Leah Clifford

Playing Dress-Up: The History of Gender Deviance in Children

Children understand gender in a particularly unique way, as they by and large experience a process of socialization into a particular gender, a socialization that typically aligns with their gender expression. But what occurs when they begin to interrogate this socialization, and investigate alternative forms of self-expression? It is far from uncommon to hear hushed whispers about how a young boy may be homosexual because he is intrigued by the color pink, or see a raised eyebrow at a girl more comfortable in basketball shorts than she is a skirt. In our contemporary time period, at which awareness of homosexuality and transgenderism is heightened, these children become the object of greater political fears, fears informed by the (incorrect) ideology that transgenderism is a new phenomenon and sometimes that it is a product of a new and more liberated dialogue around gender. However, variant forms of gender expression have manifested in children for an extremely long time– the issue primarily arises in what we look to when cataloging the history of the gender binary.

The history of gender deviance in children pushes us to interrogate who and what we look to as we map the genesis of a social entity, especially in tracking the history of a marginalized group. Choosing to use the language of “gender deviance” as opposed to “transgenderism” divests from a binary understanding of this history, as alternative forms of gender expression have existed for far longer than “transgender” has been in our vernacular (coined itself in the 1980s, predated by “transsexual” in the 1950s, and then prior to that, “transvestite” in 1910 (1)). Recounting this history necessitates recounting how gender itself has evolved, to the extent that historical representations of gender may be unrecognizable to us today. Within this, it is also important to delineate who has been responsible for setting the expectations of gender throughout history, and the mechanisms through which it is enforced. How have methods of disciplining gender variance changed, in both who and what is disciplined?

The history will evidence that gender deviance in children has existed long before it was medicalized, and is distinctly connected to how we have conceptualized gender in the past. From observing the history of alternative forms of gender expression, it becomes clear that gender is not an immutable concept, and can and will continue to evolve over time.

The Colonial Period - Victorian Era

In the colonial period, gender deviance in children was harder to identify due to the homogeneous and agendered nature in which children were approached in infancy. Up until the age of seven, young boys and girls alike wore what would currently be considered “feminine” wear, commonly involving long dresses or gowns, and boys also frequently wore long curls, allowing children a lot of androgyny in their younger years. This was due to a philosophy around clothing that centered more around function as opposed to expression or function; long gowns made changing diapers more accessible without undressing a child, and were assumed to offer protection from the cold (2). Clothing choices were motivated by function as opposed to what was considered fashionable. This was not a wholly unintentional choice. Some opinions at the time completely repudiated the idea of gendered fashion for children: “The most conspicuous evil here is in the premature and unnatural differentiation in sex in the dress of little children ... a little child should never be forced to think of this distinction. It does not exist in the child's consciousness. It is in no way called for in natural activities, but is forced into a vivid prominence by our attitude,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote for Harper’s Bazaar in 1910 (3).

Young Boy With Whip, unknown artist, circa 1840

At the time, it was less important to distinguish between boys and girls and more significant to distinguish between children and adults. Through the Victorian era, children were conceptualized as “little adults,” as well as inherently morally corrupt, bound to eternal damnation. Consequently, philosophies on parenting at this time were structured around shaping them into rule-abiding grownups and stifling their immoral nature, divesting focus from enforcing distinct gender identities until later in life (4). While there were absolutely instances of gender deviance in adults prior to the 20th century, it was much less apparent in very young children if it existed due to the nature of how they dressed, as well as a larger social structure that often failed at identifying or validating gender trouble.

1760 Painting by Joseph Bader called "Portrait of Two Children."

Image of boy before and after breeching, 1903-1905.

LEFT, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-BELLCM-16664; RIGHT, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/ LC-DIG-BELLCM-09834

Boys were, around the age of 7 (although age was much less cataloged at this time than it is now), inaugurated into adulthood through a process called “breeching,” in which a boy started wearing pants as opposed to skirts or dresses (5). Gendered clothing was conflated with growing up, again demonstrating that the values of this era fell more in line with aging as opposed to gender.

Again, although it is difficult to find clear examples of gender variance in children in the colonial period, it is necessary to evaluate the full scope of this history. Through a process of naturalizing some paradigms of gender and othering others, those indigenous to the Americas had their histories and constructions of gender suppressed and excluded from the narrative. These are only beginning to be considered now, as the term “two spirit” has emerged in recent decades to refer to contemporary and historic genders and sexualities that were erased through colonialism, although “not all First Nations’ communities connect diverse gender and sexuality, nor do they have names that articulate these connections or this divergence from the colonial binary.”(6) By virtue of their exclusion from the Western conceptualization of gender at the time, all indigenous people (which encompasses children) would likely have been considered gender variant. This applies to enslaved people as well: they were given clothing by their slaveowners, which was typically produced en masse, and individual forms of expression could only be created within extremely limited parameters (7). Thus, enslaved children did not have access to alternative forms of gender expression, and had their gender defined to them as inherently deviant (African American girls and boys were frequently forced into sexual maturity against their will, for instance).

Excerpt from a poem published by an indentured servant around 1680.

Revel, James. The Poor Unhappy Transported Felon’s Sorrowful Account of His Fourteen Years

Transportation, at Virginia, in America.[ca. 1800]. Via “Documenting the American South,” UNC Library, 2004. 1-8

Newspaper advertisement for runaway slaves," Maryland Gazette, August 20, 1761, 2.

The antebellum and Victorian eras gave rise to a new form of alternative gender expression: the tomboy. The term “tomboy” was initially defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “rude, boisterous or forward boy” in 1533 (8). Throughout the remainder of the 14th century, the word shifted to mean what it most primarily means today: “a girl who behaves like a spirited or boisterous boy; a wild romping girl.” (9) However, this expression did not reach a point of colloquialization within the United States until the 19th century, which witnessed the popularization of the tomboy as a literary trope (10). Female protagonists like that of Jo March in Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel Little Women, Katy Carr in Susan Coolidge’s What Katy Did, and Gypsy Brenton of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps’ Gypsy Brenton ushered the tomboy into the mainstream (11). Charlotte Perkins Gilman, in 1898, weighed in: "The most normal girl is the `tom-boy'-whose numbers increase among us in these wiser days,-a healthy young creature, who is human through and through; not feminine till it is time to be." (12)

The tomboy experienced a different emergence in children’s literature– it was frequently pejorative, as opposed to empowering. The 1859 story “The Tom-Boy Who Was Changed Into a Real Boy” tells of a young girl who socialized with boys, wasn’t adverse to being rowdy, and did a poor job of sewing. The story concludes with her sex being changed, after which a sailor is bribed to take her off to sea somewhere undisclosed, and the line “Where, for anything I know, / This said Tomboy may be now; / And a caution it may prove to you and me, me, me!” (13)

“The Tom-Boy who was changed into a real boy” McGloughlin Bros. 1859 Image Courtesy of American Antiquarian Society.

From Freaks and Frolics of Little Girls and Boys by Josephine Pollard (New York: McLoughlin Bros, 1888)

How did the rhetoric around tomboys change from one that depicted this form of gender expression as dangerous and undesirable to one that conflated tomboyism with strength and liberated womanhood? The 1840s and 1850s precipitated a social rearrangement from one that venerated the demure, well-mannered girl, to one that now celebrated the uninhibited and rambunctious young woman. It is widely agreed that this social movement was catalyzed by anxieties about the health of young women, particularly white, upper-class young women. Michelle Ann Abate, writer of Tomboys: A Literary and Cultural History, points out that it is no coincidence that these anxieties materialized in tandem with the emancipation of slaves in the United States, as well as the population of white people being in decline (14). As an effort to preserve the health and success of a dominating white race, tomboyism was accepted, alternative forms of gendered play and conduct used as a means of health.

The tomboy possesses a unique spot in the history of gender deviance in children in that it is one of the very rare instances in which variant expressions of gender have not only been tolerated, but encouraged. This provides a clear historical example of how alternative gender practice both has a long standing history and that a prejudiced response to said practice is not inevitable. In an unprecedented twist, subversion of the gender binary has actually been used to maintain power. This also further elucidates that gender is by no means a fixed concept, and can and has been molded to reinforce a dominant axis of power. The use of children to cultivate a power hierarchy is by no means exclusive to this particular era– the abstract “child” is consistently used as a political tool to reinforce positions of authority, which is why children’s history operates as an extremely valuable historical resource.

Clip of Jo March in the 2019 movie adaptation of Little Women, depicted arguing confidently with her husband)

20th Century

The beginning of the 20th century marked a new era of medicalization and pathologizing of gender variance in children, informed by the burgeoning of child psychology as a new theoretical framework and the advancement of medicine. The early 20th century (specifically the years 1900-1930) contained the investigation of what is now understood as intersexism within children: specifically, children born with sex characteristics that include both those of male and female anatomy. This, of course, construes gender deviance through a biological structure, as opposed to a theoretical one; as Jules Gill-Peterson, American transgender historian and writer of Histories of the Transgender Child, puts it, “most trans childhoods, like much of trans life in the era before the term “transsexuality,” remain implicit.” (15) Intersex children, on the other hand, were subject to an excess of medical scrutiny, oftentimes against their own will. Hugh Hampton Young, a surgeon at Johns Hopkins, was an individual on the front lines of medically addressing intersexism in children. He initially transitioned intersex children through experimental surgeries, procedures that at times had recovery processes that were fatal (16). Within his procedures, he would frequently decide what gender a young child should be, and initially he utilized a “gonadocentric” model that defined the gender of a patient by whatever gonads they possessed (meaning, testes or ovaries), regardless of however the child expresses or identified (17).

Simultaneously, non-biological expressions of gender dysphoria were pathologized– from the 1910s to the 1940s, it was often met with medical diagnoses such as “sexual perversion.” “sexual inversion” and “homosexuality” (17). A lack of knowledge about and representation of transgenderism or gender variance allowed doctors to interpret gender confusion in children as sexual confusion, tossing it under the umbrella of homosexuality. There are many reports of individuals seeking out sex change operations under the guise of something else: take, for instance, a trans man who had come to the Institute hoping to investigate a breast abscess as well as if he was intersex. He had left school in his childhood in the 1930s due to the discomfort of being required to wear women’s clothing, and worked at his family’s lumber company dressing as a man ever since. The breast abscess, as was explained by a psychologist, had been thought to potentially “provide an acceptable surgical rationale for breast amputation.” Clearly aware of the skepticism surrounding transness in the medical field, this man did not seek out medical transition until later in life and, as a child, validated his gender identity by wearing male clothing. (18) His story illustrates the reality of many gender-nonconforming children in the early 1900s– unequipped with the language to describe their discomfort and the recognition of the medical world, they expressed their gender in ways they could control, such as play and dress.

The post-war era marked the inception of a new dialogue around gender deviance. The term “transsexual” was coined in 1949 by David Oliver Cauldwell, a shift from the prior language of “transvestite.” (19) A change in the language reflects that American society was beginning to recognize transgenderism as a tangible reality, and subsequently invest in it as an issue to be addressed. Around this period as well, the United States witnessed its first individual widely known to have undergone sex reassignment surgery: Christine Jorgensen. A World War II veteran, she flew overseas to Denmark in 1950 to begin her surgical transition into womanhood, where she received a penectomy. Upon her return to the States in 1952, she was inundated with media attention, catalyzed by a New York Daily news article titled “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty.”

Christine Jorgensen’s life ignited the introduction of transness into the American psyche, and, in the perspectives of some historians, laid the foundation for the coming dialogues within many LGBT-rights and feminist circles that would follow in the coming decades (20).

NY Daily News front page featuring an article about Christine Jorgensen titled, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty.” (New York Daily News)

Jorgensen in a crowd of reporters. Art Edger/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images

The 1960s and 1970s are commonly canonized as a time of political upheaval, in which many social issues concerning race, sexuality, and gender were pushed into the limelight. In 1969, the Stonewall uprising occurred in response to a police raid of a gay bar in New York City, and was followed by the inception of the Gay Liberation Front, a queer liberation group that organized in New York throughout the 1970s (21) This overturning of old ways of thinking extended to media for children: Free to Be… You and Me was a popular illustrated book, accompanied by an album, created at this time aimed at subverting gender stereotypes targeted at children during this time. A song featured on the album called “Housework” retaliates against stereotyping domestic work with the lyrics: “Nobody smiles doing housework but those ladies you see on TV/ Your mommy hates housework/ Your daddy hates housework/…Little boys, little girls, when you're big husbands and wives/ … Make sure, when there's housework to do/ That you do it together.” (22) A children’s book titled William’s Doll was also published in 1972, and told the story of a young boy named William who wanted a baby doll in order to practice being a father and caring for a baby. Despite the pleadings of his brother and father, who try to steer him towards traditionally masculine toys, such as trucks and sports equipment, William is insistent on getting this doll, and eventually finds acceptance from his family (23). New representation regarding gender nonconformity in children allowed a more fluid understanding of childhood gender expression, and the popularity of Free To Be… You and Me and William’s Doll allowed children to identify with popular media that recognized gender variance.

In the 1980s, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III) included Gender Identity Disorder of Childhood (GIDC) and Transsexualism, signifying a new discourse and knowledge of gender dysphoria as a viable issue faced by adolescents. The revised DSM-III-R, published in 1987, added a diagnosis of “Gender Identity Disorder of Adolescence and Adulthood, nontranssexual type.” (24) The latter diagnosis indicates a new and more nuanced understanding of childhood gender variance in the psychiatric field, which is confusions of gender identity that don’t inherently indicate transgenderism. Through the end of the 20th century, gender dysphoria and confusion in children became a widely recognized social issue, as opposed to existing in the margins of American society.

"William's Doll" from Free to Be... You and Me, a song inspired by the children's book about a young boy who wants a baby doll.

Pages from William's Doll.

Poster used by the Gay Liberation Front in the 1970s.

21st Century

Contemporarily, gender deviance and nonconformity in children is still a greatly polarizing issue, but it is far more recognized than it has ever been historically. Although genders falling outside of the man/woman binary are yet to be recognized on a federal level, many states such as Oregon and California have implemented the ability for individuals to classify themselves as nonbinary on legal documents (25) Newly, many parents find themselves navigating raising children in a world in which the understanding of gender is more complicated, and for many children, identifying as transgender or genderqueer is a very real possibility, as they now have the language to do so. Some parents even advocate for raising children gender neutral, and allowing them to decide their own identity later on, in a movement called “gender creative parenting.” (26) There is also newly a plethora of articles and books purveying advice to parents of gender non-conforming children, many advocating parenting that accepts alternative forms of gender expression with open arms. “A person's gender is no more and no less than a creative individual achievement,” one child psychologist wrote in 2011. “I would like to offer a new lens, one that casts gender nonconformity in a positive light, in order not to squelch but to facilitate it. It is also a lens that can see clearly the vibrant polyglot of gender-creative children.” (27)

2011 book providing parents advice on how to raise and accept gender deviant children.

While this new political spotlight is a sign of progress, it also has made transgender and gender deviant children victims of a tidal wave of new anti-trans policies championed by the Republican party. As history has reflected time and time again, children are disproportionately the subjects of political weaponization, and rhetoric that involves “protecting the children” from interacting with and experiencing gender and sexual deviance is ubiquitous. 537 anti-trans bills have been proposed across the United States in 2023, 64 of which have already been passed (28). By and large, these bills are targeted towards minors seeking gender-affirming care and treatment. SB1001, passed in April, permits teachers and guardians in Arizona to override a student’s preferred pronouns if “doing so is contrary to the employee's or independent contractor's religious or moral convictions,” or if they do not have “written permission from the student's parent.” (29) SB 140, passed in Georgia in March, prohibited certain surgical procedures from being performed on minors in healthcare facilities (30).

These policies drastically harm all trans children, but acutely affect trans and gender nonconforming children in vulnerable positions– in rural areas and in low-income areas (and often both). While it is to be celebrated that new ideologies around gender are coming to the fore, it is also to be stipulated that spaces that are more welcoming to gender deviance are not always accessible to all.

Considering that the term “transgender” and its widespread recognition– and on some level acceptance– is a relatively contemporary phenomenon, it is a reasonable conclusion that transgenderism and by extension, gender deviance is new and culturally created. However, this is applicable only when applying a contemporary conception of gender onto the past. When observing the history of gender variance in children, it becomes apparent that children have for a very long time found ways to rebel against the gender expectations foisted upon them– it is just that punitive social responses, paired with long-employed tactics of marginalization, obfuscate their history and thus allow the modern gender-variant child (transgender or not) to be a political weapon, a theoretical vehicle of fear-mongering more than a wide and diverse group of individuals.

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About the Author

Leah hails from Brooklyn, New York, where she spent a lot of time getting chastised by her elementary school teachers for being a chatterbox, writing short stories, and singing in a chorus. She has two sisters, one that is 18 and one that is 12. Leah is a sophomore psychology major and women’s studies minor at Boston University, and hopes to be a therapist one day. She loves listening to music, writing, and thinking about gender. She also tends to fall down a lot of music history rabbit holes on Wikipedia.

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