Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

by Jacob Tobia

In an environment of increasing independence, first and second graders use gender as a primary tool of establishing social power and position. Children who conform to masculinity or femininity, who excel at “being boys” or “being girls,” are granted social status, and those who can’t or won’t perform their gender roles correctly are immediately ostracized. Across the board, from teachers and principals to pop culture and TV shows, this behavior is not only permitted, but encouraged. Gender, matched only by ethnicity, body type, and family income, incites bullying, and becomes the primary indicator of who belongs and who is an outcast.

Meredith opened me back up. While she may not have known the reason I’d stopped caring about what I wore or understood the coping strategy behind my aesthetic complacency, she knew that it had to change. She knew it was important for human beings to feel happy with how they looked, that dressing as you want—not necessarily expensively or even “well,” but of your own volition and according to your heart’s desires—was an important part of expressing your agency and identity in the world. It was a way to tell the world you valued yourself and knew who you were.