Actually...

My sweet, bookish, truck-loving son has an affinity for sundresses. And we haven't told him that boys don't wear dresses. In fact, his Papa-Bug has a couple of skirts and sarongs for hot days.

Boys wear dresses in cultures around the globe.

Brother-Bug wears his dresses whenever and wherever. Today he wore one to the library, eliciting one of my favorite events:


Queer Community Member Puts Child In Gender Box.

He has short hair. He wears boy-ish glasses. He wears Lightning McQueen shoes. It seems obvious to me that he is a boy. But the dress throws people every time. And that's okay. It mostly delights me when someone I know to be queer, formerly queer, or otherwise into breaking out of the heterosexual-gender-dichotomy thinks the kid is a girl, simply based on one article of his clothing. I delight in correcting these people. It has only happened a couple of times.

It goes like this:

Boy twirls in circle wearing his favorite flowered dress.

Liberal Friend says something like "She's so cute! And she seems to like her hair short."

I respond with, "Nope. HE likes to wear dresses."

Liberal friend then usually has the wherewithal to look chagrined. Because they just boxed a child based on the previously mentioned heterosexual-gender-dichotomy that they railed against at some protest somewhere.

HA!

 

This is him, a couple of years ago, in his favorite, mommy-made bulldozer dress. Quite a little guy, isn't he?