When Did You KNOW? When CAN You Know?

I suppose the title of this post applies to anything in life. There are things we see as complicated or just so far outside the norm (there's that word again) that we think they don't fit mould of everything else when it comes to discerning when we became aware of them in our lives.

When did you become aware of colors? Of the existence of danger? Sexual pleasure? LOVE? If you're an adult, you could easily lump these four things into the category of "long ago, when I was young". Would that be accurate, though?

I haven't done the research on any of this, but it seems to me that discerning the differences in color (if not being able to name the colors) would come pretty early on, as a baby even. As for danger, we know toddlers are fairly fearless when it comes to things like injuring themselves. Fear of not having comfort from mommy and daddy can come pretty early.

Sexual pleasure. We know that comes later, around the time of puberty. It takes many forms, of course, but that is more in gaining a physical ability to FEEL something, as opposed to an emotion like love. And of course, love takes on infinite meanings. You can love your parents because they keep you safe, you can love riding your bicycle, love playing a video game. These things happen at all different ages, especially love of another person outside of our own family. Safe to say the concept generally sets in pretty early life, love of SOMETHING.

So, we are talking about awareness: of things, emotions, people, STUFF. The focus of this post is awareness of GENDER. Again, no real science or research behind this, other than an informal poll I took of people I associate with online. The reason I did this harkens to my last post, around the concept of when a baby can be aware of gender, or even of when parents can recognize gender in their child. For most people, again, they would generally answer that it's "early on".

When it comes to WHO we are inside, when does that happen? And when are we aware of it ourselves? For the folks hosting the podcast I wrote about recently, it seems like it's a fragile ecosystem that must be protected heavily in the first few years of life. Certainly, the color green, as opposed to blue or pink, will ensure that if the child is going to be feminine, or male, then the outside world won't be able to influence that in the opposite direction. I feel a tad sarcastic typing that, but it does seem to be the view presented by some.

It's much more complicated than that, though, right? How does a child get from not being able to hold up it's own head to playing with toy trucks, or Barbie dolls? What's the progression? It does seem to me that it's HEAVILY influenced by the outside world. We can only play with the toys we are presented with. We only wear, when little, the clothes given to us. We have no control over that stuff. At some point, children see more choices, be it in a nursery, or preschool, or whatever. Then preferences start to emerge. How many of those choices are innate?

I feel myself wavering and inconclusive even as I write this post. If I am 43 and can't figure out whether a 3-year-old knows whether or not he/she is playing with boys or girls toys, or doing what boys or girls do, how can an actual child of that age know? If they can know, then yes, unless they have the ability to properly communicate to their caregivers their preferences, they might well fall into gender confusion or frustration. But if they don't yet make those connections, then does it matter what outside influences they receive at the time they receive them? Since they become memories to be recalled later, maybe so. But maybe not.

In the poll I conducted, I asked when, for those born with male gentalia, did they "know" they leaned toward the feminine? Here are the results to-date on that question:

Age in years        # of votes   % of total vote
0-5         9    11
6-10        23    28
11-20        26    32
20+        17    21
Still don't know 6     7

A little about the audience this question was presented to. This was posted on a site that caters to people that either don't, or are to some extent don't, fit 100% into the "norm" of male or female. There are so many labels and categories. Suffice it to say, the people who saw and had the opportunity to respond to this question don't define themselves as being in "the norm". That includes men attracted to non-genetic feminine-type persons, though the guys weren't the focus of the poll. Those men have a whole other perspective on these things, one I like to learn about also.

I wanted to see how many respondents would say they knew they were, for lack of a perfect term, "girls" at a very young age. Part of that is selfish, to get an idea how I compared to them in terms of age of awareness. The rest was in response to the podcast, to gain perspective on if the hosts stance (especially the transgendered host) were in the ballpark with their opinions versus this other group of folks. The results are unsurprisingly mixed.

One thing that sticks out is the interpretation of the question. I know at least one person responded in terms of when they first started to wear "girls clothes", rather than a feeling of some sort of dysphoria. I know others that are clearly in the camp of transgendered from a young age. I was caught off guard when I was told that this one particular person, born male, told her early grade school class that she wanted to be a mommy when she grew up, and got laughed at mercilessly, as kids will do. That stuck with me all day, and I had to ask her if I could share that here in some way. Kindly, she said yes. I also had a good friend not respond, telling me it's not so easy to pinpoint. That in itself is as response of sorts. I respect that.

We can see that the majority of persons answered to the older age ranges. We might attribute part of that to the fact that many of us don't have actual memories for most of that 0-5 range. That actually might be a clue to the overall premise here. I was surprised at the number that chose 6-10, though I shouldn't haven't been, having interacted with so many of these people over the years. It does seem to become evident a lot during the pre-pubescent years, often when people look back at their younger selves.

Personally, I was in the 11-20 category when I became aware of anything. Notice I didn't say "knew". I'm not sure I "knew" until the past few years when I finally accepted that I'm just not going to fit into the male "box" very well. I'm very sure some of the reasons for my own 30-year gap is due to the influences of the world, the attempts to fit in, and not wanting to disappoint those who saw me one way and not another. It's beneficial to me to learn the stories of others. It helps me to "know" more.

To try to wrap this up in a green ribbon (so as to not influence anyone), I think the point is that we all walk a different path, with many commonalities and many differences. So I can't really come across as being in favor of the people in the story from the podcast, or against. I heard first-hand the opinion of the hosts, but I haven't walked their path. I heard second-hand the opinion of the older woman who didn't understand the actions of the young couple. I can only guess at her path, and that only since I am of a similar age, presumably. I didn't hear the reasoning of the young couple at all. And I sure didn't hear from the baby.

Maybe sincerity, caring, and curiosity should be what counts in navigating a topic such as this. Or indeed any topic. I find it interesting that the thoughts I have about something that ties to the idea of gender so closely can apply to just about any other topic that humans face, deal with, and try to understand. Gee, maybe that's because I'm HUMAN, just like everybody else, no matter the toys I play with or the clothes I wear.

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