Let Them Be Wildflowers: How Gender Policing, Not Trans Kids, Harms Our Children

By Gemma Flora Ortwerth

Children are not born confined to the rigid architecture of “boy” or “girl.” These categories are not intrinsic truths—they are social constructs. And they are enforced, not gently suggested. From the moment a baby is swaddled in blue or pink, society begins the process of boxing them in. But these boxes don’t protect our children. They harm them. As a trans woman who survived those suffocating walls, I can tell you firsthand: it is not transgender or gender nonconforming children who are a threat to childhood innocence—it’s the gender essentialism society clings to with white-knuckled fervor.

The Myth of Gender Constancy

Decades of psychological research debunk the myth that children are too young to understand their gender. In fact, they understand it more authentically than many adults are willing to admit. A groundbreaking study by Olson, Key, and Eaton (2015) found that transgender children as young as five consistently identified with their affirmed gender—not as a phase or confusion, but as a stable, persistent identity. Fast and Olson (2018) expanded on this, demonstrating that even preschool-aged trans children have a clear understanding of their gender that is not contingent on the sex they were assigned at birth.

Gülgöz et al. (2019) reinforced these findings, showing that trans and cis kids alike form coherent gender identities in similar ways. In other words, being transgender isn’t an aberration—it’s a variation within the broad spectrum of human experience.

When Gender Policing Begins

If children are naturally flexible in their understanding of gender, then what closes that door? Society does. Adults do. Parents. Schools. Media. Every force around a child either nurtures that freedom or violently curtails it.

Research from Halim et al. (2014) shows that gender nonconforming behaviors are often punished early, especially by parents who cling to traditional gender roles. Children drawn to clothes, colors, or toys labeled “wrong” for their assigned sex face shame, discipline, or worse. I lived this. I remember reaching for soft things, pink things, things that felt like home—and being met with mockery, disgust, or cold silence.

Kane (2006) outlined how adults, especially fathers, harshly police gender expression, reinforcing hegemonic masculinity and punishing divergence. This is not love. This is indoctrination. And the message it sends is clear: to be loved, you must be legible. And legibility means conformity.

The Schemas That Shape Us

Gender Schema Theory (Bem, 1983) offers an explanation: we absorb gendered expectations like osmosis. Through TV shows, classroom behaviors, clothing aisles, and playground dynamics, we learn what is expected of us—not because it feels right, but because it is required. Martin and Ruble (2004) further argue that children actively look for gender cues to fit in and avoid punishment. They learn to mask before they can spell their own names.

These pressures are not neutral. They’re coercive. They’re violent in their quiet omnipresence. The soft policing of “boys don’t cry” or “that’s not ladylike” calcifies into full-blown gender essentialism—what Rhodes, Leslie, and Tworek (2012) call “social essentialist beliefs.” These aren’t natural—they’re taught. Children are not born believing that gender is destiny. We teach them that lie to justify our fear of difference.

Trans Kids Aren’t the Threat—You Are

While politicians grandstand about protecting children from “gender ideology,” the real danger is the ideology already in place: cisnormativity, patriarchal gender roles, and a binary so brittle it shatters under the weight of authentic human experience. The current anti-trans moral panic doesn’t come from a place of child protection—it comes from the authoritarian desire to control bodies, expression, and futures. It is fascistic in its roots and violent in its impact.

Trans and gender-expansive youth are not confused. They are not broken. They are not contagions. What they are is honest in a world that demands dishonesty as the price of safety. They are thriving when affirmed, as multiple studies show (e.g., Durwood et al., 2017), with rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality dramatically reduced when they are supported and allowed to live authentically.

Freedom Is the Birthright of Every Child

To nurture a child’s full humanity, we must abolish the binary cages we’ve mistaken for safety. We must affirm that expression is not dangerous, that softness is not weakness, and that no one’s identity threatens another’s freedom—except those trying to take it away.

Let children be wildflowers. Let them grow towards whatever sun calls to them, in whatever shape they bloom. The world is wide enough for their colors.

And if you truly care about protecting children, stop trying to erase the ones already here.

Sources:

Olson, K. R., Key, A. C., & Eaton, N. R. (2015). Gender cognition in transgender children. Psychological Science, 26(4), 467–474.

Fast, A. A., & Olson, K. R. (2018). Gender development in transgender preschool children. Child Development, 89(2), 620–637.

Gülgöz, S., Gomez, J., & Olson, K. R. (2019). Gender identity and expression in children: Development, research, and implications. Annual Review of Developmental Psychology, 1, 85–108.

Halim, M. L. D., Ruble, D. N., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. S. (2014). Four-year-olds’ beliefs about gender stability and stereotypes: The role of environmental factors. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 126, 68–79.

Kane, E. W. (2006). “No Way My Boys Are Going to Be Like That!” Parents’ Responses to Children’s Gender Nonconformity. Gender & Society, 20(2), 149–176.

Bem, S. L. (1983). Gender schema theory and its implications for child development: Raising gender-aschematic children in a gender-schematic society. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 8(4), 598–616.

Martin, C. L., & Ruble, D. N. (2004). Children’s search for gender cues: Cognitive perspectives on gender development. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13(2), 67–70.

Rhodes, M., Leslie, S.-J., & Tworek, C. M. (2012). Cultural transmission of social essentialism. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(34), 13526–13531.

Durwood, L., McLaughlin, K. A., & Olson, K. R. (2017). Mental health and self-worth in socially transitioned transgender youth. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 56(2), 116–123.