Thursday, December 15, 2022

Sex (I'm a......)

It's not really a transgender theme or anything, but over last weekend there was a drop off for gifts for the two youths I selected at Bellefaire. 

In years past, you could select lists from girls or boys. This is no longer the case. 

Gender and pronouns are far more fluid than when I were these kids' age. For being a group of at-risk youths, parts of their life they have together far more than I did at that age - and possibly at my current age. 

I will fully cop to not 100% understanding some pronouns being used, but that's on me, not them / they / their.  I have a gay acquaintance who is the only 'mo in the HR department in which he leads. Everyone on his team has their pronouns in their email signature...................except him.  I have none on mine either. 

I'm a 'pushing retirement-aged, white gay male'.......that's all you need to know. 

Still, the non-gender thing for gifts kind of threw me. I had traditionally selected males / boys as the ones for whom I'd select. I did the same - kind of - this year, it was just twice as many pages with which to scroll.  I sorted by age. 

At-risk youth here can go up to 23. And it is not to say they're not deserving of things, I'm just a little out of that zone on how to buy.  As it turns out, regardless of the age and maybe because of Covid, most just want gift cards. 

Those are fine but a little meaningless. So I did look for kids who wanted certain items and hoped to fulfill their wishes. I did that too - kind of. 

I opted to buy for two - as I usually do.  One being a 12 year old who identified as non-binary, and the other, a 15 year old who was transgendered. I'm assuming by the name identifies as male now.  

The 15 year old wanted a gift card. Teenagers in general are picky and moody. Add to that the complexities of your identity, I say, give them what they want, should that make them happy. 

The 12 year old, going by the request for a gift card or Fidgets, spoked to me of a kid not just non-binary, but on the autism spectrum.  The fidgets I selected was a box of 70 sensory things that help calm people. Having an autistic nephew, I get it.  For good measure, he also got the gift card as well. 

Bellefaire does a lot of these kids, but when it comes down to it, I don't know how many successfully adjust to the outside world. Still, they set them up with the tools as much as possible. If my holiday gifts and yearly donations to the organization help, so be it. Some of it is on a grander scheme and some of it is a bit more personal. 

I do hope the kids like what they got and know that someone out there does care for their well being. Being in a place like that is tough - struggling (should they be)  with who they are makes it a little rougher, I hope even for a second, someone's thought of them makes an impact. 




Song by: Berlin

3 comments:

VoenixRising said...

You're a good human.

Old Lurker said...

And people think you have no heart. You showed them!

James Dwight Williamson said...

Big mean old Blobby has just melted my heart. Thank you!