I Listened to ‘Free to Be … You and Me’
I turned out trans anyway
As a small child in the early 1980s, like many others of my generation, I listened to the cassette tape of Marlo Thomas and Friends’ “Free to Be … You and Me” many, many times. The point of the album is that little girls and boys can do anything they like—while they’re small and also when they grow up—and that gender stereotypes can go right in the trashcan please.
Since personalities are infinitely malleable, one “Free to Be … You and Me” comedy routine teaches that the only way to know a baby’s sex is to look in its diaper.
Another song quips that people can do “almost anything” they like. This video version (below) doesn’t explain the “almost” caveat, but on the album I grew up with, a spoken aside makes a joke of it: The only thing girls can’t do is “be grandfathers or daddies,” and likewise boys can’t “be grandmas or mommies.”
