Parents decide to bring up "genderless" child

Teddy_Picker

I think what these parents are doing isn't nearly as radical as people are making it out to be.
They are not raising a genderless child, this is absolutely not the case, they are simply letting the kid be a kid and find its own way in the world without any of the potential baggage that rigid gender roles bring.

prinz

Links234 wrote: »

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!

Total complete and utter bull. Bullying affects different people differently. Is bullying more wrong because the damage was worse in one person than another? Or is bullying in and of itself wrong? Using your logic we cannot say it's wrong until the victims grow up and we assess the extent of the damage. You can no longer say rape is wrong, because who knows maybe the victim will enjoy it afterwards. Mind boggling.

Is that how we decide how wrong things are these days? By looking retropectively at the damage done? Is it ok to rob someone who won't be as much affected financially as another person? Is it ok to sexually abuse people because we don't how to what extent that abuse will affect them in the future? People deal with different things that happen to them differently, but waiting until after they are damaged or not to judge the action is subjective stupidity beyond belief.

Susie_Q

It would appear these idiots don't understand the basic difference between the terms 'sex' and 'gender'.

Sex = biological difference, i.e. a penis or vagina
Gender = Cultural norms, i.e. masculine or feminine

Yes you could have a genderless child (not dressing a girl in pink or buying toy trucks for a boy) but you can't have a sexless child which is what they seem to think they have by refusing to tell people if it's a boy or a girl.

MORONS!

prinz

Teddy_Picker wrote: »

...the potential baggage that rigid gender roles bring.

Telling family and friends if the kid was born male or female does not equate to 'rigid gender roles'.

sbsquarepants

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.

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

There is a massive psychotherapy bill down the road for this poor kid!
It's gonna be hard enough getting through childhood being called storm, without this genderless shít. I mean does such a state as genderless even exist? I accept some peoples psychological genders/physical sexes have somehow gotten mixed up, but they still feel like one or the other.
I wonder does anyone naturally feel like neither man nor woman?
It's just weirdness for weirdness' sake i reckon - normally if one parent had such a stupid idea the other one would kick it to touch, but somehow these two met and had had kids with each other.
It will end in tears!:eek:

sensibleken wrote: »

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

Ha ha! I'm sure there's a vegan nudist colony somewhere!

common sense brigade

They are not raising a genderless child, this is absolutely not the case, they are simply letting the kid be a kid and find its own way in the world without any of the potential baggage that rigid gender roles bring.

Sorry i dont agree they are refusing to tell people outside a close inner circle the childs sex. That is just plain wrong and cruel. They are esssentailly carrying out a social experiment on their baby. disgraceful.

wes

The entire thing strikes me as pretty damn stupid. I feel for the poor kid involved, and hope things don't turn out to badly for them.

JohnMarston

Teddy_Picker wrote: »

I think what these parents are doing isn't nearly as radical as people are making it out to be.
They are not raising a genderless child, this is absolutely not the case, they are simply letting the kid be a kid and find its own way in the world without any of the potential baggage that rigid gender roles bring.

I agree that the parents should raise their kid to be an individual, but at the same time he/she needs direction.
Finding your own way in the world comes after you've grown up. And i would think in this day and age, gender roles account for very little. You can be what you want.

sensibleken

JohnMarston wrote: »

I agree that the parents should raise their kid to be an individual, but at the same time he/she needs direction.
Finding your own way in the world comes after you've grown up. And i would think in this day and age, gender roles account for very little. You can be what you want.

Why amnt I a fúcking robot crime fighter then!

prinz

sensibleken wrote: »

Why amnt I a fúcking robot crime fighter then!

Ask your ol' pair. It's their fault they didn't raise you as one.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

robinph wrote: »

It's been done before, approximately. I can't remember the names right now to do a Google and find the story for you, but something along the lines of twin boys born, some crazy accident happens to one boy, various operations, boy becomes girl, boy brought up as girl, birl is all confused through life, birl finally discovers what happened (possibly from reading some paper written by the doc that messed with his bits and realised it was about him/ her) and I think eventually tops themselves.

Yeah I was thinking of that too, in fairness this doesn't seem as bad.

But...reading that article, it's partly because of the hassle that Storm's long haired, pink loving older brother Jazz got that they've decided not to reveal the gender to the world at large (for those who didn't bother to read the article, the child's siblings, close family members and a family friend do know, so presumably the child will be told the relevance of whatever it has between its legs). So, they've made an active attempt to remove the influence of any gender stereotypes which are just societal constructs from their children's lives. So...what's between your legs doesn't define your gender, what society tells you doesn't define your gender, presumably they're going to say it's what you feel in your heart or some bull that defines your gender.

For all the practical reasons listed in this thread, this child is probably going to have to decide on its gender soonish, by puberty really at the very least, it's a massive amount of pressure to put on a child that they have to figure out something so important to their lives with all frames of reference deliberately removed. I mean, if the child is amongst the very, very, very small number of people who are transgender then it'll be the best possible environment to grow up in. But if it's amongst the vast majority of people who are heterosexuals with the biological gender they feel is theirs, it's just going to be massively confusing. Children are not adults, children don't understand things that seem obvious to us. What if the child is male but feels pressured to be female because there are already two boys in the family and mommy seems lonely? Or what if it's a girl but decides to be a boy because it wants to fit in with the brothers? Or finds out about periods, thinks "screw that" and thinks deciding to be a boy would make most sense. This is going to be a messed up kid.

So, unfair on the kid, but not as bad as some people here are making out (having not read the article I assume).

krudler

sensibleken wrote: »

Why amnt I a fúcking robot crime fighter then!

I wanted to be a dinosaur as a kid, damn parents restricting me!

deirdre_dub

xsiborg wrote: »

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

When we are born, none of us have formed a gender identity.

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.

Because if they are wrong, then they will be creating a world of hurt for their child.

JohnMarston wrote: »

No kid wants to be seen as the odd one out at school or anywhere else.

In all likelihood, the child will have formed a strong gender identity by then, and will have started to display his/her gender quite strongly.

prinz wrote: »

Telling family and friends if the kid was born male or female does not equate to 'rigid gender roles'.

Unfortunately, it does. As soon as you tell others about your gender, there are immediately a set of expectations and roles placed on you.

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I mean does such a state as genderless even exist? I accept some peoples psychological genders/physical sexes have somehow gotten mixed up, but they still feel like one or the other.
I wonder does anyone naturally feel like neither man nor woman?

Yes - biologically, there are intersex people, and in terms of gender identity, there are gender queer and third gender people.

common sense brigade wrote: »

Sorry i dont agree they are refusing to tell people outside a close inner circle the childs sex. That is just plain wrong and cruel. They are esssentailly carrying out a social experiment on their baby. disgraceful.

How do you know that their motivations aren't because they know that the child is intersex, and are allowing time for the child's gender identity to assert itself?

Julian Future Gazebo wrote: »

For all the practical reasons listed in this thread, this child is probably going to have to decide on its gender soonish, by puberty really at the very least, it's a massive amount of pressure to put on a child that they have to figure out something so important to their lives with all frames of reference deliberately removed.

How can you say "all frames of reference deliberately removed"? The world is completely, totally and utterly gendered! The child would have to be locked in a windowless dungeon to have all frames of reference removed.

Da Shins Kelly

I think some people here are mixing up sex and gender. Sex is to do with hormones and genitals and all the rest, gender is behaviour that is considered masculine or feminine, and there are stereotypes to go with this. I don't think that what the parents are doing is right, because gender socialisation is important to an extent for identity purposes and all the rest. I don't have any problem with people trying to reduce the effect of gender stereotypes, because they can be damaging and constricting if someone is led to believe from a very young age that have to act in a certain way to be considered conventionally female or male - for example, boys HAVE to play with guns and like football to be masculine, and girls HAVE to love Barbies and playing Mammies and Daddies to be considered feminine. However, the idea that a child will be completely without gender socialisation is ludicrous, and it's not going to work. As soon as the child goes into the playground, reads a book, sees a movie or goes to school, they are going to be bombarded with all sorts of different examples of gender socialisation. It's a part of growing up, and it's completely unavoidable. The parents are clearly morons.

common sense brigade

How do you know that their motivations aren't because they know that the child is intersex, and are allowing time for the child's gender identity to assert itself?

Because the child is not 'intersex', the parents state that they know the childs gender and some close people in the family circle also do.

philologos

The fact that anyone can actually defend this type of deception is beyond me. When we were born we were born male and female. These things don't just have identity characteristics but tangible biological impacts on our lives.

Perhaps I'm the nutty one I don't know anymore.

Fukuyama

TheZohan wrote: »

Couldn't agree more. The child will be free of gender stereotypes and free to be straight, gay, bi or anything else without the pressures of having to conform to what society expects of them. At least that way when they're growing up and if it does transpire that they're gay etc there's no big dramarama for them in "coming out" and if they're straight it's business as usual and they'll do their own thing. A persons sexuality shouldn't define them.

Hahaha

You clearly have no knowlege of psychology. In particular how a child develops.

When I was a kid, I wanted to go throw rocks at stuff, play in the mud, race, do dangerous things. Girls, are instinctively drawn to different things. However, boys will occasionally do boy things, and girls will occasionally do boy things.

That's why when we're kids we're more likely to hang around with boys (if your a boy) and vice versa.

That kid is going to be so fcuked up by the time 'it' reaches 12 years old...

prinz

deirdre_dub wrote: »

Unfortunately, it does. As soon as you tell others about your gender, there are immediately a set of expectations and roles placed on you..

...and that's when you tell other people to feck off. Most kids grow up perfectly happy with how they experienced these 'expectations and roles'. What these parents are doing is saying the kid should be ashamed of this, to hide it etc. You are letting the very people who uphold these expectations and roles win by saying if you don't conform to them you should hide behind a smokescreen instead. A more obvious solution would be to be male or female and behave however the hell you like surely. They are going about it completely backwards IMO. Of course this all rests upon the assumption that expectations and roles are in fact a negative influence. I'd argue that. Either way, my parents never hid the fact that I was male and I never had an issue growing up playing with my sisters dolls and toys I never ever had toy guns or soldiers and had little to no interest in cars or machines etc.I loved learning to cook and iron and sew etc or any of a number of things which wouldn't be considered male orientated for a child. If anyone thought any less of me because I could sew, two fingers to them. Couldn't care less attitude, not let's make it all ambiguous so they don't know what to say.

deirdre_dub

common sense brigade wrote: »

Because the child is not 'intersex', the parents state that they know the childs gender and some close people in the family circle also do.

"Intersex" could be considered a gender.

deirdre_dub

philologos wrote: »

The fact that anyone can actually defend this type of deception is beyond me. When we were born we were born male and female.

Would it not be "deception" if the parents said that the child is male (based on the presence of a pen1s), and the child later on in life said "no, actually, I'm transgender female"?

prinz

philologos wrote: »

Perhaps I'm the nutty one I don't know anymore.

It's not cool to acknowledge differences these days. The elephant in the room must be ignored and papered over at all costs.

silverspoon

I've seen stories about this kind of thing before, and it's interesting that these parents all choose to garner publicity for themselves in the process. Smacks of self-glorification to me really.

I completely agree with a poster above who said that instead of ensuring that gender isn't important for the child, this 'genderless' schtick is putting the focus entirely on gender.

For someone who feels that they are born into the wrong sex, how would have being raised genderless have alleviated the struggle that would naturally surround such an issue? Surely if one feels they are born to the wrong sex and gender, then there must have been a way of you identifying why this gender was wrong for you and identifying the natural gender you are. Probably talking in riddles here, and I'm not saying I can imagine what it's like to deal with transgender issues, but I'm struggling to see how this kind of approach would do or solve anything.

Surely the better approach, to be taken with all one's children, is to be accepting and open to letting them conduct their own experiments - i.e., dressing up, playing with all sorts of different toys, and try to stay away from using stereotypes - e.g., boys don't cry etc. The child must figure this stuff out for him/herself, not have experiments imposed on him/her. Anyway, if the child grow up and decides, I am a girl, that won't exactly circumvent the fact that if she has a male body, she's going to have to go through the whole gender reassignment thing. I don't see how growing up as 'neutral' does anything that just being an accepting and loving parent wouldn't, and furthermore, would it not just confuse the heck out of the poor thing?

prinz

deirdre_dub wrote: »

Would it not be "deception" if the parents said that the child is male (based on the presence of a pen1s), and the child later on in life said "no, actually, I'm transgender female"?

No it wouldn't. Just like it's not a deception to say your child is well behaved when they are if they later grow up to be a scumbag.

St.Spodo

I used to play football with really masculine young girls in my childhood. Similarly, a friend of mine used to play girly games with his sisters. By the time they reached pre-pubescence, they had adopted the cultural norms of girls and boys respectively. I would imagine this was due to biological reasons as opposed to any external pressures.

philologos

deirdre_dub wrote: »

Would it not be "deception" if the parents said that the child is male (based on the presence of a pen1s), and the child later on in life said "no, actually, I'm transgender female"?

Not at all, because that child is male. If the child wants to change their appearance in later life that is up to them.

Now that I think of it Romulus and Remus did just fine being raised as wolves.

deirdre_dub

Da Shins Kelly wrote: »

I don't think that what the parents are doing is right, because gender socialisation is important to an extent for identity purposes and all the rest.

Do you really think that what the parents are doing is going to stop that process of "gender socialisation"?!

However, the idea that a child will be completely without gender socialisation is ludicrous

Agreed! There is nothing that the parents are doing, or could do, short of locking the child in a windowless dungeon, that could stop that process!

As soon as the child goes into the playground, reads a book, sees a movie or goes to school, they are going to be bombarded with all sorts of different examples of gender socialisation. It's a part of growing up, and it's completely unavoidable.

Totally agreed! As soon as the child goes into the playground, reads a book, sees a movie, or goes to school, he/she is going to know, instinctively, which group he/she belongs to.

deirdre_dub

philologos wrote: »

Not at all, because that child is male. If the child wants to change their appearance in later life that is up to them.

Being transgendered isn't a "decision to change appearance".

As I said earlier on, I neither choose nor want to be a woman. I don't take hormones because I "want to change appearance" - I take hormones because I need them to function properly. My brain runs on estrogen - as someone else put it, "having testosterone in my system is like putting deisel into a petrol car".

So, no, if the child later on says that they are transgendered female, then you assertion that the "child is male" is, in fact, in a most extremely important way, false.

El Guapo!

@Deirdredub-
To be perfectly honest, and I don't want to offend you but I think your talking out of your arse.
Your making excuses for something that should not be excused. These parents are setting their child up for a life of torment and bullying just to satisfy their hippy egos. And you try and say its not their fault its the fault of the bully.

Yes the bully shouldn't be doing what they are doing but its gonna happen and as a parent its your job to protect the kid. Its like saying "I send my son to school in a tutu and high-heels and a stick on tail and he gets bullied, but its not my fault, the bully is to blame". Total bollocks.

Your contradicting yourself all the time. You're defending this purely because of the situation you're in. You'd be the very first person to say that nobody chooses to be gay or to have gender issues and they're born that way-So by that reasoning this kid will turn out whatever way it's destined to turn out regardless of what their hippy parents do. So why should they just put the child up for public ridicule??
It's not fair and the only loser here is the child.

philologos

deirdre_dub: That's your opinion and if you want to change your appearance and how you identify that's your prerogative. People will differ in terms of how they understand gender and sex ultimately though.

AudreyHepburn

Links234 wrote: »

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

Yes this is entirely possible, in fact I have read of many such cases. This Eurovision this year featured Dana International, a transexual/transgender woman from Israel who was born male but is now female.

To me I can certainly see where the parents are coming from in their decision.

As I see they are saying ' we are not going to force an indentity on you, we will let you decide for yourself'. And allowing a person to decide who they are, as opposed to who society says they should be, is never a bad thing.

Forcing some-one to be male when they feel they are female or vice aversa is akin to trying to force some-one who is gay to be straight.

sensibleken

philologos wrote: »

Not at all, because that child is male. If the child wants to change their appearance in later life that is up to them.

Now that I think of it Romulus and Remus did just fine being raised as wolves.

apart from the murder you mean

philologos

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Forcing some-one to be male when they feel they are female or vice aversa is akin to trying to force some-one who is gay to be straight.

This is about forcing someone not to know what sex they were born as or introducing a lot of confusion where none is necessary. It's not about "not forcing anything". People are free to make choices but to lie to people about who they are is crossing the line.

sensibleken: A bit of light humour never did anyone any harm.

AudreyHepburn

deirdre_dub wrote: »

Would it not be "deception" if the parents said that the child is male (based on the presence of a pen1s), and the child later on in life said "no, actually, I'm transgender female"?

It would certainly be a case of the parents forcing the child to be something he or she isn't.

Physically you are born one or the other but emotionally and mentally it is a whole different kettle of fish.

prinz

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Forcing some-one to be male when they feel they are female or vice aversa is akin to trying to force some-one who is gay to be straight.

....and just how long after birth did Storm announce that it felt male/female as opposed to female/male?

silverspoon

Dean09 wrote: »

You'd be the very first person to say that nobody chooses to be gay or to have gender issues and they're born that way-So by that reasoning this kid will turn out whatever way it's destined to turn out regardless of what their hippy parents do. So why should they just put the child up for public ridicule??
It's not fair and the only loser here is the child.

I think a bit of your post is kind of harsh, but I agree completely with this. Raising one's child gender neutral won't do anything to pervert the natural course of a person's realisation that he/she is gay/straight, or identifies with being male/female. If someone is gay, they're gay. End of. If someone is born male, but identifies herself as female, that's that. You are who you are, and no amount of bullsh*t parenting is going to change that. Children who struggle with issues of sexuality/gender aren't going to have their lives made any easier by this androgyny experiment. None of us can escape our sexual orientation or gender identification, so I don't see how being 'It' until puberty is realised will be anything but destructive for the child.

AudreyHepburn

philologos wrote: »

This is about forcing someone not to know what sex they were born as or introducing a lot of confusion where none is necessary. It's not about "not forcing anything". People are free to make choices but to lie to people about who they are is crossing the line.

sensibleken: A bit of light humour never did anyone any harm.

Yes exactly, by not telling the child he or she is a girl or boy they are allowing him or her to decide for themselves.

To be honest I think a lot of the negativity to do with this is simply because people think its 'weird' or 'sick' etc, not out of concern for the child.

AudreyHepburn

prinz wrote: »

....and just how long after birth did Storm announce that it felt male/female as opposed to female/male?

Em.....I don't think he or she has yet.

But imo he/she won't ever just be it because he/she will know for him/herself what they are.

philologos

AudreyHepburn: but their sex is something very significant to who they are. I could imagine warping something as significant as this will impede child development.

prinz

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Em.....I don't think he or she has yet..

So just what are they forcing on the kid then? If the kid is biologically male it will most likely want to be male and the same if the kid is female. What you are saying is that the tiniest percentage chance that the kid doesn't feel whatever biological sex they are is grounds enough to hide their sex from the world? What else? What if the kid doesn't like the name Storm? What if she/he grows up to hate it? What's the solution? Don't name any kids? How dare they force that name on it? Or you know, the kid will grow up and know all by itself if it wants to keep the name or change it...

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

But imo he/she won't ever just be it because he/she will know for him/herself what they are.

Doesn't that happen now anyway? So what's the difference?

sensibleken

philologos wrote: »

deirdre_dub: That's your opinion and if you want to change your appearance and how you identify that's your prerogative. People will differ in terms of how they understand gender and sex ultimately though.

Its not that simple.

Transgender does not have anything to do with interpretation of gender. It is a medical condition whereby the brain is physically a different gender to that of the rest of the body.

Although I don't think the issue has much to do with the story as the kid has not been clasified transgender nor is it possible to do that for quite a while. A liberal approach to traditional gender roles is healthy, however I believe this may lead the child to more confusion

AudreyHepburn

prinz wrote: »

So just what are they forcing on the kid then?

Nothing, that's my point.

If the kid is bioligically male it will most likely want to be male and the same if the kid is female.

Not necessarily as you well know. You know what it means to be transgender/transexual I assume?

What you are saying is that the tiniest percentage chance that the kid doesn't feel whatever biological sex they are is grounds enough to hide their sex from the world? What else? What if the kid doesn't like the name Storm? What if she/he grows up to hate it? What's the solution? Don't name any kids?

Well then she could change her name when she's old enough.

Look there is no point in stating conclusively what sort of outcome this will have because we simply don't know.

I think the child will be fine, you think not but we cannot know.

Doesn't that happen now anyway? So what's the difference?

I don't understand what you're asking me?

Links234

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Yes this is entirely possible, in fact I have read of many such cases. This Eurovision this year featured Dana International, a transexual/transgender woman from Israel who was born male but is now female.

Did she have an upbringing like the child in this case though?

AudreyHepburn

philologos wrote: »

AudreyHepburn: but their sex is something very significant to who they are. I could imagine warping something as significant as this will impede child development.

How is letting the child decide warping it?

AudreyHepburn

Links234 wrote: »

Did she have an upbringing like the child in this case though?

That I don't know. I'll look it up.

Edit: I see nothing to say what kind of childhood she had but I gather a fairly normal one in so far as was possible for a a little biy who was actuallu a girl.

steddyeddy

Their rasing their child as an experiment. It comes pretty close to child abuse imo.

deirdre_dub

philologos wrote: »

deirdre_dub: That's your opinion and if you want to change your appearance and how you identify that's your prerogative. People will differ in terms of how they understand gender and sex ultimately though.

It's not an opinion - it is a biological fact that gender isn't a binary. It is a fact of nature that sometimes, the development of a child's gender in the womb doesn't go according to plan.

I've included links above to articles on intersexism, and to an article describing an XY woman who has given birth, if you are interested.

philologos

You're conflating sex (biology) and gender (identity).

Dean820

Action Man & Barbie are genderless and they're pretty cool.

Links234

Oh, and another, people are going on about the child being bullied. This is the same kinda thing that comes up with the question of same sex couples adopting is posed... oh no! the kid will be bullied! that's not really on the ball, it's a bit more paranoia of something different.

the sky isn't gonna fall people

Duggy747

Using your own child for a pointless social experiment and denying it's own identity in society, classy.

This stupidity won't last long when the kid realises what the difference between a male and a female is and which group it'll put itself into.

Genderless child, what a load of bullshìt.