Canadian Parents Raising "Genderless" Baby

[Broomstick]

Bakustra, this is supposed to be about discussing these moron parents, not picking an argument with me. I do not care to engage in a circle-jerk with you while you repeatedly distort my position. Really, I have better things to do with my life.

[Bakustra]

Bakustra, this is supposed to be about discussing these moron parents, not picking an argument with me. I do not care to engage in a circle-jerk with you while you repeatedly distort my position. Really, I have better things to do with my life.

Uh, talking about how stupid these fucking idiots who dare to try and avert gender roles (don't they know that they're hardwired!!!) are is the definition of a circle-jerk, because there are no differing opinions and it consists of the same things said over and over again. Nice effort to shut down actual discussion though, by claiming the thread is actually all about mocking how stupid the parents are. Too bad there are people here who disagree with that.

[Broomstick]

A Canadian couple from Toronto have decided to keep the gender of their four-month-old baby a secret in order to raise what they call a 'genderless' child. Storm will be raised as neither a boy nor girl and will choose a sex when he or she grows up.

OK, this is where the stupid begins. The idea a person can "choose" their sex when they grow up.

First there's physical sex - you are born with that. It's a fact. You can examine a child and determine if there is a penis, a vagina, or in rare unfortunate cases, something that's not quite right. This is not something to dispute, and not something where you "choose" what's in between the legs. You may not like the factory installed equipment, but there it is. There is no choice involved. Well, OK, you can have surgery later on and that's choosing in a sense, but what is present at birth is there.

Second, the whole notion that there is actually a "choice" here. I don't recall "choosing" to be heterosexual, or female, at any point in my life. I don't know any homosexual who chose to be that, it's what they are. Transsexuals, from what I know of them, don't choose to be transsexuals. They may or may not choose to have have surgery to bring their bodies into alignment with their internally perceived gender, but they didn't choose to have their inner state and their bodies be in conflict.

Choice doesn't enter into it. The only choice is how a person behaves, not in their original genitalia and whether or not that's at odds with their internal state.

Kathy Witterick and David Stocker have only revealed Storm’s gender to close members of the family, including their two young sons, one friend and the midwives who delivered the child.

More stupid - they "revealed" the child's gender to the midwives? How the fuck could that be concealed from a midwife? Alright, this particular stupid is probably bad writing on the part of the reporter.

The couple told the Toronto Star about the flood of unsupportive comments they have received. Friends expressed their fears of how Storm’s genderless nature would make the child vulnerable to bullying in the future.

This is a very real risk.

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.

You can allow your children to make their own decisions in those areas without locking them away from the world.

Their sons Jazz, five, and Kio, two, have the freedom to dress themselves and decide when they want to cut their hair. Kio’s favourite colour is purple and older sibling Jazz has long hair, he likes pink.

After being mistaken for a girl and home schooled because of how people would, “immediately react with Jazz over his gender” the couple decided to raise Storm genderless.

Long hair and liking pink now calls into question Jazz's gender? WTF?

Let's see, they want to raise their kids outside gender roles, fine, but their reaction to society's reaction is to lock the kids away in an artificial environment of homeschooling. This is stupid. These kids will have to grow up and deal with society as it is. While I agree male humans should have the freedom to grow their hair long and like pink there is also the reality that the rest of the society isn't so open minded. If these kids are kept at home until adult they will not acquire the needed skills to deal with society on society's terms. And yes, sometimes that means you don't wear your favorite color, or you accommodate expectations that may irritate you, but are a necessary means to get along in the world.

Life is not solely about doing what you want. Part of being an adult is gritting your teeth and doing things you aren't particularly fond of for various reasons. You learn how to do that as a child, not as a man-boy sheltered and protected within the home for 18-20 years then suddenly released onto the world with no coping skills and only the haziest idea of what others expect from you. If Jazz is ever to be employed he's going to have know that showing up in pink attire - even if cut to conservative men's styles - is not going to be well received. Is that fair? No, not really. Well, if done tastefully he could get away with some pink in his tie, but that requires understanding societal prejudices, which is not going to happen if he's home-schooled with fruit-loop parents.

[Bakustra]

Your entire post can be summed down to "Because the reporter was not concerned with the finer nuances of sex and gender, clearly the parents must not be" and "People should sit down and shut up rather than try to change things." Guy likes pink and wears his hair long? Clearly, the response should be to blame his parents for enabling him to express himself, rather than to support him. After all, clearly the prejudices of society should be knelt before rather than fought!

[Broomstick]

Your entire post can be summed down to "Because the reporter was not concerned with the finer nuances of sex and gender, clearly the parents must not be" and "People should sit down and shut up rather than try to change things."

Again, you distort my position. Clearly, your intent is not to discuss the matter at hand but to start an argument with me.

I did not say "sit down and shut up", what I did say is that you have to deal with society as it is. If you're a nudist it's all very well to say people shouldn't fear nakedness and you want to be free to walk around with your dong swishing in the breeze, but if you walk down the street in that state in many places in the world you're going to get arrested. That's how it is, right or wrong. Nudists wishing to remain free to enjoy nakedness ('cause in jail they will not allow you to remain in that state) have to learn where and when they can indulge their preference without incurring the wrath of others. Meanwhile, they certainly can (and probably should) lobby for more lenient laws and attitudes.

It is also important to know the consequences of flouting societal standards. There is a cost to being unconventional. For many people, it's a price worth paying. For others, not so much and that is also entirely OK. You can't make an informed choice without knowing the consequences of your choices. If you raise a kid entirely within the home, home-schooling them, "protecting" them, you're going to wind up with an adult who doesn't know the customs and culture and doesn't have the coping skills to deal with being outside the mainstream. I don't think that's in the child's best interests.

Guy likes pink and wears his hair long? Clearly, the response should be to blame his parents for enabling him to express himself, rather than to support him. After all, clearly the prejudices of society should be knelt before rather than fought!

Nope - if the kid likes long hair and the color pink he needs to know, first of all, not everyone is going to have a positive, life-affirming reaction to that. Otherwise, you're not teaching the kid about reality. Prejudice exists. It doesn't go away by ignoring it, or preventing a kid from seeing it.

They're not teaching their kids to "fight" prejudice, they're teaching their kids to hide. Again, I don't see that as in the child's best interests.

[Lusankya]

OK, this is where the stupid begins. The idea a person can "choose" their sex when they grow up.

First there's physical sex - you are born with that. It's a fact. You can examine a child and determine if there is a penis, a vagina, or in rare unfortunate cases, something that's not quite right. This is not something to dispute, and not something where you "choose" what's in between the legs. You may not like the factory installed equipment, but there it is. There is no choice involved. Well, OK, you can have surgery later on and that's choosing in a sense, but what is present at birth is there.

Second, the whole notion that there is actually a "choice" here. I don't recall "choosing" to be heterosexual, or female, at any point in my life. I don't know any homosexual who chose to be that, it's what they are. Transsexuals, from what I know of them, don't choose to be transsexuals. They may or may not choose to have have surgery to bring their bodies into alignment with their internally perceived gender, but they didn't choose to have their inner state and their bodies be in conflict.

Choice doesn't enter into it. The only choice is how a person behaves, not in their original genitalia and whether or not that's at odds with their internal state.

Why are you sounding like an idiot today? It's as though you can't read through the lines and interpret "Storm can choose his or her gender when he or she grows up" as "at the time that Storm is capable of understanding gender differences, he or she will be able to state which gender he or she identifies as without any family pressure to state the one that matches his or her genitalia". I'm certain that people like Serafina and the Duchess would have absolutely loved it growing up if their parents had given them the opportunity to "choose" their gender at a young age.

[Covenant]

I think they're doing a big disservice to their kid. I'm a boy and I was raised a boy and my favorite non-decorative color is pink and I watched lots of My Little Pony when I was like 3 or whatever and apparently this didn't make me a target for ridicule or implode my genitals or anything. I think they chose a goofy path with their other kids and it turned out poorly for Jazz (who it seems was mistaken for a girl, as I was too as a baby, which I find a charming story) and so they want to avoid that by... not even revealing gender?

Well what the crap? And for this they're homeschooling?

I'm against homeschooling as-is because it seems to create weirdo kids, but to homeschool kids becuase you're raising your kids in such a way that they're becoming targets for ridicule? I dunno man. It seems like you're stunting your kids twice over and that's not fair to those little guys.

It's really not offensive or alarming, it's just sad. Why try to raise your kid genderless? Why not just raise them in a supportive environment? What's un-progressive about acknowledging that girls and boys are different? They are. But not in the silly superficial things like color choices. I dunno. Hair length and color of clothes don't really seem relevant. It's just... code because before you're 8 or so your sexual dimorphism or whatever isn't really kicking in so people may not know. I think they're going to confuse their kid, unless they explain this stuff early on. Those early years can be formative w.r.t. gender roles in society.

I certainly would feel bad for the kid if they weren't given ANY masculine rolemodels if the kid is indeed a dude. We joke about the "fatnerd" thing guys who don't act 'guyish' do weird me out and it seems like they're permanent doormats, and that's not real great for making good friendships and stuff. I'd rather my kid be a happy, well-adjusted and successful member of society with progressive views than a progressive masthead.

It seems like they're not really doing anything to foster a healthy respect for all peoples of genders and sexes and orientations or whatever, and just making some kind of crazyass 'statement' baby.

But I'm neither qualified nor educated enough on these subjects to make a real assessment. Consider this a far-left American male layman's perspective?

[Serafina]

You know, if the parents just want to give their children the freedom to express themselves as they like, they'd just move to a tolerant city.

I'm certain that people like Serafina and the Duchess would have absolutely loved it growing up if their parents had given them the opportunity to "choose" their gender at a young age.

Of course that would have been great. Incidentially, the problem wasn't just my parents, i was also very suspectible to how society told me to behave - and so i did. Basically almost all my gender-related behavior until i started to be aware of my transsexuality was based only on imitation - it's like if you were trying to behave like a specific person. I never had any impulses for male behavior on my own, i just did it in order to conform.
From that perspective, i can perfectly understand any desire to encourage a kid to question gender standards in our society.

But from everything the article tells us, that's NOT exactly what those parents are doing. Perhaps the article is inaccurate, but from the information we have tells us that they want to shelter the kids from any gender influence. IF they actually succeed, their kids are very likely to be messed up.
Gender roles are picked up/learned by interaction with others, in accordance with the gender identity of the person in question (unless prevented by force or social pressure as in my case). Preventing such interaction is just as wrong as forcing a specific behavior on a child.


Let's slightly alter the szenario here. Instead of gender identity, let's pick sexual orientation.
Ideally, parents inform a child equally about hetero-, homo- and bisexaulity and give it the courage to stand up to societies pressure to go in any direction. That will enable the child to live with it's own sexual orientation with as little problems as possible.
But these parents are not doing that - instead they are trying to shelter the kid from ANY information about sex or sexaulity (and isolate them from society). Do you really think that this will produce a strong, informed person able to stand up for his or her own identity?


I know the consequences of missing most of the formative years of my gender. I can still learn all the assosciated behavior i want, and it does come naturally - but it IS harder, and i DO miss those years.
No matter what the childs gender will turn out to be, it will have missed the formative years for it's gender if it's parents succeed.

[Broomstick]

Why are you sounding like an idiot today? It's as though you can't read through the lines and interpret "Storm can choose his or her gender when he or she grows up" as "at the time that Storm is capable of understanding gender differences, he or she will be able to state which gender he or she identifies as without any family pressure to state the one that matches his or her genitalia". I'm certain that people like Serafina and the Duchess would have absolutely loved it growing up if their parents had given them the opportunity to "choose" their gender at a young age.

Your family can support you and not pressure you about such things without having to lock you away from the world. These kids will have to go out in the world sometime, they need to learn to cope with it. That won't happen as long as they're isolated and home-schooled.

[Simon_Jester]

Kathy Witterick and David Stocker have only revealed Storm’s gender to close members of the family, including their two young sons, one friend and the midwives who delivered the child.

More stupid - they "revealed" the child's gender to the midwives? How the fuck could that be concealed from a midwife? Alright, this particular stupid is probably bad writing on the part of the reporter.

They could have told the midwives "it's a boy" before the baby was born, if they've done any ultrasound tests. Though that's kind of silly, because then the doctors would know too and, OK, this makes my head hurt.

Why are you sounding like an idiot today? It's as though you can't read through the lines and interpret "Storm can choose his or her gender when he or she grows up" as "at the time that Storm is capable of understanding gender differences, he or she will be able to state which gender he or she identifies as without any family pressure to state the one that matches his or her genitalia". I'm certain that people like Serafina and the Duchess would have absolutely loved it growing up if their parents had given them the opportunity to "choose" their gender at a young age.

One big problem I can see on the horizon with this is: when will Storm's parents think it's time for their baby to choose their gender? Hopefully that will happen early in which case it won't cause any problems- but if they start putting real work into keeping their kid from making up their mind "too soon," that can become a problem.

It can also become an immensely serious problem if a child, any child, is not raised with the ability to engage in coping behavior that lets them function in the society they live in. Which is Broomstick's point- the article doesn't inspire confidence about the parents' grasp of this point, because they're pulling their children out to homeschool them rather than get them out into society to interact with people who don't share their views.

What I'd really like to know is, how much do the parents know? Do they have lots of experience, real knowledge of what is at stake, and the risks and rewards of what they're doing? Do they know that much developmental psychology? Or are they just sort of flailing in the dark with a lack of this specialized and important knowledge?

I'd be a lot less worried if a pair of people who knew the issues did this, because I'd see a lower risk of the failure modes: less chance that they'll insist on the child being raised genderless 'too long' over the child's own objections, less risk that they'll deprive the child of learning experiences that help to make the majority of children more comfortable with their gender identity* in their formative years, and less risk that they'll shelter their children from social realities that they'll grow up unable to deal with.

Which would be a great pity, even if those social realities are unfair- teach your children to bang heads forcibly with a wall of social expectations and the wall will win. They don't have to agree with the way society works, and they may well be committed to working out ways to get around that way, but they have to know the way is there and understand how to not smash themselves against it.

*The average young female will be fairly comfortable thinking of themselves as a girl and emulating the girls around them, possibly with some relatively moderate variations as with Broomstick. Trying to keep a young girl from getting opportunities to do that because "no, it is OK to act like a boy too!" would be utterly foolish. I'm not saying Storm's parents will do that, but it worries me.

[Simon_Jester]

Ghetto Edit:

I mean if say, Serafina were to decide to do something like this in five or ten years, I know she'd know what was at stake because she has very direct experience of gender dysphoria and not getting the experience of the formative girlhood years that would match her own gender. So I'd be fairly sure she wouldn't try to impose a condition of genderlessness on the baby until relatively late in the child's development. And that she would certainly understand that while parental support of a child is immensely valuable, the parent fails in their duties if they do not teach their child to function in the society they will live in, rather than the society they should live in.

With these two I am really not sure whether they have the knowledge to avoid things like that.

[Bakustra]

Your entire post can be summed down to "Because the reporter was not concerned with the finer nuances of sex and gender, clearly the parents must not be" and "People should sit down and shut up rather than try to change things."

Again, you distort my position. Clearly, your intent is not to discuss the matter at hand but to start an argument with me.

I did not say "sit down and shut up", what I did say is that you have to deal with society as it is. If you're a nudist it's all very well to say people shouldn't fear nakedness and you want to be free to walk around with your dong swishing in the breeze, but if you walk down the street in that state in many places in the world you're going to get arrested. That's how it is, right or wrong. Nudists wishing to remain free to enjoy nakedness ('cause in jail they will not allow you to remain in that state) have to learn where and when they can indulge their preference without incurring the wrath of others. Meanwhile, they certainly can (and probably should) lobby for more lenient laws and attitudes.

It is also important to know the consequences of flouting societal standards. There is a cost to being unconventional. For many people, it's a price worth paying. For others, not so much and that is also entirely OK. You can't make an informed choice without knowing the consequences of your choices. If you raise a kid entirely within the home, home-schooling them, "protecting" them, you're going to wind up with an adult who doesn't know the customs and culture and doesn't have the coping skills to deal with being outside the mainstream. I don't think that's in the child's best interests.

First of all, you're comparing nudism to perceptions of gender roles, so I guess I'm wasting my time here. But you're leaping to conclusions- you're declaring that the parents must be trying to hide their children from the world in perpetuity because they want to give them an environment where they can express themselves more freely when young. I mean, you're taking the "party line" of homeschooling being this tremendous evil, and expanding it to something that can induce something functionally identical to high-functioning autism. You're judging the parents a priori because you're uncomfortable with this and because you've already concluded that they have to be idiots. I could have pointed out that what you said is functionally equivalent to "bullying builds character", but I know that you didn't mean that.

Not to mention that, as other people have pointed out, the child will still have exposure to mainstream culture, in particular if the parents live in a functioning community.

Now, going back to your nudism analogy, even if nudism were legalized, there would still be societal prejudice against it. Being less aligned to gender roles is still the subject of societal prejudice, despite being legal. The only way to change societal prejudice against something is to normalize it. That means having enough people acting outside of gender roles that it becomes a normal thing.

Guy likes pink and wears his hair long? Clearly, the response should be to blame his parents for enabling him to express himself, rather than to support him. After all, clearly the prejudices of society should be knelt before rather than fought!

Nope - if the kid likes long hair and the color pink he needs to know, first of all, not everyone is going to have a positive, life-affirming reaction to that. Otherwise, you're not teaching the kid about reality. Prejudice exists. It doesn't go away by ignoring it, or preventing a kid from seeing it.

They're not teaching their kids to "fight" prejudice, they're teaching their kids to hide. Again, I don't see that as in the child's best interests.

I'm going to use an analogy of my own here. Let's say you had a kid that's black and is being bullied by kids at school for being black, on a regular basis. Would you force the kid to stay in school on the reasoning that prejudice "doesn't go away by ignoring it"? Or would you pull the kid from the school and find one that's better, or potentially homeschool? Either way, though, the kid is still going to be exposed to societal prejudice against being black, which is ingrained at an early age- see the famous doll experiment.

Similarly, there is a difference between acknowledging that prejudice exists (which TV, books, and movies will already show to the kid) and forcing the kid to suffer regularly from prejudice. This applies to Storm and his/her siblings as well, though not in the same exact ways.

Ghetto Edit:

I mean if say, Serafina were to decide to do something like this in five or ten years, I know she'd know what was at stake because she has very direct experience of gender dysphoria and not getting the experience of the formative girlhood years that would match her own gender. So I'd be fairly sure she wouldn't try to impose a condition of genderlessness on the baby until relatively late in the child's development. And that she would certainly understand that while parental support of a child is immensely valuable, the parent fails in their duties if they do not teach their child to function in the society they will live in, rather than the society they should live in.

With these two I am really not sure whether they have the knowledge to avoid things like that.

Simon, they are not trying to impose a condition of genderlessness! They are simply letting Storm decide and allowing Storm to be raised with less effort at imposing a set of gender roles on him/her. The fact that you insist that this is imposition suggests that you have some deeper problem with this whole thing, some root lack of comfort beyond the surface issues you distort willfully.

But what's interesting is that you assume that there's some sort of magic spell that will break down the wall of societal prejudice. That's not the case. What happens is that behaviors become normalized by being expressed and expressed and expressed. In order to break down that wall, individuals must oppose it!

Finally, kids that go to public schools can end up being socially awkward and inept as well. Clearly, people who put their children into public schools are morons, and I will imply that they are abusive parents as well for doing so. Or do you have some sort of study to prove that there is a causative link between periods of homeschooling and social ineptitude? I mean, you already indicate that you believe that only developmental psychologists ought to be allowed to raise children non-traditionally, and you apparently believe that immigration is an act of child abuse if families do it (or, rather, what you're arguing leads naturally to that conclusion, though I expect you to deny it), so this may just be an opinion stated as fact, but I'd love to know!

[Serafina]

Simon, they are not trying to impose a condition of genderlessness! They are simply letting Storm decide and allowing Storm to be raised with less effort at imposing a set of gender roles on him/her. The fact that you insist that this is imposition suggests that you have some deeper problem with this whole thing, some root lack of comfort beyond the surface issues you distort willfully.

As evidenced by WHAT exactly?
According to the information we have right now, the parents are taking every possible measure to DENY their kid any experience with gender differences.

Or do you have some sort of study to prove that there is a causative link between periods of homeschooling and social ineptitude?

Just for homeschooling? No.
But the majority of homeschooled kids still have lot's of social contacts, albeit striktly controlled by their parents. If those parents really want to shield their child from any societal gender impression, they are likely to shield it from almost any social contact. In any case it will likely be very limited - christian homeschoolers can access an extensive community which does not exist here.


So far, you have utterly ignored the point that such extreme measures are utterly unnecessary.
You do not have to shield a child from society in order to allow free gender expression - all you have to do is allow it, and support the child against pressure to the contrary.

But what's interesting is that you assume that there's some sort of magic spell that will break down the wall of societal prejudice. That's not the case. What happens is that behaviors become normalized by being expressed and expressed and expressed. In order to break down that wall, individuals must oppose it!

Funny thing is, expressing yourself is utterly pointless if you only do it in the safety of your home.
So first you state that it is okay to isolate the child to allow it freedom of expression, and then you declare that that child no one knows will somehow influence society. Can you spot the contradiction?

Solo-stunts like this one are useless for breaking down any prejudices. Why do you think that women, blacks, homosexuals and other minorities invested so much effort in being visible? Why do you think they did that by being public and open about the differences (while simultaneously showing that they don't matter), by going into those places where society did not want them?

If those parents really wanted to fight constricting gender roles, they would seek to be part of a community that does the same, and be public about it as part of that community. Yes, perhaps they have to move to a big city in order to do that - you have to start somewhere. But hiding in your proverbial attic is not going to change anyones perception.



You're not only advocating extreme measures, you are also advocating entirely the wrong ones here.

[Simon_Jester]

But you're leaping to conclusions- you're declaring that the parents must be trying to hide their children from the world in perpetuity because they want to give them an environment where they can express themselves more freely when young. I mean, you're taking the "party line" of homeschooling being this tremendous evil, and expanding it to something that can induce something functionally identical to high-functioning autism. You're judging the parents a priori because you're uncomfortable with this and because you've already concluded that they have to be idiots. I could have pointed out that what you said is functionally equivalent to "bullying builds character", but I know that you didn't mean that.

No, it is not functionally equivalent.

However, not knowing how to cope with bullying is a character weakness- because unless you spend your whole life in a bubble, sooner or later you will run into a bully. The world would be no poorer if there were no bullies, but it is the duty of parents to ensure that their children understand how to cope with the ones that exist- just as it is their duty to ensure that their children understand how to fit into social norms well enough not to pointlessly antagonize other people.

A lot of people have to put a mask on to get through the day to one degree or another; grownups don't get to behave exactly as they please at all times.

What's worrying to Broomstick- and to me- is a lack of the sense that this is well understood by Storm's parents. Will they make sure their child is socialized enough to understand that there are limits on the behavior it is permissible and safe to engage in in public? That doesn't just mean gender roles. It can also mean "not making a scene in public by jumping up and down and shouting and making fart jokes" or "not wearing skimpy/eye-searing clothes to solemn and formal public occasions." Ever seen Amadeus? Think about how Mozart behaved in that, and you'll get the idea.

I hope the answer is yes, that this will not be a problem, that they will figure out early on that by golly their child wants to be "a girl" or "a boy" in an approximately standard sense of the term (like 90% or more of the human race). Or that their approach will, in the event that the child genuinely has some kind of innate gender anomaly, actually be an improvement over trying to force the child into a role they don't want.

I hope that they will not wind up raising a child who finds themself unnerving others with strange and inappropriate behavior, that they will not press the condition of "genderless" on the child against the child's wishes, saying "no, you should be playing with cars as much as you play with dolls" or vice versa.

I would like to think my hopes will be fulfilled, for Storm's sake. But the parents' attitude towards gender roles, which seems quite detached from the sort of pragmatic approach I'd hope to see, does not encourage me.

Now, going back to your nudism analogy, even if nudism were legalized, there would still be societal prejudice against it. Being less aligned to gender roles is still the subject of societal prejudice, despite being legal. The only way to change societal prejudice against something is to normalize it. That means having enough people acting outside of gender roles that it becomes a normal thing.

Thing is, you do not do that by deliberately creating such people. You do it by breaking down the prejudices in the minds of the majority, not by trying to induce anomalous conditions in the general populace to swell the minority.

In other words, you don't end racism by making more people black; you end racism by ending racism- by getting it through the skulls of whites that blacks are not an inferior race.

You don't end homophobia by making more people gay; you end homophobia by ending homophobia- by getting it through people's skulls that this is an inherent trait, just another way of being human, not a blasphemy against creation or a threat to the stability of society.

You don't loosen a straitjacket gender role by creating more people who don't fit the straitjacket. You end it by getting people to accept that people can do and like things outside their gender role. A lot of progress has been made on this issue for women in the past half-century, to the point where it would now be almost unthinkable in most of the civilized world to try to condition girls away from 'tomboy' hobbies and interests... which was routine forty or fifty years ago. Less progress has been made for men, of course. But the point remains- you do not get rid of straitjackets by creating more people who find the straitjacket bone-breakingly painful.

Ghetto Edit:

I mean if say, Serafina were to decide to do something like this in five or ten years, I know she'd know what was at stake because she has very direct experience of gender dysphoria and not getting the experience of the formative girlhood years that would match her own gender. So I'd be fairly sure she wouldn't try to impose a condition of genderlessness on the baby until relatively late in the child's development. And that she would certainly understand that while parental support of a child is immensely valuable, the parent fails in their duties if they do not teach their child to function in the society they will live in, rather than the society they should live in.

With these two I am really not sure whether they have the knowledge to avoid things like that.

Simon, they are not trying to impose a condition of genderlessness!

How do you know they won't do that? To be blunt, the way they present their plans strongly suggests that they do have preconceived notions about how they're going to go into this.

Put it this way. Storm will, in all probability, identify as a girl or a boy- and identify as one or the other quite early on; most children do. Storm will start looking for female or male role models, accordingly. Storm will start acting more like the females they see around, or the males they see around.

The question in my mind is: once this starts to happen, will the parents recognize it? Or, in the name of "providing options," will they attempt to press the condition of gender-neutrality on the child longer than is developmentally appropriate?

And I have my doubts, simply because they seem to have made this decision without much reference to the field of developmental psychology or the knowledge of adults with direct experience of the problems of developing in a way that doesn't fit your internal gender sense.

But what's interesting is that you assume that there's some sort of magic spell that will break down the wall of societal prejudice. That's not the case. What happens is that behaviors become normalized by being expressed and expressed and expressed. In order to break down that wall, individuals must oppose it!

I repeat, prejudice is not ended by deliberately increasing the number of people who are its targets. Prejudice is ended by ending prejudice; the battle is won in the hearts and minds of the majority, not in the demographics of the minority.

Finally, kids that go to public schools can end up being socially awkward and inept as well. Clearly, people who put their children into public schools are morons, and I will imply that they are abusive parents as well for doing so. Or do you have some sort of study to prove that there is a causative link between periods of homeschooling and social ineptitude?

Homeschooling is not the problem.

Being homeschooled by people with false hypotheses about childrearing is the problem.

See the difference? If you are going to homeschool your children, you take on an extra obligation to provide socialization that they would otherwise (probably) get naturally. This places on you an obligation to know what the fuck you are doing and talking about. I am unsure whether Storm's parents have fully accepted and understood this obligation.

I mean, you already indicate that you believe that only developmental psychologists ought to be allowed to raise children non-traditionally, and you apparently believe that immigration is an act of child abuse if families do it (or, rather, what you're arguing leads naturally to that conclusion, though I expect you to deny it), so this may just be an opinion stated as fact, but I'd love to know!

...What the fuck are you talking about?

[Bakustra]

Both of you are immediately leaping to the conclusion that Storm will be kept in a bubble for the entirety of his/her life, because of prejudice on your part, directed at the parents. Simon has gone so far as to say outright that the parents would clearly be forcing non-traditional gender roles onto Storm, perhaps because he's an idiot with totalitarian inclinations.

Serafina, your entire argument is predicated on assuming that the parents will be trying to completely isolate the child rather than simply trying to create a more neutral environment for her. Do you have a particular reason other than your own outrage for believing this? For that matter, why do you think that Storm would never actually enter society?

Simon, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to cite where you learned that this is completely false as a way of raising a child according to the field of developmental psychology, the reasoning that you have for assuming that the conventional way of raising children is determined to be true by the field of developmental psychology (or a citation of where you learned that as well), and if you don't have a specific source for the truth and/or falsehood, then your credentials in the field of psychology and developmental psychology in specific. Now, you may think that this is unfair, but on the other hand, you're taking conventional wisdom and attempting to inflate it with scientific backing. This is quite, quite annoying to me, so put up or shut up, to be brief. (PS: You can have your opinions, just don't try to make them scientific!)

Now, what's interesting, Simon, is that you presume that the only way to end prejudice is to have it forced and dictated from above that "thou shalt not discriminate against a minority". Now, I wonder why you aren't attacking Serafina for opposing you similarly, but what's more interesting is the totalitarianism implicit to this- the powerful being able to dictate what people think, and using this for good. Of course, like all such totalitarian ideals, it is quite simply ignored by civilized individuals.

See, for example, "Black is Beautiful" or Gay Pride parades- prejudice has consistently been fought both through attacks on de jure discrimination via legal means, and through attacks on de facto discrimination by forcing the unconventional or discriminated against into the spotlight. Much of the way in which homosexuality has become more accepted is because it's getting harder and harder to ignore gays and lesbians or to classify them as perverts and predators. In other words, it's becoming more and more normal to be gay. Similarly, the Black is Beautiful campaigns have sought to fight the conception of beauty as being white-oriented by presenting African-American models and actresses. In other words, they normalize black features as being part of beauty.

Gender roles will not be changed by top-down "well that about wraps it up for gender roles". People have to deliberately alter them. In order to change the perception that, say, accounting is "men's work", women have to become accountants. While laws can serve to make this easier, they cannot actually alter people's minds outside the delusions of totalitarians. So saying that Storm cannot change the perception of gender and gender roles on his/her own is true, but having more Storms and them becoming a normal part of life will change the ways we think about gender and gender roles. Your denial of this is a slap in the face to anybody that tries to go beyond what society expects of them, because it tells them that it doesn't matter because the people in charge haven't spoken the magic words to "beat prejudice out of people's heads".

You also presume that the parents will not teach their child about any concept of social appropriateness. This is more prejudice against the parents. Perhaps you yourself should visit a psychologist to unravel your obvious gender issues, judging from the objections you are presenting.

Finally, I'll explain the chain of logic that leads to that conclusion you objected to. First, you presume that placing children in a culture they are not trained for and acclimated to is abusive or on the verge of it, as you suggested in your prior posts. So, let us take a Kenyan family that immigrates to, say, the UK. They have children who are old enough to have absorbed Kenyan culture. According to your logic, they have placed their children into a different culture that they are not acclimated to, and thus have abused them or at least mistreated them heavily.

In summary, Simon, not only do you reveal your frankly offensive views on how to combat prejudice, but you immediately leap to the worst possible conclusions about the parents, disguised in "but I'm concerned that they'll force their child to not conform". Ask yourself if that's reasonable as a conclusion or not, and why specifically you immediately leap to those conclusions.

[Simon_Jester]

Both of you are immediately leaping to the conclusion that Storm will be kept in a bubble for the entirety of his/her life, because of prejudice on your part, directed at the parents. Simon has gone so far as to say outright that the parents would clearly be forcing non-traditional gender roles onto Storm, perhaps because he's an idiot with totalitarian inclinations.

No. I said there is a risk that Storm will be kept in a bubble too long. And that I don't really trust Storm's parents to avoid this risk, because I get the sense that they don't understand what they're doing very well.*

From this, you get "Simon is sure that Storm will be kept in a bubble forever." I don't know how this works, is there an English-to-Bakustra translator running in your eyeballs that prevents your brain from ever perceiving shades of gray or non-absolute statements?

Oh. And now I'm apparently a "totalitarian" because, um, something. And because calling people Nazis when you disagree with them is out of fashion. Yeah.

Bakustra, this is really very tiresome. Why do you keep doing this? Would it kill you to drop the "The comically exaggerated picture of your argument in my head is wrong, therefore I am right and you are an evil lying idiot!" act?

You don't get to win arguments by saving up rhetorical talking points from minority liberation movements and then mailing them in like boxtops.
________

*To discuss this in more depth, I think that they are running an ill-conceived, ill-researched, and possibly unethical amateur social experiment on their own child. This reminds me of the infamous Monster Study in some ways- not so much in the deliberate infliction of cruelty upon children as because you're essentially trying to come up with a hypothetical way of raising a child on the unsubstantiated assumption that it will make their life better, with a lot of obvious ways to make their life worse if you get it wrong.

"Traditional" is often very far from the best way to raise children. But "make random shit up" isn't a good way to raise children either. There is an obligation to know what the hell you are doing at work here.

Simon, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to cite where you learned that this is completely false as a way of raising a child according to the field of developmental psychology, the reasoning that you have for assuming that the conventional way of raising children is determined to be true by the field of developmental psychology (or a citation of where you learned that as well), and if you don't have a specific source for the truth and/or falsehood, then your credentials in the field of psychology and developmental psychology in specific.

You do not understand. I am asking if they know what they are doing. I am somewhat inclined to doubt this.

It is common knowledge to anyone who doesn't live in a cave that there can be very serious social consequences for people whose behavior is a mismatch for how people expect them to behave. This is a well known fact. I do not like it; it remains true. A parent's obligation to their child to not inflict that suffering on them trumps their obligation to create people with unconventional gender behavior as part of the quest for the liberation of people with gender identity issues.

And that's insofar as they even have the latter obligation, which is not very far- a revolutionary who sacrifices their own children to the movement is not necessarily a model to be emulated.

So basically, I doubt that Storm's parents are doing Storm a favor. I doubt that they understand the full implications of what they are doing. If they're going to do this, they should be more qualified than me, a lot more. If they were going to perform surgery on their child, they should know more about surgery than me. Lots more, because I do not know shit about surgery. Likewise, if they are going to tool around with untried experimental methods of childrearing that differ drastically from the way I would expect otherwise enlightened people to do it... they had better know one hell of a lot more about developmental psychology than I do.

Because if even I can see problems with this, I should damn well hope that they see those problems too. And I'm worried that they don't, in which case they are doing their child no favors by trying to invent a new model of childrearing based on their political opinions, no matter how righteous their political opinions may be.

Now, what's interesting, Simon, is that you presume that the only way to end prejudice is to have it forced and dictated from above that "thou shalt not discriminate against a minority". Now, I wonder why you aren't attacking Serafina for opposing you similarly, but what's more interesting is the totalitarianism implicit to this- the powerful being able to dictate what people think, and using this for good. Of course, like all such totalitarian ideals, it is quite simply ignored by civilized individuals.

...

Oh, I see now how you made "totalitarian" out of "discrimination ends when people stop discriminating, not when the group of their victims becomes large." It's ludicrous, in the literal sense that you have got to be playing here because this is a fucking joke, but I see it now.

Here is an example of what I said, in the simplest form:
"In other words, you don't end racism by making more people black; you end racism by ending racism- by getting it through the skulls of whites that blacks are not an inferior race."

Now. You assumed, reading that sentence, that when I say "you end racism" I mean "racism is eliminated by forcing people to stop being racists against their will." It is very interesting how this makes me a totalitarian in your eyes- seldom have I seen a man accused of totalitarianism for advocating an end to majority discrimination against minorities.

But it is even more interesting where that assumption came from. See, you just automatically inserted a 'people should be forced to' clause in there, one that wasn't there in the original quote. I describe a change in social attitudes, and you decide that I must be talking about imposing this change by force. And, without even bothering to check with me to clarify my opinion on the issue, suddenly WHAM! I am a "totalitarian." Not a Nazi, of course, because that would be unpopular and make you look exceptionally silly, even if no one calls you on your bullshit.

Drop the act, Bakustra, it's silly.
_______________

So, to clarify my position, well, I repeat myself: "You don't loosen a straitjacket gender role by creating more people who don't fit the straitjacket. You end it by getting people to accept that people can do and like things outside their gender role."

This problem cannot be fixed by creating more people to be ground up in the mills of the bigots' hatred.

Bigots are quite capable of making very large numbers of people miserable if need be. Many societies oppress women cruelly, despite the fact that women make up half the human race and virtually every one of the gynophobes responsible for this oppression has women in their own home. This problem would not have gone away with the addition of more women, or the addition of more women who found their experiences traumatic and difficult. All that does is add more victims to the pile.

When the majority harbors bigoted opinions, any person with common sense who is committed to the cause of ending the bigotry will work on those opinions. The minority group is well advised to present itself as a natural part of society that refuses to hide, forcing any bigots who wish to suppress them to bring their viciousness into the open- examples of this include the civil disobedience movement of the '60s. When racist bigots in the South had to openly do things like threaten to riot and burn a school down to stop black children from attending, or to turn firehoses and attack dogs on crowds of peaceful protestors, it made a strong impression on the average person, which turned the average person against the bigots.

And yes, this part of the program involves systematically trying to rebrand the minority as legitimate: "We're here, we're queer, get used to it!" That is a fine and good part of the program.

Meanwhile, everyone else who is not directly part of the minority must support them in this- working to promote the cause, working to show that no, the "silent majority" is not uniformly behind the bigots, that members of the minority are not alone in their struggle, and so forth. They must seek to convince members of the majority who are still bigots that they should cease to be bigots, or at least that their bigotry is not socially acceptable behavior and should be kept quiet.

But in any case, you do not do this by deliberately raising children to be crushed under the weight of a still-bigoted society's expectations. That would be stupid, and a failure of the parents' obligation to their children.

This is not a totalitarian or top-down program. This is a project for mass action, entirely in keeping with the best traditions of democracy. It is ultimately democratic, and ultimately grassroots, because it calls on action by everyone, high and low alike, from Lyndon Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act in Congress at the expense of the Southern Democrats, to the student demonstrators standing up and daring Bull Connor to hit them with firehoses, down to random white people glaring at their elders when said elders start using racial slurs at the dinner table.

It is only totalitarian to you, Bakustra, because you would rather have an excuse to call me a Nazi than to think about what I am saying in the context of the discussion.

Your denial of this is a slap in the face to anybody that tries to go beyond what society expects of them, because it tells them that it doesn't matter because the people in charge haven't spoken the magic words to "beat prejudice out of people's heads".

It is interesting to reflect that the person in this discussion who has the most experience of trying to go outside society's expectations of them on the subject of gender roles, Serafina, disagrees with you about whether trying to raise Storm in an atmosphere of gender-neutrality is a good idea.
____________

Finally, I'll explain the chain of logic that leads to that conclusion you objected to. First, you presume that placing children in a culture they are not trained for and acclimated to is abusive or on the verge of it, as you suggested in your prior posts. So, let us take a Kenyan family that immigrates to, say, the UK. They have children who are old enough to have absorbed Kenyan culture. According to your logic, they have placed their children into a different culture that they are not acclimated to, and thus have abused them or at least mistreated them heavily.

Some chain.

There is a difference between moving a child to a place they are not accustomed to living and raising a child from infancy in a way that leaves them with the inability to live anywhere.

Suppose, hypothetically, that there were a procedure by which one could take an infant of one sex and impose upon them the opposite gender- that it was possible to create cases of gender identity disorder purely by nurture with no nature required. Doing this to one's child would not be doing them a favor, because it would hurt their ability to function anywhere, by making them uncomfortable with their own nature and by deliberately engineering conflict between themselves and their surroundings.

This is of course a very extreme example. I am using it on purpose, for the sake of generating moral clarity in a thought experiment.

In the case of a family who moves to another country, things are quite different. The child has so far been raised to be function in one place, and if there are different rules in the new place, the child can adapt as well as the adult could. The rules do not create conflicts between the child's personality and their biological nature, or between society and their biological nature, or permanent conflicts between their personality and society. Indeed, the children will often adapt to the new place they live in better than their parents, as countless children throughout American history have demonstrated.

Thus we see the difference quite clearly- the gap between "Kenyan" and "American" is much easier to bridge, for adults as well as children, than the gap between "woman" and "man." A Kenyan can learn to live happily in America. A woman, as a rule, cannot learn to live happily as a man. Making a Kenyan child live in America is not child abuse for this reason; trying to make a girl live as a boy... you can make a pretty damn good case that that is child abuse.

The critical difference is that changing a child's surroundings is not the same as an attempt to mold the child themself, their psychological makeup and their idea of their own identity.

However, what Storm's parents are doing falls far short of the line I just described in this thought experiment. Their actions are not, in my opinion, child abuse in the real sense of the term. They are merely foolish, or seem so to me unless they know a great many things I don't, and that I am not confident in their knowledge of.

Fools raise children. It happens all the time, and should not be made illegal. Though if I had a chance to talk to them, I would like to ask them a lot of questions about what they are doing. Hopefully they would have the answers- I'd very much like to think so, because if this is genuinely a good idea I'd love to know it.
_____________

In summary, Simon, not only do you reveal your frankly offensive views on how to combat prejudice, but you immediately leap to the worst possible conclusions about the parents, disguised in "but I'm concerned that they'll force their child to not conform". Ask yourself if that's reasonable as a conclusion or not, and why specifically you immediately leap to those conclusions.

You have, unsurprisingly, not understood- from beginning to end, top to bottom, you have not understood. You are arguing with who you want me to be, not with who I am.

My concern is, I repeat, that these parents worry me; I sense a real danger that they do not understand what they are doing. It is possible to have noble motives and still fuck up. This is not a disguise. It is a very open part of my opinion.

The other part of my opinion involves my views of you and your attitude towards social causes and human obligations in those causes. To lapse a bit towards your own mode of making extremely uncharitable assumptions, for the sake of trying to show what it's like when the shoe's on the other foot:


I think that you are proposing something horrible- that parents should raise their children knowing that their children are going to walk unprepared into a social minefield, because if enough people are trapped in that minefield it will go away. Maybe that's true, maybe that would work, but it seems such a violation and a reversal of the parent-child relationship: child as ammunition in the parents' struggle to reform society, like something out of the Quiverfull movement...

I do not like it. I am convinced that parents should do their best to brace children, from a young age, to deal with a world that will often be unkind to them. This is not done by cruelty, but neither can it be done by withdrawing them from contact with the world whenever the world gives them trouble.

Incidentally, this second part isn't something I accuse these parents of. I think that for all they may be making a serious mistake, they love Storm more than they love political causes and want to make sure Storm does well in life. I think they're all too likely to get it wrong, and that they may cause harm in the process of trying to help, but I do not doubt the nobility of their motives. You, on the other hand, seem to be very willing to advocate that children's happiness be sacrificed to the cause of eventually overwhelming social bigotry by attrition.


But no, I don't really think that you advocate such things. I think you got carried away and implied things that can be interpreted uncharitably, in your rush to disagree with me. Understandable, I suppose.

[Broomstick]

You don't loosen a straitjacket gender role by creating more people who don't fit the straitjacket. You end it by getting people to accept that people can do and like things outside their gender role. A lot of progress has been made on this issue for women in the past half-century, to the point where it would now be almost unthinkable in most of the civilized world to try to condition girls away from 'tomboy' hobbies and interests... which was routine forty or fifty years ago. Less progress has been made for men, of course. But the point remains- you do not get rid of straitjackets by creating more people who find the straitjacket bone-breakingly painful.

I just want to point out that I have some direct experience with this shift in societal expectations and tolerances. I was fortunate to be in a family that supported my oddball desires to do things like take woodshop instead of home economics (including, in that case, having to go before the school board to get me into woodshop), but they did it without denying I am a girl. I am a girl who has atypical interests, true, but still every bit female as any other woman. The people who called me "dyke" and "queer" as an insult (among other words less savory), and with the implication that I somehow wasn't a "real" woman, while I was growing up did not understand that.

But throwing me into a "genderless" environment wouldn't have helped. What was needed was a society that accepted as fully female a girl who preferred working with power tools and airplanes to raising babies and holding formal tea parties, not some new category to shoehorn me into. Well, my parents did me a favor by demanding I learn something about traditional feminine things (hence the charm school, the make-up lessons, the trip to the hair salon to try a new style, etc.) so I could truly choose how to act in the many and varied social situations any adult encounters. They did me a favor my teaching me early that not everyone was going to agree with me or like me and how to deal with that, including people who would find my mere existence offensive.

Frankly, I would be offended to be put into a "genderless" environment. I am also bristling at being described as "genderqueer", Bakustra - I'm not. My sexual identity is heterosexual female. The rest should be seen as normal human interests that are not attached to gender. Saying I am "genderqueer" denies my femaleness. That doesn't mean I deny there are genderqueer people, I just don't happen to be one of them.

So, yes, I've spent a lot of my adult life pushing back against society's prejudices in regards to what is "proper for a young lady" - but I could make an informed choice. I could chose to dash back into traditional forms when that was to my advantage. I had a grasp of when expressing my atypical interests would not only be tolerated but could be an asset. You don't get that by being socially isolated and homeschooled. That's where my concern comes in.

True, we don't know all the facts here - but what is portrayed here is of concern to several of us here, from Serafina and her struggles with identity to myself and my issues (much less than what a transsexual or homosexual faces, but still present). It is our life experience that leads to our concern with what Storm's parents are doing.

Personally, I'd be thrilled if the parents have their heads screwed on straight and Storm grows up to be a healthy, happy, successful adult. I have my doubts, however.

[Enigma]

Is it too hard for the parents to just raise their kids as children and not experiments? Let them be whatever they want to be.

What I also find stupid is that the grandparents are not part of the select family members to know Storm's gender.

Another thing I found to be quite idiotic is their method of educating their children. Here's a quote from a USAToday article

Witterick "unschools" all three of her children. It's a fringe style of home schooling based on a no report card, textbook or test philosophy of letting kids explore the world for themselves. She and Stocker, who teaches at a small alternative school, say they have the support of the children's grandparents, though the grandparents were confused at first about the gender-free secret for chubby-cheeked, blond-haired Storm.

[Knife]

I find the whole thing ridiculous and hope the local authorities keep a close tabs on them and yank the kids if it goes too far.

First off, as a member of society, you have to be able to operate in that society which means to a certain extent you have to understand your role in that society. These parents seem, as I read all the posts and articles in the thread, to want to create a sterile environment for their kid. The longer they keep that kid in that environment the less the kid gets to interact with society the less that kids gets experience in dealing with society, the less equipped the kid will be to actually handle society when he/she gets there. That's a real disservice to the child. However well meaning the partents are, at some point the kid is going to have a rude awakening of society that he/she is not prepared for.

Then, why do you think that a child has the mental capacity to choose such an important thing like it's gender role? What age do we, or more importantly the child, choose such a thing and how is he/she prepared for such a thing? The parents assume that if raised in a neutral position with no input from the outside world on the matter, the kid can make a choice. But where the hell else do we not only expect someone to make a choice about an important subject without any, if none, knowledge or experience about it, but a child to boot? We, as a society, don't let toddlers/preschool aged/school aged kids make their own decisions about walking 10 miles, going to the market by themselves, medications they can take, or operations and medical procedures they can take. We don't let them decide on their own the schools they go to, hell for the most part they don't get a choice on cloths. If they get choices at all, it is because parents take a sample of acceptable choices for them and let the child make a choice out of those.

The only way they have a chance at their little social experiment is to turn the kid into a social cripple and that's a disservice. Teaching the kid to stand up for what he/she believes and be tolerant of other people decisions that don't resemble his/her own is one thing, turning your kid into a social outlier is another.

[Broomstick]

Another thing I found to be quite idiotic is their method of educating their children. Here's a quote from a USAToday article

Witterick "unschools" all three of her children. It's a fringe style of home schooling based on a no report card, textbook or test philosophy of letting kids explore the world for themselves. She and Stocker, who teaches at a small alternative school, say they have the support of the children's grandparents, though the grandparents were confused at first about the gender-free secret for chubby-cheeked, blond-haired Storm.

"Unshooling" is the same as not educating a child. It should be illegal and viewed as child abuse. It's a bunch of lunatic well-to-do parents who don't want to admit to themselves that they aren't educating their Special Snowflake and are neglectful parents.

Now I am really worried about those kids.

[Serafina]

Serafina, your entire argument is predicated on assuming that the parents will be trying to completely isolate the child rather than simply trying to create a more neutral environment for her. Do you have a particular reason other than your own outrage for believing this? For that matter, why do you think that Storm would never actually enter society?

What "outrage" are you talking about?

Anyway, YES, i do have reasons to believe so. If i am wrong and they'll let their children interact with society normally, good.
For one, their stated goal to raise the child "genderless" (which is nonsensical by itself, since a child already has a gender at birth) would necessitate such isolation. Because literary everything in society carries relations to gender. Media, social interactions, even the language we are using.

We know for sure that they have taken one step towards such isolation - homeschooling. Which is commonly used to isolate the child from contacts the parents designate undesirable. When we are talking about christian homeschooling, that means non-christians - what does it mean in the case of Storms parents?
Note that this definitely means that they do NOT expect Storm to have "chosen" a gender at the age Storm will start school. Because children can deal just fine with non-comform appearances in many cases. If they'd just want their children to some non-comforming gender behavior, they'd move to a school district with tolerant people. Those DO exist here in Germany, i can't imagine them not existing anywhere in Canada. Now their decision makes a lot more sense if they want Storm to actually BE genderless and be unable to identify as either boy or girl. That'd certainly be much more problematic. But a child is easily able to figure out it's own gender identity at the age it'll start school - and as evidenced by trans-tolerant schools, it's not necessarily a problem when that gender identity doesn't overlap with stereotypes or the childs sex.
Hence, there is no real reason to keep the child out of public schools in order to "protect it".


Furthermore, Storm will have to stand up for whatever identity Storm will take eventually (at least if that identity is non-conforming). Standing up for oneself takes confidence and practice, which Storm will not develop if Storm can only interact with a limited amount of people under controlled conditions.
If we take transsexual children as an example, therapists generally recommend exposing the child to a normal environment for that very reason (and the same goes for adult transsexual people by the way). It's one thing to be the way you want to be amongst your friends and family, it's another thing entirely to have such self-confidence in public. I have experienced that myself and so have plenty of other transsexual, homosexual, genderqueer or otherwise non-conforming people.

According to your logic, they have placed their children into a different culture that they are not acclimated to, and thus have abused them or at least mistreated them heavily.

Given that severe changes in the social environment can cause severe trauma in children, such an action can clearly harm the child. If done deliberately, it could easily qualify as child abuse.




I see that you have ignored my point entirely, and instead assume a priori, without any information to back it up, that the parents are willing and able to provide their child with a social environment of sufficient variety. You have in fact ignored evidence to the contrary. While the evidence we have is not entirely clear, the evidence we DO have (homeschooling) points to an isolationist behavior of the parents.

Furthermore, you have NOT provided any reason why it should be necessary or beneficial to raise a child "genderless".
While it is possible that that term is just exaggeration by the media, there is no evidence to support this. We must therefore accord for the possibility that the parents do indeed want to raise their child in such a way that it is unable to identify as any gender.

Given that children can identify their own gender identity, in some cases (transsexuality) contrary to outside influences, at about the age of three, such an endeavor is utterly absurd. Ideal parents would allow their child free choice about it's gender behavior and give it sufficient encouragement to counter influences to the contrary - but NOT the childs own influences. As transsexual children show, children clearly do identify with a gender at a young age, and this identification should be supported.
As such, a child that has completely free choice about it's own gender identification would NOT be genderless. It might have a more mixed variety of gender-associated behavior, or in extreme cases it's identification could be contrary to it's own sex. However, that would NOT make it "genderless" any more than Broomsticks tomboyish behavior makes her "genderless" or my male hobbies make me "genderless".

The notion that in an ideal society, every person would have a roughly equal mix of gendered behaviors and would therefore be genderless is flat-out wrong and supported by nothing by idle idealism. There is plenty of evidence that gender is a trait you are born with, and raising a child genderless is nothing but suppressing that in-born quality.

Bakustra, please provide a reasonable explanation of the benefits of raising a child completely genderless, instead of just supporting the childs own identification.

[Maj]

Here is the mother's letter in response to the media furor she created by publicly announcing that she wouldn't be announcing her child's gender.

The bus driver smiled at me, my three children, the snacks that were rolling in all directions and the grocery bags hung too heavy on the back of the stroller. As always, he said, “You got everyone?” Then he added, “I haven't seen you this week!” I was so relieved. “I'm glad to hear that,” I said.

We went to soccer, played in the park, read books at the library, learned about dinosaurs and observed butterflies that hatched just yesterday from chrysalises in our kitchen. An ordinary day.

My name is Kathy Witterick. I'm shy and idealistic, and my entire career I've worked in abuse and violence prevention. I married a teacher, David Stocker and we have three children. Jazz is 5. Since he was a baby, he's enjoyed colour and texture. At 18 months, he loved to wear wildly striped clothing and when his grandparents took him to get his first pair of shoes, he chose the ones with orange toes and pink flowers on the side. When his brother was born, I joked I'd grow old as a woman in a man's world.

Jazz's love of colour (especially pink) and fabric (especially dresses) continued, and he wanted to grow his hair. The older he became, the more he met with pressure from peers and adults to “act more like a boy.” Jazz remained committed to his own style. I re-read research and studied the approaches of Alfie Kohn, Barbara Coloroso, and Adele Faber to find ways to support him. The firm rule around self-image became: it has to be clean and healthy, but colours and lengths are yours to choose.

When Storm was near arrival, Jazz was listening to "Free to Be You and Me," a gift from a friend. He wondered if people would respond differently if they didn't know the baby's sex. What gifts would they bring? If Storm was a boy, would he be allowed to wear dresses? Pink? There are moments as a parent when you wish your child would bring a different issue to the table — but there it is, plop! — and if you mean what you say about being kind, honouring difference, having an open mind and placing limits thoughtfully, then you better walk the talk. We agreed to keep the sex of our new baby private.

It is true that an infant is still learning to recognize themselves — to look in the mirror and think, ‘hey, that's me!' — and is not ready developmentally to find a place in a gender binary. It is demonstrated in research and the day-to-day world that gender stereotyping causes suffering to both men and women. So surely, we thought, people would understand a 5-year-old's curiosity about why people need to know baby's sex. Last week's events suggest otherwise.

We have received many letters of support that are intelligent, heartfelt, research and experience-based. We've also heard articulate and meaningful concerns. We've witnessed a discussion erupt that could be transformative. It's important to challenge orthodoxies and raise questions, because the discussion that emerges not only “outs” issues (in a rush to pass judgment, people articulate prevailing prejudices and misconceptions), but also has the effect of helping people examine whether they believe the status quo to be the best that we can do.

The strong, lightning-fast, vitriolic response was a shock. These voices demonstrate how much parents are in the world's critical eye — in particular mothers, who are judged, based on little (mis) information and not offered opportunities to grow, learn and be supported and celebrated by the community to raise children.

The psychologist on the Today Show was willing to make strong, unqualified conclusions about a family he had never met, based on (generously) 1 per cent of what there is to know about that family. Will that behaviour help grow healthy children?

Ironically, the idea to keep the baby's sex private was a tribute to authentically getting to know a person by responding to meaningful cues given by the person themselves.

This short letter won't help you to know my family. And to protect our children from the frenzy that we did not anticipate, we have declined over 100 requests for interviews from all over the world, including all-expenses paid trips to New York City to tell our story on American morning television. We have learning to do, parks to visit and butterflies to care for.

But we do feel it's important to correct factual errors in the media. Our attempts to make thoughtful, unconditionally loving choices and provide guidance and structure to our children have been labelled “a social experiment.” It's a moment for people everywhere to scrutinize what they hear and see in the media, because it's quite possibly not true.

I would never tell my children (or anyone) to keep a secret. Secrets are not safe and healthy. I, like many parents, have taught my children that some things are private matters, and when you share them, do so honestly with sensitivity and consideration. If I had to convince my children not to share Storm's sex (which I don't because my children simply are not interested at this point) — I would teach them that someone else's genitals and sense of how they relate to their gender is their private business, to be shared by them or in a context where safety and acceptance are paramount.

Storm will need to understand his/her own sex and gender to navigate this world (the outcry has confirmed it!), but there has never been any question that within our family, the issues of sex/gender and decision-making around it are open for age-appropriate discussion.

In my heart of hearts, I squirm when my son picks a dress from the rack (won't people tease him?), even though I know from experience and research that the argument that children need a binary gender orthodoxy taught to them in order to feel safe is simply incorrect. My children know who they are, through facilitated experience with their world, and I avoid hypocrisy, inaccuracy and exhaustion by saving my energy for non-negotiable limit-setting related to safety, kindness, self-respect, health, fulfilment and fairness.

None of my family members are gender-free or genderless. It is true that Jazz has challenged my (and traditional) notions of what boys should wear, look like or do. Jazz has a strong sense of being a boy, and he understands that his choices are not always acceptable to his community. He chooses freely to do them anyway, because he also has learned to respect difference, love himself and navigate the world in a way that is true to his own voice. Kio also self-identifies as a boy, and his choices are different but have an equal amount of 2-year-old integrity.

Storm has a sex which those close to him/her know and acknowledge. We don't know yet about colour preferences or dress inclinations, but the idea that the whole world must know our baby's sex strikes me as unhealthy and voyeuristic. This is what I know — someday soon, Storm will have something to say about it and in the meantime, I'm just listening carefully.

[Maj]

Ghetto Edit...

I am interested in knowing a couple of things:

1) Why did the mother feel it necessary to announce to the world that she wouldn't be announcing her child's sex to the world?

2) Does the mother feel that Jazz - her 5 year old son who prefers pink, long hair, and dresses - did not get the opportunity to develop his own sexual identity? From where I'm sitting, that choice is exactly what she gave Jazz without having to not declare his sex.

From where I'm sitting, not announcing a child's sex in order to free the child from society's (dis)approval actually mutes the point.

Jazz is a boy who chooses unconventional things. As a mother of a two year old boy who loves pink, I would stand up for Jazz. I don't like living in a society where girls get to like whatever color they want to, but boys have to steer clear of certain ones for fear of not being masculine enough.

But I can't stand up for a child who may not be challenging anything because I don't know if s/he's a girl who likes pink or a boy who likes pink. The child becomes a kid who likes stuff, and society at large will never care.

3) What pronouns does the family use at home?

[General Mung Beans]

3) What pronouns does the family use at home?

Babies were referred to as "it" in Victorian times.

[Simon_Jester]

3) What pronouns does the family use at home?

Babies were referred to as "it" in Victorian times.

They were also thought of as not really people.

"It" is an insult when applied to a human being, at least in the English language as I know it. This leaves us without a gender-neutral pronoun for humans, which is a problem; I've always advocated the use of "they" to do the job. When I am speaking of a person of indeterminate gender (like Storm) I prefer to refer to them as "they."

Ghetto Edit...

I am interested in knowing a couple of things:

1) Why did the mother feel it necessary to announce to the world that she wouldn't be announcing her child's sex to the world?

True- I am supremely indifferent to whether Storm is a boy or a girl; I'm more worried that the child won't be able to make an intelligent decision about how to fit into a society that they were raised with so much insulation from. This is what Broomstick touched on- she was raised in a time when the female gender role was far more of a straitjacket than it is today; over her lifetime so much progress has been made on this that it's hard for someone like me to imagine what the pressures my own father's generation would expect a woman to bear were like- much harder for my grandfather's generation.

And Broomstick came into conflict with that, yes, but at least she knew how to fit into the straitjacket, or appear to, when it was to her advantage to do so. Even when she was just wearing a mask of artificial "this is how to be feminine" behavior, she had that mask, she could put it on and take it off, and when others attacked her for not having it on all the time, she at least understood what was going on.

Whereas I worry about people who can't understand that they're confronted with a restriction, and break themselves trying to struggle against it at the wrong moments and in the wrong ways. They're usually the ones who suffer the most from being restrained.