ABSTRACT
Children's books reveal how adults—writers and purchasers—understand and inculcate ideas about gender. This chapter traces the shifting representation of feminine boys from the 1970s to the 2010s and reveals the centrality of the transgender child to the development of gender identity ideology. With the formation of the terms gender role, gender expression and gender identity in the 1950s and 1960s, gender-non-conforming boys were the first group to attract academic attention. From the 1970s, feminists criticised the linking of biological sex and gender expression to call for non-sexist children’s books. Since 2008, children’s books have increasingly presented gender identity ideology, earlier texts have been reread by academic critics and classroom teaching has been shaped by gender-identity worksheets. Over this period, US models of gender have influenced UK culture, reshaping the way childhood is understood.
The feminist assault on gender stereotypes appears in picture books in the 1970s with titles for young children such as William’s Doll (1972) and Oliver Button Is a Sissy ( 1979). The 1989 Bill’s New Frock (1989) shows how gender roles limit and constrain the individual. And the 2008 The Boy in a Dressis a story about gender expression: gender is a series of active choices which ‘express’ inner meanings. It can also be read in terms of sexual identity.
The first picture books based on gender identity appear in 2008 with 10,000 Dresses and the 2014 title I Am Jazz. Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl? (2015) deploys an attack on gender stereotypes in the service of gender identity, pointing the reader to support groups for transgender children. For young children, Julian is a Mermaid (2018) uses images associated with transgender children to point the reader towards a gender identity reading. For 8- to 10-year-olds, George (2015) describes a boy who longs to play a female part in a class play. In this book, gender is performative (following Judith Butler’s 1990 Gender Trouble) and pronouns reflect gender identity rather than biological sex.
