Kilts on "The View"

[AtagahiKC]

Just for the record, I was vaguely watching the discussion on the View that day while working on a project.

I believe that two of the ladies dismissed the discussion of kilts with transgenderism as off-topic. I want to say it was Joy and Barbara, but I honestly don't remember for sure, now.

The two of them didn't feel that a man wearing a kilt was anything like a young child experimenting with the other gender's clothing. In any case, kilts were brought up and dismissed within a very small portion of the discussion.

I think Barbara was well-intentioned in her view that a pre-school teacher should tell the parents if their son put on dresses in the costume corner. She brought transgenderism into a child development topic in error, in my opinion.

She referred to a story about transgenderism that she or someone had done. The story discussed how transgendered people knew early in their lives that they were the wrong sex on the outside. She felt that the parents would want to know so they could help their child deal with it and be psychologically healthy as they grew up.

The problem is that in developmental psychology, one learns that pre-school and kindergarten is the age that children are fluid in their gender roles and often try out clothing of the other gender. It isn't that unusual. Children usually socialize to society's gender role expectations through social cues from other children or their parents' over-reaction or discomfort with the matter..

Since that is the case, I think Barbara was wrong as informing the parents would raise more "false positives" and create more problems than it would help, as many of the children would end up developing into their expected gender roles without interference by parents. There will probably be other clues if the child is transgender beyond that developmental stage anyway.

To sum her position up, Barbara was arguing for greater compassion for children's differences.

However, as Sherri so amply displayed, compassion for a child's differences often flies out the window when it is your own child, especially if one is ignorant on the topic or doesn't have an open mind.

Still, I understand her reaction. I think many, if not most, parents react the same way when confronted by nonconforming gender behavior in their children. Most of the bad reactions, in my opinion, comes from confusing gender behavior with sexual orientation. That seemed to at least part of the cause of Sherri's reaction.

Hopefully that reaction is changing. How many sitcoms episodes have there been about fathers thinking that their sons were gay because of nonconforming gender behavior and futilely trying to "butch" them up to make them straight?

(My favorite is when Homer Simpson took Bart to a steel mill, hoping that the masculine influence would make him straight. The mill's hyper-masculine workforce turned out to be gay. The steel mill turned into a disco at night, replete with mirror ball, to Homer's great surprise. "Everybody dance now!" It turns his theory of gender behavior and homosexuality on end. D'oh!)

I don't often defend The View. But in this case, I think we shouldn't criticize the entire panel for Sherri's ignorance. I think that it was a case of mixing in too many unrelated issues into a child development topic. Further complicating the matter was that none of the panel had enough useful information to make it a worthwhile discussion.

Instead, it yielded a confused and reactionary response among the panel. They didn't know how to get out of the hole they dug themselves once they realized they were in it.

That said, I do seem to remember Sherri equating a kilt with a skirt, which is what raised the ire of everyone here, including the lady who wrote the linked response. Sherri deserves all the scorn she is receiving for that misinformed view.