recently was thinking about that post where someone (apparently a transphobe trying to fearmonger) said something like “there was a reason the wolf dressed up as little red riding hood’s grandmother” and everyone quite rightly mocked them

thinking about it in the wider context of deceptive wolves in folklore

because there is a trend.

another folktale, “the wolf and the seven young goats,” shows the wolf tricking the goats into letting him into their house by pretending to be their mother

and yes, in both cases the wolf is typically described as male, impersonating a female nurturing figure

but in both cases the question of species is much more important than that of gender.

a wolf in sheep’s clothing– or goat’s, or human’s– is dangerous in folklore primarily because it is a wolf (symbolic of someone you should not trust) pretending to be someone of your own species, whom you should trust.

and in folktales, this moral (“someone untrustworthy might try to trick you by pretending to be someone trustworthy”) does sometimes take the form of a crossdressing male villain

and this is probably because, in a society where women are expected to be the main caregivers of children, female relatives are the primary people children are expected to trust

but I realized

if you were to interpret that folklore trope in a present-day context

the relevant theme would not be “men will dress up as women to trick children”

the relevant theme would be, “if you want to find the people secretly trying to harm children, look really damn close at the people making the most conspicuous noise about Protecting Children”