Blog Response: Allie

Kirsten’s research creates a perfect segue into yours. I remember watching this news story about a 6 year old girl who identifies herself as male. I thought it was pretty interesting considering how young she is. Most individuals make this realization when their much older. But I always wondered what made her—I mean him, comfortable and emotionally ready enough to declare such a life changing thing? Perhaps her parents or school stressed emotional literacy! Whatever the case may be, I recommended looking up the story. 

The article suggests that in order to “move beyond the binary” is to change perspective. While it doesn’t really focus on emotional literacy, it gives a lot of great background and examples of how sex and gender, in any circumstance, can affect an individual. In this case, we’ll be focusing on young boys at an emotional level. 

The Buzzed article made me think of my good guy friend. He’s what we call metrosexual meaning, “a young, urban, heterosexual male with an interest in fashion, and a refined sense of taste.” But a lot of people these days define the term as, “a guy who’s straight but comes off as gay.” Whenever someone asks if he’s gay, he gets really offended and upset, sometimes even confused. His masculinity is questioned and incidentally leaves him with a wounded ego. He’s a pretty sensitive dude because of it. 

So looking at his past and how he was raised may have to do with his feminine character. I’m making this whole theory up, but it’s a good why of fleshing out your topic for the research paper. He grew up in New York City and his father is a wealthy business man. So, his privileged upbringing ingrained the gender norm that men typically dress well and have impeccable taste. 

I’m not sure where writing and healing comes into this, but I can see when emotional literacy is introduced in the classroom, discussing how boys feel versus how girls feel can bring up the question of why “big boys don’t cry.” Then again, it depends on the age, because boy cry regardless when they’re little. I don’t know how much of an impact emotional literacy would have in changing sex/gender views. But it’s possible that it could change how people feel about their identity.