Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.

Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.

"Yeah, he's just destructive, he can't help it. That's just how boys are. You know, because of the testosterone."

"He's four years old. His body hasn't started producing testosterone yet."

"No, I'm pretty sure boys always have testosterone, throughout childhood. You can see it in the way they act."

@Tattie what upsets me about this as a person who's both autistic and testosterone dominant, is that no ones considering how kids smashing things up is likely a self regulatory behavior. No one is asking this child what's so overwhelming that they need to break something about it, no one is redirecting that behavior into something safer and no one is teaching that child how to communicate or set boundaries. These children will be perpetually punished for doing the things that get them into a more stable mindset then be taught no alternative. Im sure as one develops, it is then easier to internalize the message that their biology is bad, they were born bad and are now entitled to being bad. Anyone with any alternative in how they communicate or regulate become something to resist, bolstering their entitlement. And this is how you get incels and misogynists and transphobes etc.

(Side note: respectfully, as if your brother is mansplaining to you how hormones work, as if you havent undergone an entire hormonal transition. Miss me with that.)

People seem to really want to believe this right now, and in a large part I think this is part of a pushback on trans rights. People are clinging to biological essentialism because the presence of people blithely switching from one sex to another Makes Them Uncomfy. They want to keep their boys and girls in very definite boxes, so said kids don't get ideas.

The other part is of course the antifeminism sweeping society. Presented with the evidence of all the shit that men are responsible for, we seem to have just given up on the entire gender. "Boys will be boys"— testosterone fates half the world to just Being Bad People so we just have to accept that.

Of course, these are not independent factors. They're very much linked.

Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.

"Yeah, he's just destructive, he can't help it. That's just how boys are. You know, because of the testosterone."

"He's four years old. His body hasn't started producing testosterone yet."

"No, I'm pretty sure boys always have testosterone, throughout childhood. You can see it in the way they act."

And fuck the demonisation of a sex hormone anyway!

I've said it before: testosterone might make you hairy, horny, hungry, and hot, but it does not make you violent. It does not make you destructive. It does not make you anti-empathetic. Those are choices; gender behavioural norms that boys and then men are encouraged by social pressure to conform to, and may reject if they have the strength and the support to do so.

@Tattie The antifeminism isn't new. "Boys will be boys" has been around for a long time. But I think it has less to do with trans people than it does to do with women trying to process the trauma of what men have done to them and men trying to justify it.

But, yeah, the transphobia doesn't help matters.

@Tattie As a parent I see soooo much of this from other parents. It’s infuriating and depressing.

Assuming boys and girls have the same distribution of behaviour innately (an assumption, sure, but no worse than assuming it’s markedly different), then you’d expect some percentage of both groups to play to type for expectations, reinforcing biases and those that fall out of expectations being seen as exceptions.

Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.

"Yeah, he's just destructive, he can't help it. That's just how boys are. You know, because of the testosterone."

"He's four years old. His body hasn't started producing testosterone yet."

"No, I'm pretty sure boys always have testosterone, throughout childhood. You can see it in the way they act."

@Tattie@eldritch.cafe This is the viscous cycle of bioessentialism. they expect 4 yrs boys to be destructive and rude, so they accept and encourage it. When they grow into men who are destructive and rude it's just the same boys will be boys shtick.

@abucci I do believe my brother when he says his daughter was less difficult at the same age. But, y'know, all kids are different; some do need a bit more help.
@datarama

@Tattie Oh THAT book. There's a companion one that's just as bad.

@Steve @Tattie I assume that was a typo but it's a really appropriate one. The slow-moving, thick, sticky cycle of bioessentialism.

@faithisleaping I think you have hit on the root of it, which explains why the transphobia. A large chunk of both cis men and cis women have accepted a biological explanation for male violence, to lessen accountability, and for this theory to work trans women have to share in cis male awfulness. The fact that, rather inconveniently, we're actually rather lovely, only infuriates them.

But I do think that to some degree their consequent frustrations at us are being projected onto kids.

@Tattie @abucci @datarama I mean, she was not sharing attention in the same way and not being encouraged or permitted the same behaviours, too.

@Ailbhe @Tattie @abucci I don't have any kids myself, and I'm not going to rule out that there are gender differences in child behaviour. There might be! But it's not because of testosterone, because girls and boys have about the same levels of the stuff until puberty.

@datarama @Tattie @abucci One of my children was CONSTANTLY being presumed male because of behaviour as a toddler. The one who is a cis girl. NEITHER of the others were ever presumed male.

@Tattie Not pushing back on this per say, I think what I'm framing is a version of what you're saying.

It seems that some of what we attribute to "boys will be violent or aggressive" is more about how testosterone effects modes of communication.

And, if we would actually see four year old boys as communicating physically through aggression instead of with words it would be helpful for everyone.

Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.

"Yeah, he's just destructive, he can't help it. That's just how boys are. You know, because of the testosterone."

"He's four years old. His body hasn't started producing testosterone yet."

"No, I'm pretty sure boys always have testosterone, throughout childhood. You can see it in the way they act."

Kinda galling talking to my brother and realising he's already written his own son off due to his gender.

"Yeah, he's just destructive, he can't help it. That's just how boys are. You know, because of the testosterone."

"He's four years old. His body hasn't started producing testosterone yet."

"No, I'm pretty sure boys always have testosterone, throughout childhood. You can see it in the way they act."