Genderbread Person 101

 For this assignment, I thought it would be fantastic to teach my mother about the Genderbread Person. To start off this conversation, I want to make everyone aware that I recently had to explain to my mom what transgender means while we were at Buffalo Wild Wings and one of the TV's had the quiz things and it said "transgendered" and I went off about language, ect... We continued this conversation on the ride home and we talked about placing male pronouns onto anything and everything along with other WGST issues that we have talked about in various classes.

                                 

So to try to continue this conversation with my mom and try to help her understand more about my life and my friends, I decided to explain the Genderbread Person to her. As I went down the different parts of the Genderbread Person, she seemed to understand everything that I was saying. Giving nods and "mmhmms" and "okays" made me feel like she was picking up what I was throwing down. I often would use life examples to try and help her along: "Like how [my friend] Patrick is asexual but panromatic. So that means they may not feel sexual attraction but they feel romantic attraction to anyone." and my mom understood and would re-iterate back to me "Because these separate boxes may not influence the others" and I would confirm that, indeed, one part of their identity does not finalize another part of their identity.

After everything was done and said, I asked if there were any questions. She said no but then continued to say "I just don't see why this is so important." I went on to say how maybe in the workplace, she might get someone who appears feminine and you may automatically accept that they use she/her pronouns but then that person might say they prefer to use "they/them." I also went on to say that I dress more masculine but I am cisgender and I've even had people ask me about my gender identity. That seemed to click in my mom's mind that gender identity and expression are not one in the same.

Leaving this conversation, and literally leaving the apartment, my mom just turns to me and asks at the end of all of this: "What does cisgender mean?"
And so we continued with some terms as we went to the car, once again.

I found that through all of this, it was best to help her understand these terms by using examples that she could understand. I remember using Chaz Bono as an example in Buffalo Wild Wings because I knew she grew up loving Cher. I used my friend because she knows my friend. When I used myself, it hit even closer to home. It seems to work best when it comes to older generations who may have never grew up learning this stuff, or even grew up learning that this was all wrong and bad.