A real child called X

[mrspopo]

Someone here kindly pointed me towards the story of a child called X in which the world allowed a baby to grow up free from gender (or at least the parents did).  I came across a story about a real life family having 2 boys then deciding to let their 3rd be unconstrained by social norms.  The only people that know the truth are the parents, brothers, a close friend and the midwives that delivered Storm. 

I'm hoping for a follow up.  Storm looks like a gorgeous baby

[mrspopo]

http://www.parentcentral.ca/parent/babiespregnancy/babies/article/995112--parents-keep-child-s-gender-secret#comments

sorry about that - here's the link

[Shana A]

Also posted earlier in the News Forum https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,98896.msg727959.html#msg727959

[espo]

I feel the parents have no idea what the heck they are doing and hopefully their little experiment will fail miserably and the child will know exactly who and what s/he is and have a healthy identity and not spend the rest of her/his life talking to a pyschiatrist about them and how their stupid little 5 minutes of fame ruined his/her childhood. 

[pixiegirl]

I feel the parents have no idea what the heck they are doing and hopefully their little experiment will fail miserably and the child will know exactly who and what s/he is and have a healthy identity and not spend the rest of her/his life talking to a pyschiatrist about them and how their stupid little 5 minutes of fame ruined his/her childhood. 

Kinda missing the point of what they're trying to do, aren't you? The kid will of course know exactly who they are... the idea is they'll get to figure it out without being constantly bombarded by other people telling them which particular little things are right or wrong for them to do based on whats between their legs.

Whats with the anger and hostility about that?

[espo]

I don't think I'm missing the point.  Experiments mess people up

[Pica Pica]

I was given a lot of room to express myself as a kid, although as I got older my parents expectations grew increasingly limited - I reckon I'd have enjoyed being brought up like that - but of course I can't know for certain.

[Juliet]

Kinda missing the point of what they're trying to do, aren't you? The kid will of course know exactly who they are... the idea is they'll get to figure it out without being constantly bombarded by other people telling them which particular little things are right or wrong for them to do based on whats between their legs.

Whats with the anger and hostility about that?

I agree with Espo on this.

Sure, the kid won't be bombarded by other people telling them what to do based on whats between their legs, as you said, BUT INSTEAD he/she will be bombarded by questions, staring, whispering, confusion... all of this will severely outweigh the freedom they think they're giving the kid by making him/her genderless with an unknown sex.

There's an easier way of doing this, folks.  Talk with your child and tell them that their behavior and life choices shouldn't be dependent on what kind of genitals they have, thats all.  Raise them knowing this.  While giving them a normal childhood.

If the child grows up and decides to become a pioneer of a revolution on the gender front then great- but let him/her make that decision and not you.

[espo]

It's one thing to be allowed to play with toy trucks and dolls and to wrestle while wearing ribbons in your hair but to be forced to live under a shroud of secretacy is so messed up.  My brothers are boys but no one is allowed to know what I am, don't tell Grandma. Why, whats wrong with me.
Its the secracy, the hiding, the dont tell anyone what you are thats messed up.
Juliet made a good point about the whispering and questions and thats  from relatives just wait til they get to the playground or school.

[Nikolai_S]

I highly doubt parents that are so accepting of their other children's self expression would insist Storm keep hir gender a secret if ze doesn't want to. Nowhere did they say they are "forcing" hir to remain androgynous to the outside world. They're simply giving Storm an opportunity to do what ze wishes without people automatically treating hir differently depending on hir sex.

What's the problem with that? Gender is not necessary to interact with a child, especially not a baby. But it's used as a crutch so outsiders can make assumptions about what the child will prefer, without actually investigating hir likes and dislikes.
Anyway, I highly doubt this kid will get anymore whispers and questions than hir brothers do by wearing pink skirts when people know they're boys.

Maybe I'm biased because I wished so much growing up that I could have been born intersex (or at least what my idea of intersex was at that time), so no one would know, no one could label me, and I could go either direction I wanted. Mom raised me to accept a wide range of gender variance, that it's okay for girls to play with trucks and boys with dolls, but it wasn't enough. Around people who were okay with me playing with "male" toys they still saw me as a girl. I think I would have still resented it to some extent if they had seen me as a boy.
When I was 10 and mom was looking into adopting a child, getting the paperwork and checking off what conditions she would or wouldn't be willing to work with, I begged her to get an intersex child so we could "rescue them," because I didn't want anyone to adopt them and take away their freedom of gender when they have that opportunity..... because I wanted the same, very badly.

I'd honestly consider doing the same with a child if I ended up with a partner who agrees with it. Just for a start. If the child wants to tell people ze's a boy or a girl, awesome. But that's hir choice.

[espo]

What would be even more cool and wonderful is to be born PlastcineMan then me and my children could shape ourselves into whatever we wanted. 

[Juliet]

I highly doubt parents that are so accepting of their other children's self expression would insist Storm keep hir gender a secret if ze doesn't want to. Nowhere did they say they are "forcing" hir to remain androgynous to the outside world. They're simply giving Storm an opportunity to do what ze wishes without people automatically treating hir differently depending on hir sex.

What's the problem with that? Gender is not necessary to interact with a child, especially not a baby. But it's used as a crutch so outsiders can make assumptions about what the child will prefer, without actually investigating hir likes and dislikes.
Anyway, I highly doubt this kid will get anymore whispers and questions than hir brothers do by wearing pink skirts when people know they're boys.

Maybe I'm biased because I wished so much growing up that I could have been born intersex (or at least what my idea of intersex was at that time), so no one would know, no one could label me, and I could go either direction I wanted. Mom raised me to accept a wide range of gender variance, that it's okay for girls to play with trucks and boys with dolls, but it wasn't enough. Around people who were okay with me playing with "male" toys they still saw me as a girl. I think I would have still resented it to some extent if they had seen me as a boy.
When I was 10 and mom was looking into adopting a child, getting the paperwork and checking off what conditions she would or wouldn't be willing to work with, I begged her to get an intersex child so we could "rescue them," because I didn't want anyone to adopt them and take away their freedom of gender when they have that opportunity..... because I wanted the same, very badly.

I'd honestly consider doing the same with a child if I ended up with a partner who agrees with it. Just for a start. If the child wants to tell people ze's a boy or a girl, awesome. But that's hir choice.

A big part of parenting, though, is helping your child to learn about the world that he was born into.  Especially in the very early years.  And, whether you think its good or bad, right now we live in a world where a person's sex is a pretty important piece of information; its on your legal ID, bathrooms are separated, etc etc.  So they are misleading their child by doing this, also.  Thats another thing I'm not crazy about.

[Nikolai_S]

I understand that concern, and I agree it's important to raise children to have realistic ideas of how the world works. But I don't think they're misleading hir. At least from what I've read, they're not going to shield hir from people who fit into the gender binary, or tell hir it's perfectly normal to be raised this way. In the early years, gendered bathrooms aren't going to matter because a parent will accompany hir. By the time all of those heavily regulated binary issues will be relevant to hir, ze will already have been exposed to and educated about the binary. The parents have already said that regarding one of their sons, they let him decide what gender he introduces himself as. He's able to make those decisions, and so will ze.

Espo, why are you being so hostile? I'm sure many of the non-binary people here can relate to the desire to be born and/or raised without being forced into either male or female roles. It's not a matter of shallow whims, it's a deeply rooted identity that needs to be treated with more respect and rationality.

[Kinkly]

I learned early on that doing things that "only girls are allowed to want to do" was not acceptable to have been given the freedom at a young age to do whatever I liked would have been great,  If I'm lucky enough to become a parent I'll give my children every chance to express themselves.

[ativan]

Everything is speculation. there isn't any known precedence that has been set that will give credence to an outcome. For many non-binaries life is an uphill battle as far as gender issues are concerned, and there are as many ways we have been exposed to the world as there are us. Yes it could be looked at as experimenting, just as it can from any perspective.  There isn't a predictable outcome, for the very reason that you can't predict the future. Chaos. All of this reminds me of something that Emerald brought up a while back, that I think is worth rethinking about. And should be thought about by each of us every now and then.


Gender has no meaning or value if it is counterfeit.
Counterfeit gender is just a game, a trick, an amusement,
an act, a fraud, a deception, an imitation, artificial, bogus.

Be yourself, not a gender.
Being yourself is effortless and genuine.
Being yourself is REAL, not counterfeit.
In being yourself, in behaving in a manner which is natural to you,
whatever gender you are becomes self-evident.

-Emerald