I was listening to my daughter explain who in her GCSE year was gender fluid, who might transition, who was bi, who was gay. Exhausting, not to say bewildering. It occurred to me, thinking back to my teenage self: if I was living in the now in 2021 with an online me, 3D me‘s, and all the areas where they overlap, would a 15 year old Liz draw the conclusion that having an irresistible fascination with feminine attire meant that in fact I was destined to present full-time as female, and/or undergo gender reassignment as we now call it?
My point is: are there young lads any more furtively borrowing their mother’s clothes, tv’s of the future? Or would a young Liz just look at the identity mayhem and obsession of today and think, well I better put on some nail polish and get down to The Tavistock asap? Nothing seems to be private any more, social media is the ultimate vehicle for compare and despair and confusion and it scares the bejesus out of me for younger generations. Um anyway.
As one of the oldest "old farts" on here (60) I never knew anyone at school who was openly anything other than heterosexual! When I discovered my fascination with ladies clothes I always though it was a "perversion" and although we had horror stories about the predatory types that lurked in the woods/parks/gay bars we never had any interaction with anyone who was not "normal"! Our education at school (70's) was very factually based around biological matters and never looked at different relationships and sexuality. I joined the armed forces at 16 and 10 months never having seen a woman naked or realising that there was such a thing as a transvestite, all I knew was that joining up would cure me of those feelings and make me normal!
As you can guess I never did get cured and spent over 20 years hiding so deep in the closet I was halfway to Narnia. Since then I have seen the world change so much, I work with openly gay and bisexual people and hear stories that I never thought I would hear. For instance a friends daughter is currently training to be a Teaching Assistant, they have a teacher who is non-gender and only responds to the salutation "L" instead of Sir or Miss, they wear anything they feel comfortable in, regardless of whether it is supposed to be male or female! However even if I were to "come out" now as a crossdresser, would I go to work wearing a dress? I have no doubt my employer would be supportive (their policy is excellent) and my colleagues would giggle and snicker for a bit (most of them are women) but it is not me! The ingrained perception I grew up with is still there and will probably never change!
another thing the dept head boy is a girl who has decided she wants to be called by a boys name... parents not involved in this decision with the school but shes declared shes now a boy and became dept head boy.. there's a boy in my oldest daughters year who's declared hes a girl also and many who openly say they're bisexual from years 7 to11
Not something we'd see in our day
When i was in school Trans wasn't a thing. I crossdressed but doubted anyone else did and the internet wasn't really fully available.
I'm in my 40s and I'm sure like me many of the boys in school out of curiosity tried on their Mothers, Sisters or someone else lingerie etc and began the journey into some level of Crossdressing.
Gay was a boy who fancied other boys and i didn't know anyone openly Gay and didn't really suspect anyone i went to school was was or is gay and words like poofter referred more to someone who didn't like rugby than a derogatory statement on someones sexuality.
Onto Lesbians I'm sure some of the girls in school may have been but no one openly had a girlfried or walked hand in hand, kissing etc..
I can recall hearing "swings both ways" but again this was used as a jokey term which i now realised meant bisexual but in our generation we joked openly about some of these things.
My kids have come up with allsorts, pan sexual (no idea what that is), someone in school is openly bisexual and has have Bfs and Gfs .. I dont think i know Bisexual as a word until i was in my late 30s I must lead a sheltered life.
My youngest is now in the comp or high school as the americanism has crept over here and she said two 11 year old boys in her class as boyfriends and openly hold hands and someone else she knows also 11 has declared herself bisexual and asked what she is to which she returned being 11 and innocent "I'm just normal" and thats the stark honest truth of an 11 year old brought up with an open mind but not having all this "stuff" and "labels" thrust into her life at such an early stage in growing up.
Had I known all this growing up would my crossdressing have made me think omg I'm a woman or OMG does me dressing up mean i'm gay (which is what Esme asked me) or Bisexual (shes not asked that)
Listen - I played Rugby, Football and Cricket and loved sport - I crossdressed as I loved and still love women.. men do and have never done anything for me sexually but women wow ye I like women.
I've never considered i want to live my life as a woman fully and I've never fancied men but we didn't have all this pressure to know all these terms at such young ages.
I've no idea why kids need to know some of this from infants and primary school age and i disagree with it being taught by teachers without the control of parenting as us parent don't know half of it ourselves,, pansexual and metro sexual etc WTF??