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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, I'm the 11:03 poster. For full disclosure, I'm a straight woman, married to a man, with a 20 month old daughter. I have a lot of gay friends, some with kids, some without.

I think it's pretty normal parenting behavior to want your children to be like you. In my experience with the lesbian community (not super recent and not in this area), referring to straight people with kids as breeders is not uncommon and not always intended to be offensive.  [b]I don't see this mom's hopes for a gay child to be any different than a straight mom's hope for a straight child, and there are any number of ways that a parent can wish that without sounding like a jerk. I think that this is all NORMAL. [/b]I don't think that the way this mom is manifesting those wants is healthy for the child, though. I agree with you that it would be lovely if she was more open to her child figuring out her own identity and becoming who she wants to be, rather than who her mom wants her to be. I think that it's a little bit naive to assume that your friend is automatically more open to all lifestyle choices because hers is "alternative." I've met some lesbians who are militantly anti-man and some people of color who hate white people. Prejudice is everywhere. Being discriminated against does not preclude that you will discriminate against someone else, for something else, in the future, as sad as that is.[/quote]

Agree with that.  But the OP's point is, I think, that when strangers meet a young child, they make gender assumptions based on clothes and haircut, for the simple reason that there's nothing else to go on.  So the friend is acting irrationally by getting upset that strangers see her kid wearign a crew-cut and "boy's clothes" and think she's a boy.  And she piggybacking on that her belief (hope) that the strangers "sense" that her daughter is gay daughter - some sort of advanced gaydar - when in reality, they think 5 yo + crewcut + jeans, sneakers and t-shirt = boy.  (Perfectly reasonable, by the way.)  The real question is whether the friend's issues - whatever they may be - are goinng to harm the kid.  It's way too early to determine that, in my opinion.  [/quote]

Oh, I got the OP's point. I think that it's clear that this mom has her own issues associated with assumptions about gender and it sounds like she is trying to challenge other people's assumptions about gender pre-emptively. It also sounds to me like she assumes there are slights where there are none. Half the time, when strangers are asking you about your child, they're just being polite. Like you said, they see short hair, jeans, sneaks and a tshirt and they assume "boy". Those "Oh how old is your son?" or "His shoes are so cute, where did you get them?" are not intended to ascribe a hetero-normative identity to this child. They're just making conversation, the way that strangers do.

If this was my friend, I would try to talk to her about it, but it doesn't sound like that would make too much of a difference. If it's just about clothes and hair right now, that's not the end of the world, but if later, it turns into "you have to play softball" "but Mom, I want to join the cheerleading squad" or some other totally-from-a-tv-special drama, I would be more concerned. Like the other PP said, next time I was around for one of these "strangers assigning gender to my child incorrectly" moments, I would probably say, "well, most of the little boys on this playground are wearing the exact same thing as your daughter, I can see why a total stranger would be confused" and laugh it off. If she wants to make a big thing about it, she will and there probably isn't much to be done about it.[/quote]

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