Trans Baby?

Jeremy is one amazing boy. Emphasis on boy. As a feminist, a lesbian who has spent perhaps far too much of her life thinking about gender differences among people, motherhood is teaching me that gender-based behavior may be more biologically driven than I would have believed. But, if Jeremy's flat head has more to do with his "male milk coma" than anything else, and if his belated babbling is just typical boy stuff, then so might be his fascination with the stairs, the irrigation system, and the dogs' tails. Truly, social construct can't explain certain predilections of babies, especially one boy raised by two moms? Can it? Sometimes Barb & I observe with an air of pride that "he just doesn't seem interested in toy cars and trucks," as if his failure to be impressed by wheeled vehicles proves we have been good liberal moms. But any loftiness is deflated by the fact that he LOVES real tires and wheels. Countless are the hours Jeremy spends examining, in painstaking detail, the spokes of bicycle wheels, the tires of cars and trucks and bikes, and the wheels of any real-life machines. He is beyond mere toys. Yeah, that's my boy!

The truth is, I love the way Jeremy expresses his unique boyness. I love how he is both energetic and contemplative, how he drinks in the scent of flowers as well as tire treads, how he is equally enchanted by the percussive tremors from drums as he is by the sweet notes of a flute, how he carries himself happily in his plaid shirts and his cargo pants, and how he takes equal pleasure in kissing his blocks and his dolls. When I look at him, I see nothing but the cute boy that he is and the confident and compassionate man that he will be come.

So imagine my suprise when, over the past week, a couple of different people have expressed confusion over Jeremy's gender! Huh? Seriously! Like yesterday, when he is dressed in navy blue from head to toe, and we met a lovely young woman who had a fluffy Akita puppy that Jeremy found fun. After remarking what a beautiful baby we have, she asked haltingly, "How old is ... your baby?" Clearly mindful of not offending us through the errant use of the wrong pronoun, but not sure which pronoun was right. Others have demonstrated similar hesitance. I tell you, I don't get it. I look at Jeremy and he is nothing but boy. At least in my eyes ... eyes which would as a philosophical matter prefer not to see gender so clearly. And others would see nothing but boy if they knew how happy he gets when he latches onto his penis. But at any rate I try looking at him through the lens of those who are meeting him for the first time to see if I can discern what is blurred. And the only thing that I see that might lend to the confusion are his luscious curly locks. Is that it? Really?

Whatever it is, the whole gender issue is confounding to me. And I imagine that being Jeremy's mom means that this is just the start of a lifetime of challenging experiences stemming from his boyness.