Toys don't have genders.

Hello, my name is Maria Munoz and I have an unpopular opinion I’d like to share with you. Like everyone else I have an opinion that I have to get off my chest or its gonna drive me crazy. My unpopular opinion is this, “Toys don’t have a gender.” What I mean by this is that I don’t believe that there are only toys just for boys or just girls to play with. Kids can play with any toys they want even if it has glitter on it.

Growing up in Texas, I had one sister and three brothers and we had to share pretty much everything, whether it be clothes, toys, or accessories. So while my brothers played with my Barbie and My Little Pony toys, I always played with their action figures. Even outside of our home this was no different, for whenever a cashier at McDonald’s asked my mother if the Happy Meals for my siblings and I were for a boy or a girl, she would say, “any toy will do” or “whatever you get is fine.” And we were happy with what we got because to us it was simply a toy, and what kid doesn’t want a toy with their a Happy Meal?

As I got older, a lot of other kids started to notice the toys I had brought to school and kept asking me, “aren’t those toys for boys?” or “does your brother know you have his toys?” Regardless of how many times I’d tell tell them that the toys were mine, they wouldn’t listen, and instead declared that my toys were “boy’s toys” and that I couldn’t play with them. Even when toys were provided for me by the school, my teachers would take away the toys I wanted to play with and give me a “girl” toy for playtime instead. It made me really confused at the time because I thought I could play with any toy but instead I was suddenly limited to what others deemed appropriate for me as a girl.

After that I stayed vigilant about the idea that any child can play with any toy that they wish no matter if they were a girl or a boy. This idea stayed with me since I was six and I am twenty-five years old now. Living in Ohio, I still see kids going home unhappy where I live and online because they can’t have the toy they want. Most of the time it is a money issue because that’s what my mom went through too when I was little. If she didn’t have extra money for us to get a toy she would go to the cheapest toy aisle in the store where they had the coloring books, animal toys, etc. that were close to a dollar or less. That’s where the other problem comes in with this whole boy/girl thing because most of the coloring books either have Disney princesses, race cars, My Little Pony characters, or farm animals. She would tell us to pick one and I would usually go for the princess book, but when one of my brothers didn’t know what to pick I would tell him he could share mine. At first, he would throw a fit saying it was for girls, but when I told him that he could make her dress any color he wanted, he’d usually get on board (though my mom would still buy a back-up book just in case he changed his mind).

In the world I live in now, I realize that that doesn’t work anymore. For example, there was an 11-year-old boy named Michael Morones who almost killed himself because he was getting bullied for liking his favorite My Little Pony character, Pinky Pie. All that little boy saw was a show that had his favorite character in it, but his peers mocked him nonetheless for its “girly” nature and pushed him past his breaking point, which almost ended his life at the end of a rope he’d hung in his bedroom closet. After the whole ordeal, he was put on life support due to breathing issues caused by the suicide attempt, so he now suffers from permanent brain damage as a result. Sadly, this isn’t the only case like this, for there are more instances where children are trying to be who they are but are shut down by their peers.

When you are a kid it’s hard to stand up for yourself and you get scared, but when you have someone in your corner like me who tells you that it’s okay to be you the world is a little less scary. I tried to do the same thing when I was a kid by showing the kids I grew up with that its okay to play with these toys or those toys, but they were stuck with the stigma that comes with the toys being pink or blue because it’s what their parents told them- which leads me to the last thing about this whole toy problem. Before I say anything: I am not attacking anyone or any thing involving the transgender community. With that being said, I really think that the gender neutral doll that was made last year is unnecessary.

Last year in September of 2019, Mattel released a line of gender neutral dolls that come in a variety of skin tones and numerous outfits that show they can be ether a girl or a boy or both. While yes, I do believe that every kid deserves to have a doll that makes them feel like they are not alone, if it wasn’t for the stigma surrounding the gender of toys we wouldn’t need this doll. Look at it like this: if we could live in a world where it was okay to play with any toys, kids wouldn’t have problems like being called gay for liking Pinky Pie as a boy or being mocked for wanting to dress up as Spider-Man for Halloween as a girl. I believe that the world would be a better place if we all just opened our minds and sometimes our eyes to see the things that we say or do and how they could hurt someone emotionally. We have no right to make anyone feel ashamed to be who they are or feel the need to hide their true selves from everyone else in fear of what might happen to them otherwise.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world free of that prejudice, we live in this one instead and it’s not doing so well. The best thing we can do is try to make it a better place by accepting people for who they are, what they believe in (even if you don’t agree with it), what their goals and dreams are, and anything that makes them happy to be themselves. The world may be broken but I think with a little help from each other we can fix it, and not just for us, but for our children as well. This world is the only one we have, so are you with me?