Of all the changes in today’s society, I think gender changes are the most challenging.
I was born female and I’m glad I remained female — in spite of the “Tom Boy” phase I enjoyed when I was in elementary school.
At this age, sister Alice, and I spent our time in the 1940s, not playing with dolls, but building forts on the wild beaches of Lake Erie, scavenging shells and bits of colored glass, riding ice floes broken off from the mainland, running through cornfields, camping in the tree house, spending the night in the pig house (from World War II when Father had three piglets, later converted to our playhouse) listening to the hoots of owls and wishing we were home and snug in bed.
Yes, we were Tom Boys. Father always told us he had come from a family of six boys and he didn’t know how to raise girls, so he raised us like boys. Therefore, he taught us to fish, cast a line, bait a hook, gut and clean a fish, hunt, shoot skeet, and skin a newly shot rabbit nailed to a tree.
Alice made a better hunter than I as I couldn’t stand killing furry animals. I still remember my emotion when father returned from hunting squirrels and displayed them on the ground. I didn’t take to skinning rabbits either.
We played “cops and robbers” or “cowboys and Indians” and I had a pair of six shooter cap guns I wore on my waist while chasing some “crook” with my beloved dog, Timmy.
We jumped off our roof onto pillows one day and had a rope that we could jump off a cliff and swing over the lake and back. I designed an airplane and tried to take off from the roof of the Vermilion Yacht Club. I crashed.
I spent hours building a village in the dirt on the west side of the house racing my collection of miniature cars.
We had freedom in those days to do whatever we liked, there were no handheld devices or TV and the best fun of all was to use our imagination and create our own fun.
We swam in the river, built dams at the mouth of our creek, biked wherever we wanted to go, our lunch packed in the basket, ice skated three cornfields away in old Sherod’s Creek, sled and skied in the winter, swam and water skied in the lake in the summer, hit baseballs Father tossed us and learned to play badminton.
Then puberty hit and there I was in a frilly dress off to a school dance, hair that had been carefully combed, powder on my nose and lipstick on my lips. I spent hours gazing in the mirror hoping I was beautiful. And why did a Tom Boy suddenly care how she looked? Boys, of course!
I’m glad no teacher ever approached me in my Tom Boy phase suggesting I might like to become a boy. I was fearless back then. I might well have said, “Sure!”
In the 1950s it never occurred to us that we might change our gender. The young are doing this today almost as nonchalantly as changing the color of hair. I just hope they wait until they are adults before they go through surgeries. Such permanent decisions should not be made by children.
I fell in love, married and had children and I am grateful that was the path I took in life. This traditional path may not appeal to everybody, but giving birth and raising children were the most important things I ever did.
I wonder what tomorrow will bring in a free society? If we can change genders now how long before we can change species?
I can hear children now telling us they want to become a cat, dog or a horse. And why shouldn’t they be in a species of their choice?
I have read of “Goat Man” who decided to join a herd of goats. He had trouble digesting grass.
Then there was a man who said he was a badger and he went to live in the woods and learned to live on maggots.
I now understand there are furry groups that meet at “furry conventions” and come dressed as cats, dogs or other animals. I even had a report that some “cats” insisted on a litter box in their hotel rooms.
Who am I to cast judgment on whatever the future will be? But will our free society hold the line somewhere? Suppose Goat Man wanted to marry and wanted his “goat spouse” to be carried on his insurance and retirement plan? Suppose he wants his spouse to be able to vote?
It’s hard to imagine people changing into animals, even though sometimes human behavior suggests we have already made the change.
I have heard of Yellow Dog Democrats. But am I prepared for Red Goat Republicans?
© 2024.
