Reinforcing the Gender Binary

In this Tide commercial, a mother discloses how upsetting it is for her that her daughter prefers clothing that is marketed towards boys. She also shows distaste for her daughter's favorite games which involve playing outside in the mud and playing with trucks. I was initially so appalled by the commercial that I had to ask myself "Well, this isn't so abnormal, why is it bothering me so much?" What occurred to me that while hitting the personal spot reserved especially for the societal pressure to be a girly, pink loving, cuddly, quiet, clean, and careful, the commercial also managed to reinforce the belief that gender-non-conformity is distasteful, disgusting, and something parents should try their hardest to prevent. In the past I would have seen this commercial and thought to myself "Well, the gender roles for women are out of date, rigid, and oppressive- this commercial is bad because it is supporting them!," but upon seeing it now it occurred to me as much more relevant as a Trans* issue.
While the restriction of a girl's gender expression is oppressive and hegemonic, that is only the surface of the content. What is really being displayed in this commercial, is how upset her gender-non-conformity makes her mother. The emphasis is on the mother's feelings about he daughter's preferences and dismissal of the daughter (specifically at the end with "Another car garage honey? That's beautiful.") makes this much more applicable to the pressures and oppression that trans* people deal with. The interesting thing is that I doubt the ad makers knew at all that it was addressing anything more than gender roles. This commercial serves as erasure for trans* people's experience with the gender binary by diffusing the gender issues to a be a (cis)woman's struggle.
In conclusion, I think that the reason this commercial seemed convoluted and jam packed with offensive material is because whenever gender-conformity and expectations of a gender mentioned, they not only affect cis people of that gender, they affect trans* people even more intensely, and from both that masculine and feminine sides.