Parents decide to bring up "genderless" child

deirdre_dub

Here's the deal. In terms of gender identity, the kid is most likely either male or female (there are other gender identities, but male or female are the two most likely by a long margin).

Most likely, the kids gender identity can be determined by looking between its legs.

However, that is not guaranteed to work in all cases. All the parents have done here is allowed some time and space for the kid to say whether he is male or she is female.

Most likely, the kid will say something that is in agreement with what's between his/her legs. All the parents are doing is allowing space for the other answer to make itself known.

It is, surely, more respectful to say to someone "who are you", rather than say to them "this is what I see, therefore you are that".

Kevin Duffy

TheZohan wrote: »

He has hairy balls and a willy, people could see.:D

Are we still talking about your puppy here?? :pac:

stovelid

Let's not be harsh.

There's a entertainment niche for fucked up androgynous kids at the minute. Being a twin and having ADHD helps though.

El Guapo!

deirdre_dub wrote: »

Here's the deal. In terms of gender identity, the kid is most likely either male or female (there are other gender identities, but male or female are the two most likely by a long margin).

Most likely, the kids gender identity can be determined by looking between its legs.

However, that is not guaranteed to work in all cases. All the parents have done here is allowed some time and space for the kid to say whether he is male or she is female.

Most likely, the kid will say something that is in agreement with what's between his/her legs. All the parents are doing is allowing space for the other answer to make itself known.

It is, surely, more respectful to say to someone "who are you", rather than say to them "this is what I see, therefore you are that".

Tbh this is hippy BS in my opinion. You dont decide if your male or female. Your one or the other. If your not happy with that then your free to do whatever makes you happy as you get older.
What the parents should've just done is been open and accepting to whatever the child grows up to be, and to let the kid know that whatever they choose is perfectly fine.

stovelid

deirdre_dub wrote: »

It is, surely, more respectful to say to someone "who are you", rather than say to them "this is what I see, therefore you are that".

Never before has a post made me so want to flee to e-bay and buy as much gung-ho, gender-codifying, war toys for my sons.

--LOS--

Gender is not a choice!






But if it is I think I'm missing something....


from between my legs

delta_bravo

Links234 wrote: »

The child's identity will develop on it's own though, that sense of self, of whether we are male or female, is something we are born with. My identity developed in spite of my upbringing, so I don't think that the parents of this child are impeding anything. I'd bet the kid will turn out perfectly fine tbh.

Definitely disagree with this. A persons identity is totally shaped and influenced by their family, peers and surroundings.

Gender is something a child is born with and to deprive that from them makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and would be tantamount to neglect in my opinion.

spinandscribble

As parents its their job to raise their kids to prepare for society as it is now, NOT their idealised notion of how society should be.

The strange thing is that by not allowing their child to be who they naturally are, be it a girly boy or boyish girl of whatever, they're placing importance on gender, ie. it'll decide if its a boy or girl, as in i must be a boy coz i wanna dress that way.

They're not doing this for their child's sake then, its a lesson for society. I'm disgusted that their place their ideals above the welfare of their child.

TheZohanS

spinandscribble wrote: »

As parents its their job to raise their kids to prepare for society as it is now, NOT their idealised notion of how society should be.

The strange thing is that by not allowing their child to be who they naturally are, be it a girly boy or boyish girl of whatever, they're placing importance on gender, ie. it'll decide if its a boy or girl, as in i must be a boy coz i wanna dress that way.

They're not doing this for their child's sake then, its a lesson for society. I'm disgusted that their place their ideals above the welfare of their child.

Kathy and David feel strongly about releasing their children from the constraints that society poses on males and females and want them to make their own decisions about how they act and look.

They're not stopping the child from being who they naturally are, they're allowing the child to be whatever they choose to be. Chances as the child will see a toy car or a doll and make up their own mind, they won't need prompting.

Minstrel27

What nonsense. Attention seeking bastards is all these parents are. And to do so at the expense of their child is wrong.

Links234

delta_bravo wrote: »

Definitely disagree with this. A persons identity is totally shaped and influenced by their family, peers and surroundings.

Gender is something a child is born with and to deprive that from them makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and would be tantamount to neglect in my opinion.

Your post doesn't make sense. if gender is something a child is born with, how can they be deprived of it?

I half agree mind you, gender identity is something we are born with, but so much of our gender roles and activities are strictly defined in binary, so much of it is cultural. as I see it, they're not depriving their child of anything, they're allowing their child to explore and keep their innocence, without telling them they can't do X because only boys can do that, or you can't wear Y because only girls can wear that.

Gummy Panda

What if the kid decides it's a cat?

OutlawPete

mahamageehad wrote: »

David Reimer

I remember following the story when I was growing up as Horizon used to make regular documentaries about him. They were about to make another one when he died.

John Money, the guy who oversaw the gender reassignment is thought to be responsible for thousands of other infants going through the same procedure. He even wrote a book called Man and Woman, Boy and Girl and in it he hailed David Reimer's surgery as a resounding success.

The radical feminist movement of course lapped it up at the time as it was just more of what they wanted so they could continue with their dogma that gender is socially constructed and women were all victims of the oppressive patriarchy. No surprise there though, Feminists had already laid claim to Dr Money and two years prior to his book been written, he was celebrated in the feminist propagand book: "Sexual Politics" for stating in earlier that psychosexual personality was social conditioning, so his book was written for a waiting audience and he knew it.

It's clear now that the guy was a liar and money was just his name, it was his motivation. There's a great book (which came out a few years before David died) about Dr Money and the role that Feminism played with regards to Reimer's story called: As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as A Girl.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFMfrBWM7_A

Saila

there was a bong involved in that decision somewhere wasnt there

Saila

Links234 wrote: »

Your post doesn't make sense. if gender is something a child is born with, how can they be deprived of it?

I half agree mind you, gender identity is something we are born with, but so much of our gender roles and activities are strictly defined in binary, so much of it is cultural. as I see it, they're not depriving their child of anything, they're allowing their child to explore and keep their innocence, without telling them they can't do X because only boys can do that, or you can't wear Y because only girls can wear that.

:pac:

xkariex

Just plain ridiculous !! Poor kids

strobe

Pointless nonsense and the parents of Jazz, Storm and Kio strike me as the type of idiots that view their children as property to play with.

Bassboxxx

Jaysus why don't they just get matching Che Guevara t-shirts or **** the system tattoos or something.

Seriously how do they think repressing the childs sex is going to help develop his/her identity?
Repression breeds shame in my opinion....

Links234

OutlawPete wrote: »

The radical feminist movement of course lapped it up at the time as it was just more of what they wanted so they could continue with their dogma that gender is socially constructed and women were all victims of the oppressive patriarchy. No surprise there though, Feminists had already laid claim to Dr Money and two years prior to his book been written, he was celebrated in the feminist propagand book: "Sexual Politics" for stating in earlier that psychosexual personality was social conditioning, so his book was written for a waiting audience and he knew it.

I think what you are failing to do here Pete is differentiate between gender identity and the social and cultural aspects of gender, which is no different than the essentialist viewpoint that you decry radical feminists of doing. Dr. Money was a quack who did a whole lot of harm, yes. That doesn't mean that a lot of aspects of gender isn't socially constructed.

spinandscribble

TheZohan wrote: »

They're not stopping the child from being who they naturally are, they're allowing the child to be whatever they choose to be. Chances as the child will see a toy car or a doll and make up their own mind, they won't need prompting.

not what i meant exactly, i phrased it badly but in a round about way they're blaming those around children for constructing children's identities when they could just let the kid be who they are without hiding the truth. They're giving power to gender roles by doing this.
I played with boys toys growing up, mom let me wear what i wanted, i even cross dressed as a boy sometimes when I went to summer camps coz i hated being girly and wanted to be a boy (got found out of course, nothing monstrous happened). i did so and never felt "societies pressures", now i still like things boyish things and will never be the biggest lover of pink but i do love a dress :P.

Basically what they're doing isn't for the kids benefit its for society, some ill guided idea of teaching society a lesson or whatever. The kid will be no better off. he'll/she'll probably feel isolated as people try to guess and distant from those around them. I have witnessed this first hand teaching in a situation where the students gender was never revealed to the other students nor the teachers (when asked the kid gave different answers every day, depending on their mood). Kid was alright but a bit lonely, some kids said if she was pretending to be a he or vice versa it would be cool, they just felt like the kid didn't trust them). All of this gets in the WAY of the kid being who they are naturally. instead of not focusing on gender, it becomes ALL about gender....

Morlar

Those are not fit parents.

OutlawPete

Links234 wrote: »

I think what you are failing to do here Pete is differentiate between gender identity and the social and cultural aspects of gender ..

All I have done is point out why I believe we have a society were parents like these clowns exist. I haven't failed to differentiate between gender identity and the social and cultural aspects of gender as I haven't even addressed that. This is about what these parents are attempting to do, nothing more. The reason people are bringing up the examples that they are is because they are apt. It's cruel to do what these people are doing.

Links234 wrote: »

..which is no different than the essentialist viewpoint that you decry radical feminists of doing.

Feminists/Feminist studies have and are peddling this crap for years (and as we can see from this example, society is paying for it). Your assertion that my pointing this out makes me as guilty as them, makes no sense.

Links234 wrote: »

Money was a quack who did a whole lot of harm, yes. That doesn't mean that a lot of aspects of gender isn't socially constructed.

As I said in my original post, I fully accept that gender stereotyping of toys can have some negative effects, but to bring children up as "genderless" is wrong, it's abhorrent. There is far too much of trying to make girls more like boys and boys more like girls, it damages society as it doesn't celebrate our differences. Girls and boys are different, they should NOT be seen as the same. That is not to say that you should make boys do one thing and girls another, but that we should let them do what they want to do, what they have the natural instinct to do and all the evidence shows us that they are two different things. In general, girls & boys behave in different ways and are stimulated by far different things.

Even if the science behind this stuff did not support my stance, just my own experiences in life would lead me to the very same conclusions. Go to any primary school tomorrow that has separate playgrounds for high infants and what you will see is two sets of children expressing themselves in far different ways, reacting differently and ultimately just BEING different.

Console

- The Parents are clearly mad. In one form or the other.
- If they bring up the child this way it will confuse and would most likely cause issues with him/her.
- while I respect the chice to raise your kid however you see fit... i cannot and will not ever respect rasing a kid with issues.

But, as an individual, I or any average person has not got any official say beyond our opinions. Which mine is they are mad.

Links234

But Pete, you cannot logically say what the parents are doing is wrong, because you don't know the outcome, you're projecting that it's going to damage them in some way without any way of knowing that. So you can't say that this is wrong or abhorrent, because you can't know that! You say yourself that we should let children do what they want to do, which is exactly what the parents are letting their children do, and if they do what they have the natural instinct to do, then that's what they'll do. So what's the problem?

This whole thing is sounding like that brew-ha-ha over the J-Crew ad with the boy with pink nail polish. Another quack psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow had this to say:

Jenna Lyons and J. Crew seem to know exactly what they’re up to. That’s why the photograph of Jenna’s son so prominently displays his hot pink, neon toe nails. These folks are hostile to the gender distinctions that actually are part of the magnificent synergy that creates and sustains the human race. They respect their own creative notions a whole lot more than any creative Force in the universe.

This whole thing has the same stink about it, people in hysterics over "bad parenting" and freaking out that if you don't strictly instill gender roles into your kid, they're gonna turn out all kinds of wrong. Please. :rolleyes:

citizen_p

seen a documentry on channel 4 the other day which was basically about little girls want ing to be boys and being put on testosterone and hormone blockers etc...
freaky stuff


this genderless thing is bull too, does it have long or short hair, what toys will it play with and what friends will it make, as usually when young it tends to be boys with boys girls playing with girls..... what bathroom will it use...

prents shouldn't be using their kid as an intense social experiement, they may think they are "freeing" the child but really they are going to cause far more problems for "it". I only hope they see their crack pot scheme is complete bullshït before they ruin the kids life.

Chuck Stone

Impossible imo.

HavingCrack

OutlawPete wrote: »

I remember following the story when I was growing up as Horizon used to make regular documentaries about him. They were about to make another one when he died.

John Money, the guy who oversaw the gender reassignment is thought to be responsible for thousands of other infants going through the same procedure. He even wrote a book called Man and Woman, Boy and Girl and in it he hailed David Reimer's surgery as a resounding success.

The radical feminist movement of course lapped it up at the time as it was just more of what they wanted so they could continue with their dogma that gender is socially constructed and women were all victims of the oppressive patriarchy. No surprise there though, Feminists had already laid claim to Dr Money and two years prior to his book been written, he was celebrated in the feminist propagand book: "Sexual Politics" for stating in earlier that psychosexual personality was social conditioning, so his book was written for a waiting audience and he knew it.

I

To be honest my respect for John Hopkins went downhill rapidly after that case. That loon was made a professor ffs. This was a man who had several accusations of sexual assault on his 'patients' and in fact partially defended paedophelia as something normal in some of his literature. In reality he should have been sacked by the university and disbarred from practising psycology (if that is possible ?) at the very least and faced a police investigation. Instead he was feted by radical feminists as some great intellectual. It really is sickening.

Links234

Mousey- wrote: »

seen a documentry on channel 4 the other day which was basically about little girls want ing to be boys and being put on testosterone and hormone blockers etc...
freaky stuff

do you mean to suggest that a child brought up without strictly defined gender roles could turn out to be transgender?

Kojak

El Weirdo wrote: »

The fact that they named the child Storm is worse if you ask me.

Ya, you'd think they would have picked a better member of the X-men to name their sexless kid after.

Links234

Kojak wrote: »

Ya, you'd think they would have picked a better member of the X-men to name their sexless kid after.

I would've called my kid Rogue :pac:

Kojak

Links234 wrote: »

I would've called my kid Rogue :pac:

That's actually not too bad of a name - better than cyclops at any rate.

Links234

Kojak wrote: »

That's actually not too bad of a name - better than cyclops at any rate.

Do you think calling a kid Wolverine puts too much expectations and pressures on them?

Kojak

Links234 wrote: »

Do you think calling a kid Wolverine puts too much expectations and pressures on them?

Well, at the very least they had better like the colour blue.

Well, I found their idols, Any here use to read Viz? Very funny back in the day.

The Modern Parents is a comic strip from the British comic Viz.

The creator is John Fardell, who both writes and illustrates the strip. It is one of the most enduring and frequent strips in Viz, having appeared regularly since the early 1990s to the present. It is a parody of 'left-wing' middle-class parents.

It has a similar theme to Fardell's other creations, like The Critics, in satirizing the snobbish attitude some liberals have towards everyone else. On at least one occasion, the Modern Parents and the Critics appeared in the same strip, each pair mistakenly attending the event intended for the other.
Malcolm and Cressida Wright-Pratt (a pun on 'right prat', prat being British slang for an idiot) are the modern parents in question, adults whose obsession with equality, political correctness, liberalisation, and environmental awareness often works against their basic role as parents to despairing eldest son Tarquin and backgrounded younger child Guinevere. Despite his female name, Guinevere is a boy. For misguided reasons of Political Correctness, Malcolm and Cressida occasionally try to make one or both of their sons wear girls' clothes or take "female" roles in some psychobabble ceremony.

The Modern Parents do not believe in gender stereotyping or traditional childhood activities such as visiting fairgrounds, frequenting fast food restaurants, taking part in games or competitions, playing sports or with toys, enjoying foreign holidays, or even going to school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Modern_Parents

deirdre_dub

Dean09 wrote: »

Your one or the other.

Not true - in any sense. Not even genetically are people "one or the other". There are people who are XXY, XXYY and all sorts of combinations. There are even XY women who have given birth!

You dont decide if your male or female.

That I agree with. However, what is between your legs doesn't always determine what gender you are. Intersex people are an obvious example.

So, no, this isn't "hippy bullsh1t" - it is real, physical fact.

What the parents should've just done is been open and accepting to whatever the child grows up to be, and to let the kid know that whatever they choose is perfectly fine.

But kids don't choose their gender!!! No-one does!!!

What they have done is allow the kid to find out what their gender is before putting in place all the social stuff that supports that gender.

stovelid wrote: »

Never before has a post made me so want to flee to e-bay and buy as much gung-ho, gender-codifying, war toys for my sons.

That won't work - trust me! Gender identity is much stronger than any toys you could buy for your kid.

The transgender community (and yes, I'm a member - I've been on HRT for about a year and a half) is full of stories of people who tried to go uber-masculine/feminine in an attempt to "fix" their gender. It simply doesn't work.

There is a myth out there that I (and other transgender people) "choose" our gender. That simply isn't true. I neither choose nor want to be a woman! What I've discovered is that something has gone awry with my physiology which means that I can only successfully identify myself as a woman. And, believe me, I tried damn hard for a very long time to live as a male - I just couldn't make it work. I wish I could have made it work - it would have made my life an awful lot easier and better - but I couldn't.

sensibleken

strict gender roles are a bad thing but stict a-gender roles are probably worse.

besides gender isnt solely between the legs

BlaasForRafa

Mousey- wrote: »

prents shouldn't be using their kid as an intense social experiement, they may think they are "freeing" the child but really they are going to cause far more problems for "it". I only hope they see their crack pot scheme is complete bullshït before they ruin the kids life.

Their kids will probably turn out as confused as this chap

El Guapo!

deirdre_dub wrote: »

Not true - in any sense. Not even genetically are people "one or the other". There are people who are XXY, XXYY and all sorts of combinations. There are even XY women who have given birth!
That I agree with. However, what is between your legs doesn't always determine what gender you are. Intersex people are an obvious example.

So, no, this isn't "hippy bullsh1t" - it is real, physical fact.
But kids don't choose their gender!!! No-one does!!!

What they have done is allow the kid to find out what their gender is before putting in place all the social stuff that supports that gender.


That won't work - trust me! Gender identity is much stronger than any toys you could buy for your kid.

The transgender community (and yes, I'm a member - I've been on HRT for about a year and a half) is full of stories of people who tried to go uber-masculine/feminine in an attempt to "fix" their gender. It simply doesn't work.

There is a myth out there that I (and other transgender people) "choose" our gender. That simply isn't true. I neither choose nor want to be a woman! What I've discovered is that something has gone awry with my physiology which means that I can only successfully identify myself as a woman. And, believe me, I tried damn hard for a very long time to live as a male - I just couldn't make it work. I wish I could have made it work - it would have made my life an awful lot easier and better - but I couldn't.

But it IS bullshít. I agree that people can't really help how they feel inside and I feel sorry for them I really do. And not in a condescending way either. It must be awful growing up knowing your different from everyone else and having to put up with the stares, sly remarks, bullying etc. But these parents are irresponsible plain and simple. They are setting the child up for bullying and torment in their school life. Its almost as if they want their child to grow up different and stand out from everyone else. There's nothing wrong with being different, but I mean different in a good way and not just "sticking it to the man" or not conforming to society and all that hippy crap.
And your nit-picking at the start of your post. Everyone is male or female on the most part, apart from someone born hermaphrodite, but that's not what we're talking about here.

deirdre_dub

Dean09 wrote: »

But it IS bullshít. I agree that people can't really help how they feel inside and I feel sorry for them I really do. And not in a condescending way either. It must be awful growing up knowing your different from everyone else and having to put up with the stares, sly remarks, bullying etc. But these parents are irresponsible plain and simple. They are setting the child up for bullying and torment in their school life. Its almost as if they want their child to grow up different and stand out from everyone else. There's nothing wrong with being different, but I mean different in a good way and not just "sticking it to the man" or not conforming to society and all that hippy crap.

No - they want their child to grow up and be his/herself.

And, how is it that if they child gets bullied, it is the parent's fault, and not the fault of the bully?

Do you really think that the parents won't help their child deal with any bullying?!

And your nit-picking at the start of your post. Everyone is male or female on the most part, apart from someone born hermaphrodite, but that's not what we're talking about here.

How do you know? Maybe the reason why the parents are not disclosing the child's gender is because they know that the child is intersex? (Intersex being the preferred term to hermaphrodite).

Shenshen

Dean09 wrote: »

Wtf is wrong with some people?? Is there some competition going on for the weirdest way to bring up a child nowadays? Idiots like this are whats wrong with the world today. Damn hipsters!!



http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/family-parenting/meet-the-parents-who-are-raising-a-genderless-baby-blog-90-yahoo-lifestyles.html

Good for them.
And best of luck trying to find kid's stuff that's not either pink or pale blue. I know I despaired because of that.

xsiborg

this to me seems like lazy parenting tbh, to let a child decide what gender they are, what happens if the child also decides that they want to be a vegan, discard their clothes and walk around naked. there are so many more issues involved in a childs development than just their sexuality, and for these parents to defer decision making to a child is just irresponsible. they as the child's parents are supposed to be role models for their children, not make their children responsible for being role models for society. can they not raise their children as their given gender, yet educate them to respect the opposite gender?

what will happen if the children decide they want to be emancipated from their parents, the children do not foresee the onset of puberty so therefore they should not be encouraged to be asexual or genderless before their brains are even developed enough to grasp the concept of gender identity.

wrong identity is one thing, NO identity is completely another.

St.Spodo

Self-important post-modernist gob****ery at its most annoying. The kid will want to be the gender it is born in all likelihood so I can't see why they don't just go with that.

sensibleken

xsiborg wrote: »

this to me seems like lazy parenting tbh, to let a child decide what gender they are, what happens if the child also decides that they want to be a vegan, discard their clothes and walk around naked. .

Um...i dont think youve quite grasped what a vegan is

prinz

Halfwits. In their incredible desire to be individual and different all they are doing is copying another couple (Swedish I think they are) who came out with the same nonsense.

G.K.

St.Spodo wrote: »

The kid will want to be the gender it is born in all likelihood so I can't see why they don't just go with that.

You answered your own question. What if the kid's gender identity does't match what sex it is?

Also, this makes complete sense:

deirdre_dub wrote: »

Here's the deal. In terms of gender identity, the kid is most likely either male or female (there are other gender identities, but male or female are the two most likely by a long margin).

Most likely, the kids gender identity can be determined by looking between its legs.

However, that is not guaranteed to work in all cases. All the parents have done here is allowed some time and space for the kid to say whether he is male or she is female.

Most likely, the kid will say something that is in agreement with what's between his/her legs. All the parents are doing is allowing space for the other answer to make itself known.

It is, surely, more respectful to say to someone "who are you", rather than say to them "this is what I see, therefore you are that".

How those who don't understand and agree with that post do so I cannot understand.

JohnMarston

prinz wrote: »

Halfwits. In their incredible desire to be individual and different all they are doing is copying another couple (Swedish I think they are) who came out with the same nonsense.

They're so hipster it hurts

As well as that, do you think the kid will appreciate their parents decision. No kid wants to be seen as the odd one out at school or anywhere else. This is entirely self-centered of the parents, they want to be seen as different regardless of how the child may feel.

Kevin Duffy

sensibleken wrote: »

Um...i dont think youve quite grasped what a vegan is

Yeh, they're from Earth FFS! :pac:

common sense brigade

This is so sad. My heart goes out to that innocent baby. It is selfish , self indulgant crap that so called parents are doing this. They want their 5 minutes of fame, and an interesting topic to discuss over dinner with their hippy friends. All patting each other on the back for being so different and non conformist. The baby is the one who will suffer and face ridicule and confusion for its formitive years. Absolute Disgrace. Another example of any idiot can have a child, but you need a licence to have a dog.

sensibleken

Voodoo_rasher wrote: »

that child needs to be taken into care. he/she will get merciless bullying from peers in elementary school..

he'll get mercilessly bullied anyway. all kids do except the big ones

Vicxas

WTF is wrong with people these days