has anyone ever thought about bringing up there child Gender Neutral?

[1kcb1]

Having recently read an article about a swedish couple bringing up their child as gender neutral i.e not telling anyone whether it is a boy/girl, dressing it in girls and boys clothing i am really interested to see if anyone else in England is doing the same thing???

no

No - its genuinely not practicable.

Mmm. I've read about them. TBH I have some major ethical reservations about this sort of experiment being conducted.

No. We're pretty gender neutral when it comes to toys, but that's as far as it goes. I fear the Swedish child may have issues when it grows up - impossible for an adult to be truly gender neutral when it either has breasts or a beard.

no, i think it is cruel. gender is not just outward appearance, i/e clothes, hair length, name etc.. it is is inbuilt in the genes and the physical make up

no amount of calling a girl/boy something ambigous and putting her/him in non gender specific clothes will change the fact they have ovaries/testes etc

it seems deliberately obtuse and cruel to use your child for some sort of weird social science experiment

i cannot see how it would make a child more secure in themselves

why would anyone go to that much effort to single out their child as being the one everyone spends all their time staring at to see if they are a boy/girl?

No. My child is not an experiment.

No. I imagine hormones would put paid to the experiment eventually.

no, i think gender and gender traits are a product of nature rather than nuture. i.e. girls will be tomboys or girlie girls regardless of parental intervention to make them one way or another and the same for boys.

I don't believe in only giving gender specific toys though. If I had a son I would be happy for him to have dolls or play princess dress up if he wanted to and likewise if my DD wants lego and cars instead of dollies then so be it.

no, but there was a very famous experiment carried out in (I think) the '60's where a baby boy was given a sex change to a girl and grew up believing he was a girl. It had devasting effects on the whole family and the boy ended up committing suicide aged 38 .

I heard of an acquaintance of a friend doing this - gave the child a gender neutral name and didn't tell anyone whether it was a girl or boy. I have no idea what happened, although I know nobody knew several months in - must ask my friend!

I personally think it is a crazy idea for the reasons others have stated. I didn't dress my DS in baby blue and don't now dress him in much 'boys stuff' - he has a very multi-coloured set of clothes incl pink, red and purple, he has a whole range of toys - trains, kitchen, doll, cars - and I never encourage 'masculine'/discourage 'feminine' behaviour - e.g. don't say things like "don't be such a girl" when he cries which i have heard plenty of parents say to sons. But he IS a boy and I would never attempt to deny or suppress that.

You might as well raise your child as an elephant. Utter nonsense that feeds the egos of the parents and does nothing for the child other than damage them.

No. I think it's hideously unfair on the poor child being the subject of his/her parents' ego driven experiment.

what a fucking mad idea

and a complete insult to all those children/grown-ups who do struggle with gender issues, for one (genuine) reason or another..

gender identification is part of developing identity
if you mean being aware of stereotypes then that is a different thing although what you suggest smacks of lab rat experiment at least imo

it's a ridicul;ous ad selfish idea. the child won't be treated as gender neutral because the primary carers will know whether child is he /she (DOH!).stupid attention seeking behaviour.

No. Even if I felt inclined to do this (and I don't) I agree with the many people here who say i's unfair and cruel. I wonder how gender neutral children keep this up as they get older.