Children are being taught that stereotypes are bad, and there are no such things as "girls' toys" and "boys' toys
Both excellent messages, but I suspect the way we're teaching them all too often comes across as gaslighting to the kids.
Clothing is a better example than toys for this point. You tell kids that boys and girls can wear whatever they like, but what they see, when they look around them, is: anyone can wear trousers, but men don't ever wear skirts, or if they do they get funny looks (at best).
You have to teach them the next step in the critical analysis too: why do boys not wear skirts, even though they could? If this isn't explored, then the kid's left with their parents telling them that the general rule of thumb they've accurately identified isn't an unspoken social norm at all.
Where do you draw the line between someone who is 'living as' the opposite sex and someone who is simply not conforming to stereotypes?
I'd draw it right down the middle, because anyone who believes they're living as the opposite sex can only demonstrate this by conforming to the stereotypes of that sex. There's nothing gnc about putting on a frock and a bit of lippy and saying you're a real girl now, is there?
And having a gender identity is pointless if you think sex stereotypes are bad - why would you want to describe yourself in terms of those stereotypes?
Agreed, makes little sense - but remember the whacking great cognitive dissonance at the heart of gender-identity ideology. They don't acknowledge that gender identities are rooted in (and cannot exist without) stereotypes, because to do so would invoke the wrath of earlier generations (for whom sexism was the social justice cause du jour).
Also important to remember that sexist stereotypes exist in people's minds. Even if I myself know anyone can wear a skirt, I know damned well that if others see me wearing one there's a fair chance they don't see me, they see 'skirt-wearing, woman, associated negative stereotypes', and if they're male, 'target'.
Which is why I'm adamant that woman is not my gender identity. Still a woman though, on account of being female. A not-woman g.i. is just shorthand for 'stop expecting these stereotypes to be applicable to me' in the context of a social world in which those stereotypes are still very much alive and kicking.
Which brings us full circle back to gaslighting kids. Telling them the stereotypes are basically imaginary, made up, not real, irrelevant, when stereotype - assigning general properties to a class based on observed behaviour of some members of that class - is a very real aspect of how human minds function.
Anything which can be done by both sexes can't be described as living as the opposite sex since both sexes can do it.
I agree, but when it comes to the whole trans wossname, it's always worthwhile putting the missing words in and seeing what the hell they're talking about. It's possible to live in a manner typical of the opposite sex, if you're in a society with marked distinctions between the sexes in terms of social norms, dress standards, etc. Because you could survey every man and woman in the country and see that (made up numbers alert) 80% of women sometimes wear skirts and 2% of men do, and truthfully state that skirt-wearing is typically observed in women and not men.
It's not so much about what's physically possible, but rather what's socially possible.
And then bog standard sexist bias comes into play, as always.