Quickly
Socially
Trending
Crypto
Boys like blue and girls like pink. Boys play with superheroes and girls play with barbie. This is what we have been taught since childhood by the society. And till date impacts how we conduct ourselves as adults. Even if children want to express themselves against the gender-stereotypes, they are ridiculed. One such incident occurred with a nine-year-old boy from Delhi who was called ‘chakka’ by his family members on wearing pink lipstick. But if a section of family ridiculed him, he gained support from his cousins.
On a Twitter thread this morning, 22-year-old Diksha Bijlani, Legislative Assistant to Member of Parliament, shared the story of her cousin ‘Little Cuz’. Bijlani’s cousin is constant butt of jokes for his family members and neighbours because he loves wearing lipstick, nail paint and learning home science. Below we share with you the thread of the incident happened with Little Cuz.
Here’s how it starts:
My cousin, 9, is the most “effeminate” in the house. Let’s call him Little Cuz. Loves to paint nails, wear lipcolour, learn home science! But in this stereotypical alpha male-centric household he’s often the pivot of jokes. Today he applied lipcolour & got called a “chakka” (1/n) pic.twitter.com/mZ2FplPNyP
— Diksha Bijlani (@BijlaniDiksha) June 18, 2018
"I woke up in the morning and my aunt was getting ready to go somewhere," Diksha told Metro.co.uk. "She had this mini lipstick that she was discarding but he saw it and asked for it, so she gifted it to him! He quickly applied it but then someone in the room said, 'Are you trying to be a chakka (transgender)'." The little boy who was exploring his feminine side was unnecessarily tagged with a term 'chakka'. Enough to make him hide under the bed.
She continues:
So he hid behind the curtain & under the bed, shielding his lipcoloured face from the camera & from his mom. Somehow it is always the moms that feel most “embarassed” with their masculine, hardy sons trying makeup. Or anything feminine. (2/n)
— Diksha Bijlani (@BijlaniDiksha) June 18, 2018
Diksha took it upon herself and gathered her cousins to set an example for Little Cuz and did something extraordinary for him...
In such a house it takes constant work as elder cousins to undo the conditioned gender binary,normalise gender neutral acts which are deemed feminine. So we all wore lip color to make him comfortable & accepted. He felt a specially empowered when he saw my brother wearing it(3/n) pic.twitter.com/aixXrfMpbw
— Diksha Bijlani (@BijlaniDiksha) June 18, 2018
Seeing his cousins sporting lipstick and clicking pictures, Little Cuz gathered the courage to come out of the hiding and started posing too.
My brother gave up any toxic masculinity & complied to influence Little Cuz. Little Cuz came out & smiled comfortable in his skin.
So important to realise that we owe the responsibility of giving every younger kid a safe space to embrace his place within the gender spectrum(4/n) pic.twitter.com/d9ffsJbsTa
— Diksha Bijlani (@BijlaniDiksha) June 18, 2018
Diksha told Metro.co.uk that homophobia and transphobia are becoming a 'trickle-down issue - from older generations to the younger ones'. "If we do not become a door between this flow of ideas and conditioning, it will certainly become a bigger issue than it already is. The liberal kids from patriarchal households, apart from raging their activism outside, need to also look inwards to prevent this trickle down from happening to their cousins who are in their formative years."
Diksha's inspiring thread and support for her little cousin garnered a lot of praise on Twitter and people appreciated her gesture. Kudos to Little Cuz's spirit and may his family learn from his cousins. We wish everyone has some or the other support in their respective families, just like Diksha.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 20, 2018 11:12 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Google Trends
