Parents decide to bring up "genderless" child

i dont mean any disrespect to you deirdre but what really now are the chances that a couple has three intersex children? these parents are supposed to act as role models for their children. that means they should be guiding them, not letting them decide anything for themselves because as i previously stated, their brains are not yet developed enough to understand the concept of gender identity, let alone stereotyping. the idea of a child deciding what gender they are suits deirdre based on hindsight of HER OWN personal experiences, not those of her parents, who chose to raise her in what i can only assume is the best way they knew how, based on THEIR own personal experiences.

the parents of these children in this particular case, could have raised their children by their own beliefs and need not have courted the media's attention in doing so. simply the fact that they chose to court media attention puts even more pressure on the children. again we do not know the long term effects this attention will have on the children, or how it will influence their thought processses.

the point i guess i am trying to make here is that these parents decisions have far more reaching consequences for their children than just playground taunts and so on, they will perhaps unnecessarily face issues that deirdre will have faced. i think deirdre you will accept that now that your sexual identity matches your gender identity, you finally feel like you "fit in" to society? these parents however, seem intent though on creating problems for their children where there werent any- "fix" one problem (gender stereotyping), but create a hundred more, as it were (social, educational, future employment prospects, future relationships).

it is impossible to qualify without hindsight, the pros and cons of the parents decision to effectively and knowingly, raise their children in abstentia from the influence of their typical role model genders. and yes, i understand that the parents believe that what they are doing is the "right" thing to do, but to effectively fly in the face of millions of years of evolution does seem a tad huberous.

im past the whole "genderless" idea at this stage because to me the term is a bit of a misnomer, as deirdre said you ARE born with a gender, but its the stereotype of that gender that these parents seem to be trying to dismiss.

i just think there are better ways of going about it, like educating your child to form independent thought, not just abdicating your responsibility as a parent to teach a child what it means to have an independent thought, teach a child that society is not always accepting of those that do not follow the stereotypical norm, but instill in them a strength and courage so that they can face the consequences of decisions that the children themselves make, so that they grasp the concept that decisions they make can have both positive AND negative consequences.

these parents seem to want to have their cake and eat it too, they stand back from being gender role models for their children, yet i cant see the father wearing a dress, or the mother shaving her head any time soon, (the idea being to practice what they preach), they home school their children, in effect sheltering them from society, yet court the world's media to further their own agenda, regardless of having asked whether the children want to be paraded as an object of (lets be honest here) scorn and ridicule, for the media. again the children are not old enough to grasp the concept that the world's media really couldn't give a flying f*ck about the parents idealogies, they just want to parade the "freak show family" for ratings and headline grabbing, it has nothing to do with creating awareness of an the issue of gender stereotyping.

hell i even see now that the discovery channel, which used be about interesting and factual thought provoking documentaries has gone down the "shock factor" route with a program on the other night something along the lines of "my seven year old transgender child", something like that, headline grabbing sensationalism basically of what for many is a very serious issue and quite distinct from gender stereotyping in the societal sense of the phrase gender stereotyping.

actually this comes only a week after there was an oprah show about this very subject of a couple raising genderless children. in fact im seeing an awful lot more of this kind of thing on television and in the media lately, perhaps that's what's getting on my wick about this issue, the fact that the media treats it as a freak show masquerading as "creating awareness of a serious issue".

this for example-

http://www.queerty.com/all-of-america-is-falling-in-love-with-princess-boy-dyson-kilodavis-20110103/


EDIT: jesus christ, i hadn't meant to go on THAT long! sorry for TL;DR...

deirdre_dub wrote: »

And if it has neither?

or both?

just wamted to say thank you deirdre for addressing each of my points so comprehensively, and for correcting my use of the wrong terminology!

i think i should probably bow out of this discussion now as unfortunately i am not well versed or educated enough on the subject to be able to get my point across.

i would like to see more threads like this in AH as it makes for fantastic reading from such informed non-sensationalist contributors such as yourself and Links.

a welcome break from some of the more mundane threads in here...

There are many kinds of abuse and messing up a childs definition of gender is blatantly one.

......Jazz............Jazz..................Jazz..........................................Jazz

Links234 wrote: »

for all you know this might be a far better way to bring up a child

it's astounding just how many people seem to assume the negative opinion here, when they can't know it will have a negative outcome.

Well yes but to me the only people who could think this are people who are themselves unhappy with their own gender. I for one have no intention of advocating this as a new method of.....?? what word could i even use here!

prinz wrote: »

The uncertainty of the outcome is not the basis to decide if something should be done or not.

uncertainty isn't a reason not to go ahead with it either. we're uncertain of plenty of things in life and still go ahead with things.

polly78 wrote: »

Well yes but to me the only people who could think this are people who are themselves unhappy with their own gender.

I disagree with the parents in this case and I also disagree with Links, but to suggest that the only people who could agree with this are people who are "unhappy" with their gender is rank nonsense. People are quite capable of appreciating and understanding something without direct experience. Play the ball, not the wo/man.

Links234 wrote: »

{posts in the thread}

Do you think there is any possibility you may not be looking at this completely objectively Links?

partyatmygaff wrote: »

Children have been parented the "normal way" for millennia and by and large they have come out perfectly fine.

There is no "normal way". Parenting varies differently from culture to culture, and it's changed dramatically through the years. How we raise kids now is completely different to how we raised them even as recently as a century ago by quite a lot.

blatantly robbing this point from elsewhere, but take a look at this:

http://static03.mediaite.com/themarysue/uploads/2011/04/pink-and-blue-Franklin-Roosevelt.jpg

the very rigidly gendered way of bringing kids up is fairly recent tbh.

Did you know that in many countries in Europe, boys wore smocks to school right up until the 1960s?

Take a look at this from about 2:10 onwards:



Stephen Fry, how I love you

strobe wrote: »

Do you think there is any possibility you may not be looking at this completely objectively Links?

sure, I'm biased. but isn't everyone else? are people merely assuming the way they were brought up was the "right" way, just because it was the only way the knew?

FACT : 99.9% of children are one or the other. Unless they are in the minority born with (a) no sex organs or (b) both sex organs they are either MALE or FEMALE

FACT : They can change their sex later in life if they want to

I'm all for not stereotyping HOW you bring a BOY or GIRL up (it sickens me that guns and **** like that are somehow viewed as OK for boys) and they can play with whatever the hell they like.

But that doesn't change the FACT that they are ONE OR THE OTHER.

It doesn't define their personality, and shouldn't define what they want to be in life.

But you cannot change facts.

If it's a boy, then it's not a girl, it's not a chicken, it's not an apple.

"It's a boy!"

(If I knew the couple I would even send them a baby congrats card with that printed on it - and then ignore them forever for being loonies)

Links234 wrote: »

sure, I'm biased. but isn't everyone else? are people merely assuming the way they were brought up was the "right" way, just because it was the only way they knew?

No...?

Links234 wrote: »

Oh yeah, I forgot about the people from the neutral planet.

I like the clip Links but it doesn't address the fact that you may be unfairly prejudiced when it comes to this topic.

If it makes it easier for you... Do you think there is any possibility you may be looking at this less objectively than others?

Links234 wrote: »

I'm pretty much wearing my bias on my sleeve

So you accept that you have a bias which you are bringing in to things? That may be tainting your outlook on things then obviously?