
Of Paper Dolls and Gender Identity
When I was four or five years old, there was nothing I wanted more in the world than to play with the neighbor’s paper dolls. There was an impediment in my goal, however. Because paper dolls were considered a “girl” toy, I wasn’t permitted to touch them. That inconvenience didn’t stop me from trying. Not in the slightest.
The paper dolls in question belonged to the oldest daughter in the family across the street, a rambunctious, friendly Catholic clan that I likened to The Brady Bunch (they had five kids to the Bradys’ six, all from the same mom and dad). I remember constantly being fascinated by this family, how they had kids of different ages, sexes and interests, and yet it all seemed to work in a crazy way. Unlike the Bradys, this family had lots of toys strewn about their house, and I was an appreciative guest for their seemingly constant playtime. It was during one such visit that I caught sight of those damn paper dolls with their little cutout flouncy gowns, pantsuits and sportswear.
Since my household had three brothers (I was in the middle, like Peter), the girl toys across the street were especially alluring. At my house, we had army men, dump trucks, Hot Wheels—boring boy stuff. The paper dolls’ visual and imaginative appeal easily trounced anything the boy toys had to offer, despite the fact I didn’t have a particular interest in fashion or femininity. At that age, I was also secure in enjoying being a boy. With the paper dolls, though, the main thing that drew me in was the quick-change of outfits, the variety of styles, the idea that you could take a girl from docile prom queen to hard-edged business titan with the flick of an outfit. Why weren’t there any “boy” toys with this creative role-play possibility? Even at the tender age of four, I found this arbitrary gender-assignment of toys utterly ridiculous. Why can’t I just play with what I like?
Despite, or perhaps because of, the paper dolls’ forbidden allure, during one visit to the neighbors I was determined to get hold of them for myself. I managed to sneak off by myself to this girl’s bedroom (unlike her siblings, she got an entire room to herself) in search of the elusive plaything. Although her closet was cluttered, I rummaged through it and eventually found them — the same exact paper dolls! I only got to play with them for a few moments, however, when I turned and found a strange, stern-looking old woman (her grandmother?) in the doorway, giving me a withering glare that might have prompted a thousand Hail Marys from a more religious soul. Apparently, I had made a huge mess trying to locate my forbidden treasure, carelessly strewing papers and clothes everywhere. The old lady quickly alerted the girl’s mother, and I was sent packing—ashamed and never to accost a single paper doll again.
Although it’s likely that I was pooh-poohed for making a mess, for quite some time I interpreted the incident as punishment for wanting to play with a girl’s toy. Gradually, I learned to enjoy toys and other things for what they are, regardless of the arbitrary expectations of society in general. Further on down the line, I also came to realize how deeply this label-centric, black-or-white way of thinking holds us back in so many different arenas. Just as there’s no such things as “boy” toys or “girl” toys, gender identity is not strictly a “one way or the other” matter. Similarly, I also came to realize that sexual identity is a completely separate thing from gender identity. One can be asexual or horny-as-hell, attracted exclusively to women or men, identify as male, female or in-the-middle, or a combination of several factors. To have a mindset where things only have to be one way or another is as limiting as believing that paper dolls only belong to girls.
Forty years on, it astonishes me that we’re still talking about this. But here we are, with powerful people in the government trying mightily to write laws that reinforce this stick-straight, boy-girl paradigm as they simultaneously do more nefarious stuff with women’s reproductive rights, voter’s rights, and the hard-won freedoms of LGBT folks. Throughout this flurry of destructive rule-writing, what they don’t care to deal with is the grim truth of how things actually are. In our (global!) society, there’s little black and white—we’re mostly made up of brilliant shades of grey. And we have to be more vigilant than ever to keep it that way.
