy color" / "Pink and frilly all the way!" / "You must GIRL HARDER!!!1" There's nothing wrong with pink frilly girly stuff IFF that's what Isabella actually wants, but forcing that on her Because Trans Girl ... :/

And in some sense, misguided support is harder to deal with, just BECAUSE the LW is trying so hard.

(Also dinosaurs are for everyone specifically including trans kids! I still love that

SUEtheTrex uses they/them, and that the person who submitted the request for emoji dinos has confirmed the dinos are trans.)

My favorite stuffed animal when I was a little girl was a triceratops I named Tricy. Like Tracy with an I. My favorite activity was looking for fossils in the rocks at the school playground.

Lw has swung so far into trans parentment that she hit a wall of misogynistic gender essentialism.

My favorite toy at her age was a set of plastic dinosaur skeletons you could take apart and put together in various configurations

Anyway here have an article about queers in paleontology

Article? She asked hopefully.

Article!

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02113-6

as the parent of a trans kid, i would like to kick LW in the teeth, because WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK