Where Babies Come From: Trans-Friendly Version
Filed By Paige Schilt | January 11, 2013 12:30 PM
http://www.bilerico.com/2013/01/where_babies_come_from_trans-friendly_version.php (http://www.bilerico.com/2013/01/where_babies_come_from_trans-friendly_version.php)
I've written before about how hard it is to find children's books about reproduction that don't assume a gender binary (and children's books about human sexuality that don't assume reproduction). Most books for kids begin with "everyone is born a boy or a girl" and end with "some day you'll make a family too," but those are assumptions we don't make in our family, because 1) we're queer feminists and 2) Mommy is genderqueer.
That's why I was so excited about Cory Silverberg's book What Makes a Baby. Silverberg, a Toronto-based sex educator and writer, set out to create a "where do babies come from" story that would be inclusive for transgender, gay, lesbian and other nontraditional families.
As an adult reader, I appreciate the book's attempt to uncouple sex from gender. Playful gender-neutral figures are accompanied by matter-of-fact statements: