Swedish parents keep 2-year-old's gender secret

[insideontheoutside]

A friend sent me a link to this today and I'm curious what others think:
http://www.thelocal.se/20232/20090623/

For one, they mention that the kid has clothing of both genders - which means that when the kid is wearing a dress for instance, they are going to be treated as a girl whether or not the kid is one or not. I'm not confident that their desired effect of "neutral" or how people treat the kid can be maintained if they're dressing them in clearly male or clearly female clothing. However, it would give the kid the experience of how each gender is treated, which could be beneficial in the long term. I know from my own experience how different it is to be treated by other people when they either think you're male or female.

Anyway, it could definitely be debated and discussed and there are points brought up both for and against that are probably valid. The thing is, could this be some small push in a direction to downplay the gender binary? Gender is literally the first question ever asked when someone pops into the world - is it a boy or a girl? It's something so ingrained in human society now that changing it can almost be likened to starting a new flat-earth movement or a campaign to tell people the sky isn't really blue. So in one way, I'm hopeful that situations like this can help to break the standard but I also know the seemingly insurmountable odds of tackling the long-standing male or female question.

Thoughts?

[Kitpup]

reminds me of a story/thought experiment we read in school once (the entire school read this). It was called Baby X. X was never given a gender, and was raised in an environ where the dad did girly things with X and the mom did manly things with X. Dad played with dolls. Mom played catch. We followed X all the way through to middle school and at the end when people (in story) asked how X would know what X's gender sex and sexuality were the parents responded with "We raised X well, X will know." Implying that it was none of their business to force their child into a mold and that nature can, and should, take its course with such things.
The whole school was really confused by the conundrum of gender and sex and sexuality (if you have no gender, how do you know your sexuality? if you have no sex, how doe you know your gender?) 

Personally, I think it's a great way to raise a child, because it's no business but your own.

Edit: AHA http://etransgender.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1850 Baby X

[Darth_Taco]

I plan to raise my kids gender neutral more or less. Don't get me wrong, my boys are my boys and my girls are my girls. If they wanna do, wear, say something the opposite gender does then I won't fight them on it. I'll just make sure they're not getting hurt or plotting world domination. Being forced to act like a girl has screwed me over many different ways and I'd rather not do that to my kids. If they turn out like me, I want their coming out to be easier than it's being for me.

[sneakersjay]

Who knows, maybe Pop is intersexed and the parents want to let Pop decide which gender he/she is.  I also gave my kids opposite gender toys and what not but both of my kids gravitated towards gendered toys.  Daughter more interested in dolls and kitchen stuff and house stuff; son more interested in cars and trucks etc.

Jay