The Secret-Gender Baby

[fetaby]

I had no idea these parents knew me. I suppose this is where you tell me they may not know me personally, but they know my "type". Sweet.

And what "type" would that be?

Your opinion is not unique to yourself. They know your opinion well enough.

 

[sixthson]

I'm glad they know my opinion. That is why I posted it.

 

[fetaby]

I'm glad they know my opinion. That is why I posted it.

I'm glad they know it as well, I'm also glad they are choosing to make their children aware of it in a constructive manner.

 

[BlondeCanadian]

Just to point out somethings new from the story... It said in their the older boy who likes to wear his hair long and wear dresses.. sometimes gets called a girl and often replies My name is "cant remember his name".... Yeah he sounds completely off balanced and ill prepared for the world..

 

[pat grimshaw]

So basically you don't feel comfortable around anyone androgynous? ....

I heard 'Saturday Night Live' made a 'successful' long-running comedy skit on that very subject.

 

[Titanic]

So basically you don't feel comfortable around anyone androgynous? What about someone born intersex? That would bother you too?



Know what I'm comfortable around? Good, well-meaning people. Imagine!

PS: No, you don't get points for being "honest" about said bigotry.

How many times do I have to explain the difference between sex and gender? Adrogeneity is not a biological thing, it deals with lifestyle - fashion, character and all that (at least in the way most people mean it, if not then I apologise). And no, I wouldn't be uncomfortable around an androgenous person when I got to know them.

Also, bother? Where did that come from? You're extrapolating my opinions here Naughty. When I say I'd feel slightly less steady towards someone who hides their sex, I'm talking about an immediate reaction. Yeah it's prejudice, in the same way that I process certain thoughts when I see someone with a mohican or someone dressed all in leather. It's human nature to prejudge. I wouldn't cross the road to avoid them, I wouldn't insult them or refer to them nastily, I wouldn't avoid talking to them. And if the person is nice then I always get on well with them. I'm happy to admit to minor prejudice.

Maybe a good example, if you'll forgive me for going on a tangent for the sake of clarification, is the burka debate. Without taking sides, one of the reasons that people weren't all that comfortable with the idea of burkas was that you can't see the person underneath. It doesn't make the person wearing it any less of a person - in fact, common opinion is that a burka liberates the wearer in much the same way as sex-anonymity does our Storm. So why aren't people fully comfortable with it. Is that bigotry?

{And I'm not here on a points-scoring mission, this is no game, I'm here to debate something that I personally believe is a cruelty, I'm afraid}

 

[bulge]

It's a human right to choose his own sex. It is NOT the right of stupid mediccs at birth. Besides they make far too much mistakes.

 

[blackbeltninja]

IDK, but your Aunt might...

Actually, I witnessed that part myself; I was only a kid at the time, though. In a delightful irony, my aunt runs a day-care center and ran a kiddies' playgroup for many years before that.

I'd say my point was better than yours in which all strangers molest every kid, when statistically it's not strangers doing the molesting anyway.

This is getting boring.

Right. So, sex offenders registries not necessary in your world then? Okay for child molesters to work in schools where they don't know any of the kids? Okay for kids to get into a stranger's car?

Statistics may well be on your side, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to answer yes to any of these three. In fact, I would pay cold, hard cash to see you preach these to current and prospective parents as your ideas for a better society.

And thank you. Finally you've isolated the harm, an external source of suppression.

I've been saying this since the start - the problem may well be with society, but the kid has to live IN society.

Then they'll be here at JUB in about 20 years carrying on the same tired arguments for gender norms...

If this is meant to imply that I was one of the misanthropic sociopaths, I'd have to assume you were taking the piss. Alas, my childhood was stupefyingly dull and is the very definition of a kid on the straight and narrow path, I'm afraid!

-d-

 

[blackbeltninja]

Just to point out somethings new from the story... It said in their the older boy who likes to wear his hair long and wear dresses.. sometimes gets called a girl and often replies My name is "cant remember his name".... Yeah he sounds completely off balanced and ill prepared for the world..

Um... Sounds to me the kid knows something is not right.

Jazz, we learn, wears his hair in long braids and chose pink shorts and pink socks for a recent outing to a park. His parents say everyone assumes he — and Kio — are girls, yet Jazz isn't happy with that assumption: he insisted his mother clarify his gender in writing to group leaders at a nature center.

I'd be interested to see what happens if this were to take place here in .za. Amost all our kids wear official school uniforms subject to school rules and regulations - dresses and long hair would not an option for boys, I'm afraid, so all their freedom/creativity/whatever would simply be stamped right out.

-d-

 

[bankside]

Um... Sounds to me the kid knows something is not right.



I'd be interested to see what happens if this were to take place here in .za. Amost all our kids wear official school uniforms subject to school rules and regulations - dresses and long hair would not an option for boys, I'm afraid, so all their freedom/creativity/whatever would simply be stamped right out.

-d-

From everything else you've reported about .za in the past, it does seem like a really up-tight place about anything to do with gender or sexuality. And if not "up tight" then very formal and codified. I don't think it is a healthy level of groupthink.

 

[MyReply]

Sorry if my opinion isn't PC, complacent or nuetral enough, but I'm not going to pretend that I agree with these peoples methods, or even their intentions. Their child, and they can raise it (almost literally, since we don't know what the hell it is) however they wish, but since they decided to go public with their story, I'm going to give my opinion of it.

There is absolutely no need to play cloak and dagger about a child's gender (and I suspect it's as much about attention seeking from others as it is about allowing this kid to be whomever he/she wants to be.) There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that a he is a he or that a she is a she. These people sound like radical kooks -- using their kid to conduct some silly social experiment for the sake of proving some some futile, misplaced point. If they were secure in their parenting style, they wouldn't need to worry that their extended family members or next door neighbor might corrupt, or impose upon, their child with gender expectations and norms. It wouldn't matter, because at the end of the day his or her sense of self would come from them.

I suspect that the child is a boy, and since most people rebel against their parents in some way or another, I hope he becomes some Tonka truck, cops & robbers playing toddler....and later grows into ardent, conservative, red-meat eating, gun and Jesus loving, skirt chasing republican -- just to spite their silliness.

 

[pat grimshaw]

The gender-neutral child turned one on New Year’s Day

http://www.thestar.com/news/article...aby-who-caused-a-storm-of-controversy-in-2011

 

[Beachguyj]

How am I gonna know if I'm his uncle or his aunt?

 

[pat grimshaw]

From everything else you've reported about .za in the past, it does seem like a really up-tight place about anything to do with gender or sexuality. And if not "up tight" then very formal and codified. I don't think it is a healthy level of groupthink.

Can you think of any positive ways to help? Oprah did visit for two weeks. US Christian missionaries are active in East Africa.

I understand that the Irish-Americans contribute vast amounts of wealth back to their homeland? Do the African Americans do likewise?

 

[dangerguy]

I found myself confused by this. I don't really understand what they're trying to prove? I mean, I think it's great that they're not willing to 'inflict' gender stereotypes or whatever on their child and are happy to let it be whatever, but I think you can do that without declaring it genderless if you know what I mean.

Basically, if it's a girl who likes the colour blue and prefers wearing pants to dresses then be cool with it and don't make a fuss, and vice versa.

 

[bankside]

Can you think of any positive ways to help? Oprah did visit for two weeks. US Christian missionaries are active in East Africa.

I understand that the Irish-Americans contribute vast amounts of wealth back to their homeland? Do the African Americans do likewise?