‘From He to She in First Grade’ Summary & Response
In Laurie Frankel's story, she observes the journey her first grader takes as a transitioning male to female, at home and in school; and she accepts her child throughout. Her daughter communicates that she wants to wear feminine clothing and instead of ignoring her feelings and moving on, her parents accept her decision and tell her that as long as she is comfortable, it doesn’t matter what she wears. Her transition starts with showing her parents she enjoys wearing a sparkly green dress that was part of a puppet theater present gifted to her. She doesn’t take the dress off and starts to wear other stereotypical female things such as: hair clips, heels, skirts and dresses. Although accepting,
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This emphasizes that she accepts her daughter any way she wants to be, and I believe that by showing this in her writing she relates to other people that have concerns or anxiety because of change, that have had to go through similar situations, and have realized that change isn’t all bad. I myself have trans, gay, nonbinary, asexual, etc. friends, so I know it can be difficult to be accepted, especially by people that would love nothing more than to waste their own time treating ‘anyone different’ like …show more content…
There were fights and slurs thrown on the internet, in videos and threats made to people who had the “gay look”. Even I got bullied for dressing and acting how I do, and being friends with non-hetero individuals, because the religious and rich refused to acknowledge change. Those who ignored it, were too scared to accept it was already happening. There was tension at first, and questions, so many questions. Just like the questions rattling around in Frankel's brain. But, after the LGBTQ+ movement became everyday life, people stopped caring as much. Sure, there are many that refuse to change their ways, but a lot more just stopped and realized that it didn’t really matter anymore and that it was more of an inconvenience to go out of their way to start an issue, than it was to just shut up. We stopped having to fight back so much. Frankel stopped having to fight back