It's really great to read your thoughts on this; thank you.
I had such a similar experience of mixed messages about my gender, complicated to some extent by disability and my parents' attitudes (my dad liked long hair on little girls and dresses, but also was clearly much more comfortable telling me to help him lift heavy things around the farm than in telling me that I shouldn't sit how I normally do when I was wearing a dress; my mom had some kind of paradigm shift from a terribly tomboyish childhood to being the fusspot about clothes, hair and makeup that I've always known her to be so I wonder if she expected I'd do similar and was disappointed when I never really outgrew my boyish habits).
(no subject)
Date: 2025-07-13 07:31 pm (UTC)It's really great to read your thoughts on this; thank you.
I had such a similar experience of mixed messages about my gender, complicated to some extent by disability and my parents' attitudes (my dad liked long hair on little girls and dresses, but also was clearly much more comfortable telling me to help him lift heavy things around the farm than in telling me that I shouldn't sit how I normally do when I was wearing a dress; my mom had some kind of paradigm shift from a terribly tomboyish childhood to being the fusspot about clothes, hair and makeup that I've always known her to be so I wonder if she expected I'd do similar and was disappointed when I never really outgrew my boyish habits).