The Low Hum: Raising a GNC Daughter in the Deep South

When my older daughter Rowan was about four, she made it clear she wasn't interested in "dressing like a girl." That was easy enough. A t-shirt and shorts from the boys' section looks and fits pretty much like a t-shirt and shorts from the girls' section when you're four.

When Rowan turned twelve, however, everything changed. Tween boys’ and men’s clothes aren't designed for a young lady's figure, and suddenly getting dressed became a project -- a frustrating, demoralizing, why-doesn't-anything-fit project. The kind that can make a kid start to believe the problem is her body rather than the clothes.

Finding clothes for my kid shouldn’t be this hard. But it matters that we keep trying, because experimenting with clothing is an important part of being a teenager.

Psychologist Erik Erikson called identity formation the central work of adolescence, the process of trying on and taking off different versions of yourself until something clicks.. For Rowan, now fifteen, who identifies as queer and gender-nonconforming (GNC), getting dressed is the most visible, physical way she practices being herself. And when the clothes don't exist - or don't fit - that practice gets interrupted.

I also have a fourteen-year-old daughter, Rivi, whose style is feminine-but-not-frilly: minimalist, clean, intentional. She has her own identity work happening through clothing, and it's real. But it's different. The world is largely set up to accommodate Rivi’s taste.

Finding clothes that fit is an obvious challenge of parenting a GNC teenager. The less obvious challenge is harder to name. I describe it as a low hum -- a constant, pre- emptive protectiveness I carry whenever Rowan and I are out in the world together. It's the awareness that there is a reasonable chance someone will say or do something that makes my child feel strange or less-than. And it's the balancing act that follows: when do I step in, and when does stepping in prevent her from developing her own way of handling a difficult situation?

That hum shapes decisions other parents don't have to think about. When Rowan gets invited somewhere, I run the usual mental checklist: will parents be home, who's driving, who else will be there? But I have additional questions: Will Rowan be around people who understand that she's a girl who dresses in masculine clothing? Will they be supportive, or will she spend the evening being stared at, joked about, or quietly excluded? Who are the supervising adults, and would they intervene? When she was younger, this often meant I'd stay nearby after dropping her off at a birthday party. Just in case.

Rowan gets misgendered constantly. She has short hair and dresses in a way that reads as male; if I didn't know her, I'd assume she was a boy, too. She's given her dad and me specific instructions: if an adult refers to her as a boy, don't correct them; if it's a kid or a teenager, gently provide the correct pronoun. She doesn't feel ready to do this herself yet, and I respect that. But even with a clear script, I still feel a small jolt every time it happens -- the reminder that my child will likely always encounter friction as she moves through the world, and the awareness that there's no version of this interaction that's entirely comfortable for anyone involved.

And then there are the moments that are just plain heart-wrenching. The ones I flat-out didn’t know how to navigate. For example:

• In third grade, a group of girls stopped Rowan at the entrance to the girls' bathroom and told her she didn't belong there and needed to use the boys’ restroom.

• A few summers ago, a day camp counselor -- after a full week of camp -- asked Rowan, “So, are you a boy or a girl? Or do you even know?” (Note: Rowan’s gender and pronouns were listed on the camp application.)

• Last year, Rowan had a close friend at school – a trans boy – whose parents refused to support his transition and forbade him from communicating with Rowan.

All of these situations sent the same devastating message: “You are wrong and unwanted.” Each one of those moments makes a small cut, and the cuts accumulate.

So, my husband and I look for spaces where Rowan can fully be herself. Her small school is one. A local organization for LGBTQ+ youth is another. And Androgynous Fox is one of them, too -- though not for the reason you might expect. Yes, the company makes clothes that fit Rowan and make her feel like herself, but they offer so much more than clothes. When Rowan and I look at the AF website, we see people who look like her and her community. She sees herself represented, and she belongs. We live in the Deep South, where there are still many places where it isn't safe for members of the LGBTQ+ community, so we don't take this representation for granted. (Maybe one day, when she’s much older 😉, Rowan will have the chance to attend Let There Be Lesbians. Until then, we have the AF website.)

When I reached out to Renee as a stranger looking for community, she invited me to contribute to this blog, writing: "The intention of this blog as a whole isn't to talk exclusively about Androgynous Fox... most posts will be about the LGBTQ+ community in general." She didn't request a brand mention, but make sure to scroll to the end of this post where I'm including an outfit collage anyway. The olive-green AF shacket is genuinely one of the most-worn pieces in Rowan's closet.

I recently started a newsletter called All of a Kind Style. If what I've shared here resonates, I'd love for you to read along. I'm looking for other parents -- and anyone, really -- who seek community around these conversations. Subscribe for free, reply to any post, and say hello.

Hope to meet you soon,

Micah