You Deduce Like a Little Girl!
A six year old girl May be smarter than all of y’all — for realz!
Juliet is the daughter of my downstairs neighbors. She likes hot wheels and the color pink. I’ve known her for easily half her life. She’s known me only as the tall person who sometimes appears at the entrance to her building when her dad is taking her to, or bringing her home from, school. I’m memorable to her, likely, as the tallest human she has ever seen in her short time on earth.
Juliet’s dad is mostly stay at home and I run into them often. It had been at least a year since I’d seen him last and likely only twice since the dawn of the pandemic. I couldn’t get mad when a brief conversation in which we made overtures to getting together soon ended with him misgendering me. He was being cute and calling me Mister Giant or something of the sort.
“That’s Miss Giant to you,” I replied without pause, but I don’t think he really heard me.
When we got the invite for drinks, I was hasty to accept. It required walking downstairs and knocking. They must have been as starved for guests as most people I encounter. It must be even harder for them to spend time with friends with a child to consider. Juliet is the curious age where being left alone can mean disaster. Visiting them felt like a good deed, even if it meant correcting them on my pronouns several times over the course of the evening.
The conversation, mostly about being a substitute teacher in public school, was interesting enough. Juliet’s parents were both nice enough and liberal enough that I didn’t feel tension. Her mom dead-named me and I gently corrected her. The conversation was suddenly turning to “How Many Trans People We Know” and I put a stop to it changing the subject. I got the sense that, although liberal, there was no real deep analysis of the various systems of oppression I see as the guiding force of our society. I felt real real radical in there.
I was relieved when Juliet grabbed my attention to show me the collection of toys she had brought to the coffee table where the adults sat snacking and sipping various wines.
“It’s a Hot Wheel!”
And it was indeed. She had a collection of the tiny cars and several other figures—a couple of trolls and two puzzle cubes. She held out the cube and asked if I wanted to try it. I accepted, thrilled to be engaged by this soul. I’m rusty with these puzzles, but remember being able to solve them as a kid. I went at the small box of revolving sides and soon had turned one of its ends solid red.
Juliet thrilled when I handed back the cube with my progress. She held it up to show her parents, who were engaged with my spouse in chat on a topic for which I was fine having missed. Her parents gave a halfhearted round of approvals and “good jobs.” Juliet drew the cube back and pointed at me with her free hand.
“She did it.” Juliet blurted my correct pronoun uninstructed as to my preference. She had put together a slew of context clues (my skirt, my hair, the pink hair tie) and found that evidence enough to be understood as a girl.
If a six year old can accept me as a woman, that makes her more sophisticated than 99 of a hundred adults I meet and with whom I interact daily, making one little girl a genius in my eyes, or those who can’t get it some other kind of ignorant. If you catch me telling someone “You deduce like a little girl!” You’ll know what I mean.
— Notorious Pink
