When reading my child stories I often swop round sexed pronouns, I also substitute 'the children' or 'the group' when books refer to the boys and the girls etc. I notice a lot that children's books are really sexualised & gendered, so I have to omit stuff & change due to that...
One thing I notice is that children's stories contain a lot of imposed heterosexuality, girl characters trying to kiss boys, & also stories where boys are embarrassed by girls, girls flirt with boys purposely to embarrass them, boys don't like girls & say this, segregated play...
It takes me a few seconds to omit & change this stuff, it means I have to read a bedtime story scanning ahead! But I do not want my male child to grow up thinking girls can't be friends, that girls purposely want to shame boys, that all girls will want to flirt with them or...
...make a show of not flirting with them & reject them & that because of this girls represent potential danger & therefore can't be friends & equals. Of course all of this is the building blocks of heterosexuality but when you see it in children's story books it's pretty gross!
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