Enforcing The Gender Binary Is Killing Our Kids, Too

In 2010 when I wrote this post about the murder of 3 year old Ronnie Paris by his father because he in his words 'didn't want his son to grow up as a sissy or soft'., I said at the time it was hypermasculinity that was killing our kids. 

Looks like I'm going to have to expand my thinking about that point in the wake of the murder of Britney Cosby and her partner allegedly by her own father.

Enforcing the gender binary is killing our kids.  

Whether it was Larry Cosby's disapproval of his daughter's relationship that drove him to murder her and her partner, or Jessica Dotro getting 25 years to life for killing her 4 year old son because she thought he would be gay, it's happening far too often.  

If they are not being killed by their misguided parents, they are taking their lives by their own hands as they try to navigate a world hostile to them.   Sometimes those kids get so disheartened by the attempt to do so they feel they have no other option than to end their lives.

And that needs to end as well.  .  

So yes, it's past time to have a serious discussion about the gender binary and the deleterious effects of it on  our kids.