Pinks tights = girl?

Atticus has been mistaken for a girl many, many times in his life. He often wore Annabelle's hand-me-downs, and he loves pink tights and dresses. It doesn't ever really bother me (and I don't think he's ever noticed before) because I guess I figure that if you dress your son in a skirt and pink tights, then people will think he's a girl, whatever. On Sunday a few weeks ago, however, he was mistaken for a girl in front of an entire congregation of Unitarians, and I think it was the first time in his life that he's thought "I'm NOT a girl! Why is he calling me a girl?" and I'm not sure how that is going to change his perception from this time forward, but I have noticed him being increasingly gendered lately. A few weeks ago, he didn't want to hold Tim's hand during our prayer, only the "girls's". He wouldn't sit in his grandpa's lap tonight, only "the girls's, mom's or Grandma Betsey's or Lulah's". I hate that our culture has to be so binary boy/girl everything. I don't know how to escape it, or how to even begin instilling in him that it's ok to wear pink tights and dresses if you like them, regardless of what genitals you have, when everything in our culture tells him it's not ok.

I love the story that goes around the women's studies departments about the little boy who wanted to wear pink to school. The other kids mocked him, so he showed them he actually was a boy by pulling out his penis -- "see, I AM a boy, I just like dresses" he told them -- to which one of the children replied: "anyone can have a PENIS. only GIRLS wear DRESSES!"

Rockin' the skirt and tights