Story here.
Parents keep child’s gender secret
So many BS stories in the news these day. I have to wonder is this is just another publicity stunt.
I’ve heard at least one other situation like this - can’t find a link but I do recall that the child’s name was Charlie. So may still be a publicity stunt, but not an unheard of ideology.
If the child was born intersexed, I can understand it. Otherwise, if the child is born gender normative, I kind of agree with people who say they’re raising it to end up being mocked and teased and bullied.
It would be lovely to think you could raise your child to choose their gender roles, regardless of what they were born as. But the fact is that the world is harsh, and using your child to make a political statement is just cruel.
When I read about this the other day I just thought to myself: Jeez what a couple of self-righteous assholes.
Oh and “Storm” as a name… is just cruelty.
Yeah, I don’t understand parents who use their children as social experiments.
I’m all for bringing children up with the freedom to choose who they want to be. I think it’s great that they allow their sons to wear what they want, even if it means that the kids dress in pink poofy dresses and braid their hair. But bringing up your kid as genderless? What does that even mean? That is going to be one confused kid.
Their two other kids started picking out their own clothes at 18 months? It’s been a while since I was 18 months old, is this normal?
Confused and ignorant. They are also apparently fans of “unschooling” which means they will not teach their children about anything untill they express an interest in it. I can’t imagine that will lead the kids to become well rounded.
I wonder if the child is really just intersex and they want the child to be able to pick what gender they are as an adult. If they’re not intersexed (the child), this is just a hot mess. This reminds me of a few years back when a prek kid supposedly came out as gay and his parents bought him dresses to wear to school.
Also, if the child is not intersexed, this plan can’t last too long. There’s going to be a time, in the future since the child is like four months old now, when it’s going to be visually obvious what gender Storm is.
I’m guessing girl. I’ve never heard of a boy having the name Storm.
I knew a guy whose middle name was Storm.
Besides, in this case you can’t rely on the name. The parents may have chosen Storm for their boy BECAUSE people usually expect it to be a girl’s name. Seems like the sort of thing these frootloops would do.
They are doing it wrong.
I agree with their goal, that your sex should not define what you do and don’t like, but their methodology isn’t going to do that. I’m not sure what the right methodology is, but raising Jazz as a boy who likes to wear pretty dresses but lacks the ability to defend his choice, or Storm with the message “You are not a boy (or girl),” instead of “You are a boy (or girl), but that doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to like MLP: Friendship is Magic (or monster trucks)” is just going to end in tears.
Also, when I saw the caption saying the kid’s brother was called Jazz, I was half expecting the third kid to be named Rogue. (See? That’s what their kids have to be able to deal with, if they’re ever going to enter the real world.)
You can’t protect a child by placing them in a insulated bubble, which these people are doing. This child needs people who Love Storm for who Storm is, and the parents are preventing people from knowing that.
Yeah. I’m all for letting your kid explore, and be themselves. But it’s pretty clear they have an agenda.
I wonder what they would do if Storm wanted to play with toy guns, or be a soldier? I bet they think they are raising a passle of “Indigo Children” too. What a bunch of fucking morons.
I’d be willing to bet that this child will have lots of therapy as an adult, where the therapist will hear confessions of wishes for a normal childhood. 
This scares me because when I was that age and picked out clothes for myself, I tended to end up looking like I got dragged through a thrift shop by my ankles. There are embarrasing photos to prove it.
I’m all for nonconformity, and it was no fun growing up with a mother who wanted me to be a little lady when I was a nerdy tomboy, but the other extreme (giving your children no guidance whatsoever) seems even worse. No matter how sheltered and encouraged they are at home, someday they are going to have to exist in a society that does have defined gender roles and it’s going to be a hard, rude awakening for the poor kids.
Anyway . . . The OP reminds me of B.F. Skinner raising his daughter in a “Skinner Box.” It’s amazing how parents can warp their kids, forcing them to conform to the parents’ chosen values.
But on the other hand, there are more mainstream examples of the same thing, totally acceptable only because they are mainstream. It is ok to force a kid to share the parents’ religious beliefs? Is it ok if the religion is outside the mainstream? Would it be ok in a society of atheists?
I’m unclear on how this is supposed to work in practice. Are the parents not going to expose the child to depictions and descriptions of boys and girls? When the child asks, will they say “you decide” or “we’re not telling you”? Will the brothers be instructed not to tell? At age five, Jazz has already perceived the distinction between, on the one hand, dressing and acting as he wants to, and being factually misidentified.
Am I to understand that that wasn’t free enough for these people?
I’m not going to address the family, because this is either a) bullshitcompletely, b) a publicity stunty, or c) over-exaggerated, but I did want to scoff at this:
“Friends said they were imposing their political and ideological values on a newborn.”
Ha. As if that’s unusual or special. Baptism, anyone? Or any of the countless religious ceremonies that take place at or shortly after birth? Hell, circumcision!
Skinner box for his child is really a myth.
There is research about how simply putting a baby in a pink or blue blanket changes how people treat the child, and you only have to go to a toy store and see the pink aisle to see how ridiculous it can get at times. I think theres something to challenging the status quo at times rather than assuming normative = the most healthy option.
For me the biggest risk is with the potential over permissive aspects rather than challenging gender stereotypes, the ‘picking out clothes at 18 months’ feels a bit off to me too.
Otara
How in the world is this supposed to work?
As I understand it, Jazz, the older sib of Storm, is assumed to be female even though he self-identifies as a boy.
I don’t think this is going to end well.