Gender neutral parenting

[1984looms]

Would be interested to know what other people think about this 'theybies' thing. People raising their babies without a gender. I find it really worrying, not just because of a few cranks but because there seems to be a much more mainstream push to 'gender neutral'. www.spiked-online.com/2019/11/18/theybies-raising-alienated-babies/
Here's the video of the little girl the article is talking about.www.facebook.com/watch/?v=198333240798103

Sorry, second link here www.facebook.com/watch/?v=198333240798103

I think grown attention seeking adults have no right to force this onto their children. The sexes are different and this should be acknowledged and has nothing to do with assigned gender roles. Fine, bring your child up discouraging pink and glitter are for girls and dinosaurs and soldiers are for boys. I'm all for it. Refusing to to acknowledge your child's sex and not allowing them to either is abusive imvho.

The biggest takeaway I got from this entire gender fol-de-rol is that it places emphasis and encourages existing gender stereotypes which should've been eliminated years ago. What should be propagated instead is the notion that girls can wear whatever they like, do whatever activities they want to do, and act however they want and still be girls. Same goes for boys.

I'm fine with it, it doesn't directly affect me at all and I think it could well be a positive thing to grow up without gender bias

^^that.

It smacks of wanting to be a bit different, be in the public eye for being so right on.

My children are brought up gender neutral in that their interests are encouraged whether they are ballet or mechanics. Whether their clothing choices are pink or blue. They all wore white babygros for a really long time, mainly out of ease . They are all boys though, and it’s important for them to know that.

Sorry I’m not in agreement with @dantheman I’m in agreement with @lassjetztlos

What should be propagated instead is the notion that girls can wear whatever they like, do whatever activities they want to do, and act however they want and still be girls. Same goes for boys

Exactly, and that's the whole great irony of this mess. Those making the biggest noise about 'being who they want to be' are the ones who seem to adhere closest to stereotypical behaviours that we should be campaigning against.

If they were truely 'gender neutral', they would discount the entire concept of gender and let the child have/do/wear what he/she likes regardless of whether they are of the male or female sex. Same for adults.

That poor kid sounds completely fucked up

In its extreme form it’s OTT, however I am semi doing this. My children know their sex but I ensure they are able to enjoy whatever colour, toys, hobbies they want. I don’t see any harm in this (and indeed see a lot of harm in the see of pink and blue...).

If the parents of a girl (for example), bring her up gender neutral and she grows to be the girliest of girls through her own choice, would the parents be disappointed?

I find that really sad

I don’t particularly care what anyone dresses their children in, nor what toys they give them. However all this bullshit about not telling anyone if they’ve got a vagina or a penis is self centred, attention seeking SHITE!

My nephew was born a few months ago, family pic and info sent out to us all of a baby dressed in boys babygrows with very much a boys name. Not even a week later when dp's went to visit, dm was told to exchange her clothing gifts for neutral clothing as he was going to be brought up gender neutral.

My db and his wife can be a bit uppity and odd but this takes it to a new level. Blows my mind...

I'm similar to Andso

I have a son and a daughter who will know what sex they are, but I'm not going to tell them they cant do/wear X,Y or Z because it's for the opposite sex.

I can 't think of many clothes that are actually gender neutral. It normally means "boys clothes in pale colours".

That's true Drizzzle!

Clothes are so extreme. My DS does not care for dinosaurs, he knows what they are, but everything has a dinosaur on it. Or a football, I took him to football because why not try, we stayed a term and it wasn't for him.

So I end up buying plain stuff, I favour brights like red, royal blue and yellow. I think it will be hard to be gender neutral on clothes past baby grow stage, because girls stuff has bows, glitter, frills even on a lot of basic tracksuit bottoms or leggings and boys stuff, well it doesn't.

Both of my boys are SN, one only has a few words that only those close to him would understand and the other you can't keep quiet for a minute.
They are 10 and 12 ( 22 months apart) .
DS1 loves football and playing for his inclusive team but he loves dolls ( all have names, teddies , any babies ( he will ask strangers can I borrow your baby , mortifying haha) he also thinks he's the school Romeo.
He's growing his hair long again ( so he can have a bloody man bun haha ) and his favourite clothes are black and hot pink joggers & trainers by Nike but he plays fifa , Lego & loves wrestling with his brother.
He carries a little toy wolf ( she's a girl called Wolfie everywhere)
DS2 has 2 baby pink fleece blankets / throws ( can't be without one to sleep with) and he and chose pink floral Mandela style elephant bedding recently .
He carries mr squirrel everywhere, pinches my pink t shirts or any girly pjs and my hideous but sooooo comfy pink sketckers trainers ( he's a giant , I'm a squirt ) his favourite clothes are turquoise cycling shorts and a bus t shirt.
His favourite toys are teddies, die cast buses, trucks and tractors.
He likes Disney princess films, Dora etc
They have wardrobes full of beautiful clothes and shoes but they have their own tastes.
He has a head full of beautiful curls but sometimes gets the symbol for hair clippers and wants it all chopped off.
People call them eccentric etc but they are just allowed to be themselves and that is especially important to us because of their additional needs.
I've never believed in blue is for boys , pink is for girls but I'd never in a million years force my ideas on my children.
I know one couple who have an 18 month old and nobody apart from close family know the sex and they are always dressed in rainbow colour clothes.
That's a cruel social experiment to play on these babies.
I was not a girly girl and I used to chew the ribbons on dresses or in my hair and chop barbies hair off to rebel.
Hated being forced to play tea parties when I'd rather climb a tree!

It seems to be a trend for people to claim to be different whilst reinforcing gender ideology via the back door.

Human beings have a sex: male or female
Beyond that there are many ways to be a boy/girl/man/woman and none of them involve pretending biological sex isn't a thing.

What puzzles is why so called gender neutral parenting seems to frequently go hand in hand with denying biological sex.

Your sex is determined by your chromosomes in the vast majority of people and animals. that's final. Full stop. One of the few things in life that is actually black and white. Apart from a small amount of people who have a genetic abnormality whom I am obviously fully supportive off.
What a child wants to play with/games they want to play/ TV they watch/friends /toys/ colours etc can be fluid and that's fine.

It's awful that this has become such a PC topic that people skirt around. I honestly think there will be a lot of damage to people's mental health because of this. Children and adolescents (and most adults) need to know things are stable in life not a whole load of wishy washy jargon.

You need to get boys to treat girls with respect and girls to know what is unacceptable from boys (or indeed other girls). This should start at an early age, so denying gender is not a good idea in my view.

Are you conflating gender with sex foralltheSaints?

I see no reason to enforce stereotypes on children, which is all gender is.