Preventing Gender Dysphoria Through Egalitarian Parenting

Conservative parents, often horrified by increasingly egalitarian changes to Western culture, insist that boys and girls should be raised in at least somewhat different ways.  Since childhood is an optimal time for introspection and identification of one's natural talents and traits, kids who are conditioned to behave as traditionalist adults expect, regardless of their actual natures, can end up questioning whether or not they are even boys or girls to begin with.  The key to fighting gender dysphoria is not prescribing the use of certain toys or segregating the two genders while children are young, though.  It is affirming that individuality is not determined by the genitalia one is born with.

If a person sees that he or she does not have the abilities, desires, and psychological traits that the societal constructs of gender roles dictate, it is far more likely that the person in question, given the current climate, might believe the myth that gender itself is a social construct.  Of course, it is only gender roles that are constructs, but many conservatives and liberals alike equate one's gender, which only pertains to the body and is thus synonymous with one's sex, with one's personal mental characteristics.  Egalitarian parenting can thwart acceptance of this myth.  However, egalitarian parenting should not be implemented simply for this pragmatic outcome; it is the only rational way to approach parenting boys and girls.

Furthermore, when children think that they must, for example, play with certain toys, they suppress individuality in ways that might hinder their understanding of themselves, even in ways that go beyond the stunted self-discovery encouraged by contrived gender roles.  Yes, they are more likely to struggle with gender dysphoria if they recognize that they do not fit into gender-based societal expectations, despite gender being nothing but a category for the physical body, but they are also less likely to explore their own individuality in general.  Conservative nonsense about gender traits is deeply damaging on multiple levels.

All children should be encouraged to play with toys, befriend the opposite gender, and engage in miscellaneous activities of their choice without taking the fallacies of conservative ideas into consideration.  There is no such thing as a masculine or feminine toy or behavior; there are only toys and behaviors that some people arbitrarily perceive to be masculine or feminine based upon subjective or cultural factors.  Expecting a child to play only with the toys that ignorant adults assign to his or her gender is an affront to the truths of individualism.  Ironically, gender dysohoria is what some advocates of things like gender-specific toys want to avoid!

Being male or female does not obligate anyone to behave in a certain way, including when it comes to playing with toys or making various other lifestyle choices at any age.  Accepting that there are only two genders (with the occasional intersex person being outside of the biological norm) is greatly facilitated when people are not pressured to live out gender stereotypes.  Similarly, accepting one's own gender is simplified once gender roles are recognized as fallacious, non-obligatory traditions.  If a person realizes that he or she is free to live for God in accordance with their individuality, not in accordance with social constructs, they can avoid the difficulties of gender dysphoria altogether.