See John

Much has already been written about Shiloh Jolie-Pitt. Which is crazy, because, you know, Shiloh is 8 years old. Most of it has to do with how Brad and Angelina’s fourth child dresses. I’ve been guilty, too, five years ago when the world realized the then 3-year-old was a bon fide tomboy. Over the years more has been said. It has been reported by The Telegraph that Shiloh prefers to be called “John.” Which is, of course, perfectly fine. So I’ll use John. I do not know for certain what gender pronoun John prefers at this point, so I’ll leave that to him or her to decide in the future.

I think mostly what all the attention on John Jolie-Pitt reminds us how fascinated and frightened we are by the otherness can exist in gender. The binary of man and woman can be so blinding that some react primally to anything that doesn’t fit into the rigid this or that. I have to say most of the coverage of little John recently has been pretty good. I haven’t seen too many people with torches crucifying the Jolie-Pitt family for letting John be John. Though, granted, I haven’t visited any torch stores recently, so I don’t know all the scuttlebutt around those angry cash registers.

Mostly what I want to say is how proud, and a tiny bit jealous, I am at how much John gets to be John. While I have always identified as female, I yearned to wear what the boys did while growing up. I hated all dresses and skirts and frills. Lace made me itch and want to die. My parents were OK, but there were always those special occasions where I had to wear a dress. I hated those special occasions. So it’s lovely to see what when John goes out on (albeit much more glamorous) special occasions – like the red carpet for mama Jolie’s new movie – John gets to wear what John wants. Let people be people, it seems so simple. And on this 8 years old, it looks fantastic.