A lovely example of expanding the bandwith of 'male'

[pombear]

Would you like something positive?

I found this twitter thread a refreshing counter to this weekend's ' girl =quick, put on the make-up'' butterfly episode.

twitter.com/DaddyFiles/status/1054527579204530176

Hundreds of people embracing and demonstrating examples, young and old. None of the 'if you like nail polish/long hair/dresses you're probably a girl'.

Thanks, I enjoyed that. A good Dad.

Lovely thread! Thanks OP.

That's lovely.

Brilliant! Should be ordinary.

12yo DS had his long hair teased out of him last spring....hasn't had it cut again, though. And spent today in these shoes that he raided from my wardrobe. And last week he stood up for a classmate who was being bullied. When the bully turned his attentions onto DS, DS reported him to the Head of Year.

What a lovely dad. Gender really is a straitjacket.
When my son was 14, he had red nail varnish for the weekend and on Sunday night I went to take it off (early eighties, and yes, black varnish was acceptable, but not red).
He said he liked it and wouldn't remove it. We did have a conversation about what people might say and he said he didn't care - it was staying on.
(He was very popular, which might have led to his confidence, I don't/can't know about this).
Over the following weeks, at my house, two of his friends told me that they wanted to wear nail varnish but their mothers wouldn't let them.
Gender is a concrete straitjacket.

What a cool thing to share and an awesome Dad!!

What a great thread and I can relate to it having a young son of my own who is interested in a wide range of styles.

Yup I really relate to the experience of a boy being able to express his gnc choices happily in nursery but facing ridiculous levels of gender policing from the kids in primary school. I thought that it was to do with the school having a lot of religious kids in (and perhaps it is to an extent) but when I signed him up to an activity in a further away school with a way more liberal catchment area; it was those kids who told him his sequin t-shirt was for girls. Now wondering if that school had had some gender training....

Thank you for posting OP, that really did make me feel much better!

That's an awesome Twitter thread. Not only am I going to give @DaddyFiles a follow, I'm going to get a manicure and get my nails painted. Not had them done since DD1 was 4, so about 20 years ago. Looking forward to it.