Mick Hartley

From the Telegraph:

The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham, tells visitors that “gender fluidity” was a feature of 19th-century childhoods because some boys wore dresses up to the age of eight.

A leaflet produced by the museum claims the fashion trend – known as breeching – was equivalent to the modern phenomenon of gender nonconformity.

Oh god. It was the fashion then. Far from being a statement about gender fluidity, it was a practical solution to to the problem of faecal fluidity, as it would have been easier then, before the days of elastic, to pull off the breeches rather than unbutton a pair of trousers every time a nappy needed changing. Can we please stop it with this ahistorical nonsense?

The LGBTQIA+ leaflet is offered to visitors at the museum and art gallery, which opened in 1892, and contains pictures of two boys’ dresses dating to the 19th century.

“It’s often assumed that gender binaries (the classification of gender into two opposing categories: male and female) have always been strictly enforced and that gender fluidity is a recent development,” it reads.

“However, this is not true. Throughout history, gender distinctions in children’s clothing were less rigid, especially in early childhood.

“Both boys and girls commonly wore dresses during infancy and toddlerhood for practical reasons. The transition from dresses to trousers, known as ‘breeching’, marked an important cultural milestone for boys, typically occurring between ages four and seven, depending on family traditions.”

And depending on the success or otherwise of toilet training.

Helen Joyce, director of advocacy at Sex Matters, told The Telegraph: “The idea that Victorian children were ‘gender fluid’ because of practicalities relating to clothing is absolute nonsense.

“The so-called ‘opposing categories’ of male and female, as the museum puts it, are to do with biology and have nothing to do with little boys wearing dresses instead of trousers because elastic was a brand new invention and not widely used.

“This is the latest example of the cultural sector desperately rewriting history to pretend that the fantasies of gender ideologues aren’t a modern invention.”