Toronto parents hide child's gender in bid for neutral treatment

[Still a Democrat]

It is nothing if not an unorthodox approach to child rearing: A Toronto couple says it is trying to raise a genderless child, refusing to reveal baby Storm's sex to encourage a more neutral approach to the infant.


Hiding the four-month-old's sex from the outside world is a "tribute to freedom and choice" that they hope will let Storm grow up unfettered by the values of others, Kathy Witterick and David Stocker have been quoted as saying.


Experts, however, question whether the odd experiment will work or be good for the baby, and note that gender identity is a complex, mysterious force that has at least as much to do with biological factors present at birth as the person's social interactions.

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Read more: http://www.canada.com/life/Toronto+paren...z1NU889LsY

[Cha]

Oh geeze!

[azmouse]

If nobody figures it out before then, they'll certainly know when the child either stands or sits to pee....

[NJMaverick]

This can't be good for the emotional health of the child

[Born_A_Truman]

Personally, IMO this is beyond stupid. So now they have made his/her gender a guessing game? S/he will be wearing green, yellow, orange, red, etc until when?? What is the point here?

[SeattleGirl]

This really bothers me. I mean, I get it that the genders are treated differently, and often males have more advantages than females, but this just seems to be a step too far. I don't think gender identity is defined soley by how others treat us.

[Change Happens]

I think I saw part of an interview with someone about this: sounded CRAZY to me...But, whatever...

[SemiCharmedQuark]

Wow. This was a joke on Rick and Steve a few years ago. I wonder if that's where they got the idea.

[RoyGBiv]

I saw this yesterday and was going to post it here but ended up not doing so because the story I saw at a different place was repeatedly using the term "gender" incorrectly.

The parents are not hiding gender. They are hiding the sex in order to influence the development of gender identity. Gender is a social construction. Sex is biological.

Anyway, I get what they're doing and the way they're thinking, but I have little patience for parents who use their kids as a social experiment. I didn't read this entire article, but the other one mentioned that one of the children, Jazz, has had trouble with other kids because of this. When they asked him if it bothers him, he shyly nodded that it did. And the parents just think this is lovely, that by putting their children in these situations, basically alone, they're teaching the world something.

These children are going to have a lot of problems growing up and may well learn to resent their parents very deeply.

[Ikonoklast]

Aren't they precious!

Both parents sound loopy.