A recent editorial in the week’s New York Times titled “My Daughter Is Not Transgender. She’s a Tomboy.” has been gathering a great deal of interesting conversations. The author Lisa Davis is talking about her own daughter and how she enjoys dressing and appearing like a boy. She likes many boy things and her friends circle is mostly boys. This is where it gets interesting, the author says ‘But she’s not transgender; she’s a girl’. However, no doubt there are many people that disagree how Davis framed this statement and perspective, this actually highlights a great lesson concerning the nature of transgender identities.
It should be said that for many non confirming, masculine or “butch” women, Davis was just affirming of grouped experiences. The large amount of feedback and comments to this article mainly from older women highlights the impression that it was indeed much harder for them to be nonconforming when they where younger and especially in the teenage years.
The positive visibility of all types of gender spectrum is obviously welcomed and ‘tomboys’ are a case in point where labels can sometimes get confused such as transgender and ‘tomboy’ status, read the article on the ‘NY Times’ My Daughter Is Not Transgender. She’s a Tomboy.
