One mom's decision to share her experience with her son

is receiving a lot of attention.

I'm going to talk to them both in just a moment.

But first their story.

Dyson Kilodavis: I'm a princess boy and I love wearing dresses

and I love the colors of pink and red. I'm a princess in my castle.

Presenter: For little Dyson, now 5, this is part of his everyday play,

but for his mom Cheryl Kilodavis it took some getting used to.

Cheryl Kilodavis: My initial reaction was to redirect,

play with the truck or read certain books.

Presenter: When Dyson wanted to be a princess for Halloween

Cheryl initially resisted but soon changed her mind.

CK: My older son Toby said, “Mom, why can't you just let him be happy.

And at that moment I knew that this was more my issue

and if Toby could be a Ninja, why couldn't he be a princess?

Presenter: Since then they've allowed their youngest son

to explore his interest in all things dressy and sparkly.

Dean Kilodavis: He's not contagious, he's just like any other kid,

plays the checkers, he plays in the trees, he just likes to do it in a dress,

big deal.

Presenter: He likes pretty things, pink is his favorite color.

The experience led Cheryl to self-publish a book, “My Princess Boy”,

which she wrote as tool to encourage acceptance of Dyson and his dresses.

CK: A store clerk once said to me, “Are you really going to buy that for him?”

And I said, “Can you just read this book for 60 seconds?”

And after she read it, she apologized.

Presenter: Word spread, their story appeared

on the local TV talk show and in People magazine.

Soon a major publisher picked up “My Princess Boy”,

which landed in bookstores across the country just before Christmas.

Ken Corbett: I think it's fantastic and I think that what it tells us

is that these boys, their parents, and the social world is no longer the same.

There is an audience for this book and there are people

who need this kind of information and this kind of help.

CK: I haven't had that moment of regret yet, partly, that, I think is,

because of all of the people who are emailing me from all over the country

and internationally as well who are saying, “I'm so glad I'm not alone.”

(Applause)

CK: It's ironic that I stand here before you today.

I mean, after all, I am the woman in the video.

I'm a mother, I'm a wife, I'm a daughter, I have my MBA,

I run my own marketing company and yet I stand here before you today

to talk about the evolution of the male image.

Let's talk a little bit about the video. Some of the worldwide reactions.

On the positive side: this is a parent accepting their child;

this is a supportive book, it doesn't have negative terms in it;

and the best question of all: “What would I do?”

Notice how it's not “what you should do”; it's asking the question: What would I do?

On the negative side: “too young to decide;”

“children do what we tell them to do and they do it;”

“exploitation;” “this woman's trying to get rich.”

Note to self: If you want to get rich, don't publish a children's book.

(Laughter)

And culturally wrong.

I'm biracial with African-American and Caucasian heritage

and in our culture my job is to raise strong black men.

But before we go into any of that, that's anecdotal,

let's stop going with opinions, let's do something we all understand – math.

Let's take this as an acceptance equation.

Let's say that every difference equals a level of discomfort.

Now there's ways that you can go high-level of discomfort

and low-level of discomfort.

But we're going to measure for that level.

Before we do this, we have to understand,

why does difference make us uncomfortable?

Well, it's tribal. Back in caveman days, if somebody was coming towards you,

that looked different than you, you could have lost your food,

your family, your life.

Differences equaled real threat in caveman days.

Fortunately, you realize all differences were equal in lifetime threats

and so basically communities began.

People started working together, figuring out, how can we make things better?

Let's take that further.

Okay, let's say you want to walk around in tribal times.

You are moving around in a horse and buggy.

And you can only go as far as you can see.

Imagine the people in the horse and buggy now looking at us

as we travel around in airplanes.

And let's take it a little bit further.

A CEO of a the company, white male, middle-aged, here's Ted Turner.

But now we have Xerox, we have PepsiCo, we have Yahoo and we have Merck;

look at all these different leaders

of these companies and how different they all look.

And let's take it one step further.

Here's Eisenhower and his wife, perfect first couple, right?

And then today our first African-American president.

So basically we see that although difference equals a level of discomfort,

it doesn't equal threat any more.

We have evolved, we continue to evolve, so now that we know that that's tribal,

and that it's really wired within us to have this feeling of discomfort,

when we see difference, let's now solve for acceptance.

There are two questions I think we need to answer.

One: Why am I uncomfortable? and: Is it harming anyone?

Let's go deeper. Of course we're uncomfortable,

look at the audience today, we don't see men in dresses,

we don't see a whole lot of pink, we don't see a whole lot

of different things that would be attributed to

the opposite gender, for men. So of course it's uncomfortable.

Then we look at the history, here's a picture of Louis XV in the 1770's,

a portrait of him in a pink dress. Here's a picture of FDR in the 1880's.

1930's, uniforms for the air force USA are pink shirts.

And in the women's movement, the social movement that happened,

women started going during World War II to work and stayed at work.

People were concerned, “Oh my gosh, no one's going to parent the children.

Reproduction will end.”

I'm pretty sure we're still reproducing.

(Laughter)

Okay, so, we now know why we're uncomfortable.

Let's go to: is it harming anyone?

Well, I'm going to take you through a few celebrities.

Here's Usher in some hot pink boots.

Here's a fashion week that just happened

and the designer had all the male models in dresses.

Here's Spike Lee in a leather skirt. Janet Jackson in a suit and tie.

And we have P Diddy rocking a concert in a skirt

and Lady Gaga dressed as a male.

and then we have Mark Jacobs who designs skirts for men.

So I ask you, “Did anyone die from this?

Was anybody harmed?”

Now you may argue that yes, society was harmed,

we have serious, serious level of discomfort with this.

And I ask you to go back to cavemen times. Did you lose your family?

Were you threatened? This is about acceptance,

that's what this is about our fundamental need of acceptance.

So now that we know it's not harming anyone,

we need to accept the fact that the male image is evolving.

There are different rules for men

and we need to accept them for who they are.

Now, the level of discomfort will continue with us,

because we are wired to feel that difference equals a level of discomfort.

But I would say with acceptance being needed how do we do this?

Well, we become acceptance champions. I believe that the country got it wrong;

all of our organizations, all of our books, all of our training foundations,

we have anti-bullying in the name.

Why not acceptance? Why not acceptance curricula

versus anti-bullying curricula?

We're going to turn this around.

When we wanna tell someone, do something, say something,

we take it further than the level of the bystander,

we go to the acceptance champion who says, “Hey Usher, nice pink boots.”

That's what we do, we turn the negative to positive.

Those are acceptance champions and I guarantee you they're all over.

We are all of them.

It's time for us to stand up for differences.

And hopefully, we will learn to embrace those who feel different,

are different and express themselves differently.

As we come together,

we realize that acceptance champions have conversations

and conversations change society. That's a fact.

So what's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine.

We have to work together to build this world of acceptance.

As I leave I'm reminded of one of the shortest quotes

in the English language, by Muhammad Ali, “Me, we.”

Thank you very much.

(Applause)