Unfortunately, the kid is likely to be several years old before they’re old enough to realize there isn’t necessarily a one-on-one correlation between sex and gender, and I worry that these parents will inadvertently end up sending a different, and very strong, message to their children than they intend to. Shrouding the child’s sex in secrecy seems like a really good way to convince a kid that being their biological sex is so shameful no one should be it, or at the very least no one should know that you are this unfortunate sex.
That was pretty much my thought. The moment the child walks into a school, children are going to identify them as male or female, even if the teachers are under orders to keep it a “secret”, and they will tell the child. Although I assume the child would have realized by this point anyway.
Truer words never spoken.
Don’t deny the difference between genders. Rather, show that the difference isn’t a controlling one.
I think that if we lived in a genderless utopia this would be a fine way to go, but unfortunately we do not. Today, and probably for at least another generation, it is far easier to live in our society if your genitals match your gender. So all else being equal the child will probably be better off with a gender that matches societies notions. So I don’t have much of a problem with leading a child towards this notion of gender identity as a default, while leaving the alternatives open and keeping an eye out for any indication that this notion makes the child uncomfortable.
It is very likely the the infrequency of transgenderism is due to a large extent by binary child rearing practices, but it is also clear that for the vast majority of people following their biological gender was the correct answer or else close enough to the correct answer that the divergence doesn’t case them stress, and so given the current societal disadvantages of transgenderism was probably the best choice. I approve of the goals of the parents, and if this was simply an experiment they chose for themselves, or an idealized goal they wished to promote I would salute them. But since there is a child at the center of this who could have their lives altered by its consequences, and whom was unable to give consent, the exercise strikes me as ethically dubious.
I’m going to make a prediction that despite everything those parents do, a large percentage of the children are going to gravitate towards “stereotypical” toys.
For those who didn’t actually read the article, the parents aren’t trying to raise kids to be genderless their entire lives but until the child “chooses.”
Also, the article points out the parents send their “gender-free” kids to very expensive progressive daycares and pre-schools. If the child still hasn’t decided on a gender by age 5-6, they’d presumably send them to very expensive progressive grade schools.
Regardless of the parents’ plans, sociology and psychology will out:
If Zoomer is biologically a female, her gender is gonna show up around the age 13 or so. When the parent has to go buy that box of kotex they’re gonna have some 'splainin to do.
I feel like this is the big thing they don’t want to acknowledge: that gender is predetermined and no amount of kooky, gender neutral (or “gender open”) parenting is going to reverse fate. It’s more likely than not that their kids will identify with the gender that matches their sex, but they may come out of the whole ordeal slightly screwed up, especially if they’re subject to bullying thanks to their parents’ penchant for taking special snowflakeism to the extreme. It doesn’t help at all that they’re chronicling their children’s upbringing online for all to see. These kids aren’t even afforded the right to figure out their gender identity in private, they’re being treated as science experiments. I’m not totally convinced that these parents have their kids’ best interests at heart.
Another thing I have a major gripe with, they say that gender is a man-made construct and suggest that gender can be chosen. So they’re effectively saying that trans people are choosing to be trans, that their gender identity isn’t innate. I wonder if they understand the implications of their statements, since they claim to be allies for the trans community.
Er… everything about this post is infinitely more transphobic than what you’re describing. I have a few bones to pick with the current trans movement, but calling sex reassignment surgery “mutilation” makes you sound like the very people who are seeking to deprive them of basic civil rights.
They’ll probably just say “some people bleed and have breasts, some people don’t. You’re one of those that do”.
Don’t have kids yet, but I expect our approach to gender and sex will be to have something like the following attitude (imagined as something we might say to our future kids):
Some kids are born with [equipment X] and most folks call those kids girls, and some kids are born with [equipment Y] and most folks call those kids boys. And some other kids have both, or some variations. You have [x or y] and so you’ll usually be identified as boy/girl by people in society. Some people at some point start to think that maybe they’re really girls instead of boys, or boys instead of girls, so it’s okay to talk to us if you start to have thoughts like that. There’s nothing wrong with having feelings like that, and also nothing wrong if you’re happy with the way you are and what people call you.
No, I know not everyone has surgery, or wants it. The principle is still the same. Trans people are simply unwilling to accept that a person who feels the way they feel, might have the body they have. That’s gender-binary thinking at its harshest and most discriminatory, yet because it’s self-directed they somehow feel entitled to demand a free pass to discriminate against themselves and shame themselves.
Huh? Can you read the minds of every trans person? This sounds like bigoted nonsense. Trans people have a variety of opinions about themselves and others.
At what point in the child’s life do you imagine having this conversation? Because I can tell you, as a parent of both an X and Y, there is almost never a time, no matter what you imagine the experience will be like, when you would even think of having that conversation under traditional gender role development circumstances. And why the hell would you??.. UNLESS and of course, the child starts giving you a reason to have that conversation. In which case, yeah, you absolutely should.
Probably the first time it comes up (or could come up) – if they see a non-passing trans person and ask, of course, or even if we see one on TV and I ask them about it, or if the subject comes up some other way. At least, that’s what I envision… I’m sure that many things I envision about parenthood will change once we actually have kids.
FWIW, I think you’ll make a great parent. But yeah, you’re in for a fun ride.
Well thank you! I certainly am looking forward to it.
Personal anecdote: Back in the 1980s when I was probably no more than three years old, I saw a morning talk show with singer Boy George as a guest. I apparently misunderstood what the host was calling him, and concluded that there was a type of androgynous-looking person called a “boy girl”. My mother says that for several weeks afterward I would mention that I had seen a “boy girl” on TV, or even that there were three kinds of people in the world: boys, girls, and “boy girls”.
I have no memory of any of this, and when my mother told me this story when I was an adult I got the impression that she didn’t attempt any sort of explanation of gender at the time. Knowing her, she probably just went “Uh huh” whenever I mentioned “boy girls” and waited for me to forget about it (which I did). But while not all parents choose to pursue such opportunities for conversation, they did sometimes arise even 30+ years ago.
I would actually expect the reverse, that if it weren’t for binary expectations in society as a whole, that transgenderism wouldn’t be a thing. What gets referred to as “gender” isn’t any one thing, and even the most masculine man or the most feminine woman has some traits which are more typically associated with the opposite gender. But our society forces (or at least, tries to force) people to be one or the other, and so some people end up identifying themselves as one while society identifies them as the other, instead of everyone just being many-dimensional shades of in between.
I wonder how what the parents would do if the child demonstrates distinct gendered behaviour. My boy is about 2, very pretty though with long hair so a lot of people initially assume he’s a girl.
But when he plays with things, it’s all cars & trains & robots that interest him, my wife’s pushed some dolls on him and he’ll play for 10 minutes then a bus goes in the pram and the doll maybe gets crashed into by cars until it’s forgotten.
We definitely gave him a mix of non-gender toys and never pushed boyishness on him, would these parents punish the child for not conforming to their wacky ideas?
I think that poor David Reimer was proof that gender indentity is NOT a choice we make.
I also fear that in the race to be accepting (which is a good thing) we are swinging too far and putting too many labels on everyone, rather than just saying, “hey, you can be X and still do Y”. Or, just plain, “hey, whatever floats your boat.” I mean, I honestly do not give a shit what you call yourself. But it’s when you try to define others that gives me pause.
This is covered by the article, which many of the people in this thread seem not to have read. These parents do seem kind of wacky to me, but they’re nowhere near as wacky as some people here are making them out to be. They’re not limiting their kids to only gender-neutral toys and clothes or insisting that they will never, ever be identified as boys or girls. They are exposing their kids to a variety of toys, clothes, and activities and waiting for them to declare their own gender identity, which they expect will probably happen before the kids are old enough for kindergarten.
The two older children (ages 7 and 13) mentioned in the article both identify as girls and their parents seem fine with this.