I'm constantly disappointed that the generic fashion is lots of brown, grey, royal or pale blue, navy.
I've got five girls, so when this one turned out to be a boy, I wondered how much fun I might have going and buying "boy clothes". I've always loathed that little girls' "fashion" has always been so stereotyped. I thought there might be more freedom in the boys' sections.

How wrong I was! A sea of dull colours, with "boy" motifs, a preponderance of blue with the odd splash of red or whatever... I became quite depressed after a while. It felt like boys' clothing was even more constrained than girls' clothing. I'd already been getting a lot of comments about What Boys Are Like, and I felt quite defensive that this little mite should turn out the way he *wants* minus pressure from everyone else.

I live in a community that is extremely gay friendly and has a lot of transgender people and it is always so foreign to me to hear the comments of almost fear, I guess, when people contemplate their kids wearing clothing that isn't appropriate for their gender, but that fear doesn't seem to move so close to something like disgust or anger as when it is about little boys wearing dresses or skirts or whatever. I don't understand what people think it says about a son who might like to wear "girlie" clothing, although I should since my 11 year old is constantly called a "tomboy" because she doesn't like girlie clothing.

It's not just the clothes, either - it's the toys. I had a friend once whose husband *refused* to let their ds play with any "girls' toys" like kitchen stuff or dolls. He sincerely saw it as a threat to his son's masculinity.

It's like this pressure right from the moment they are born to tell them, "This is how you will behave. This is who you are. You cannot escape it and we will remind you at every turn."

I do wonder what would happen if I had a son who lived in a family who expressed horror at the idea of a son being dressed in "girlie" clothes who felt drawn towards them naturally, and how he would respond to that kind of pressure to deny that part of himself. I imagine it would be so much worse than my dd being called a "tomboy" because at least there's some kind of patronising acceptance of a girl who doesn't act like a "proper" girl.