gender neutral parenting

[skql]

sorry. english is not my first language, so ...

in my country gender-#$#$# is not a thing yet, but i'm very concerned about what is happening now.

years ago, there was(is) gender neutral parenting.

my first thought was 'oh that's good' and then watch yutube docu and...i don't know...

i thought gender neutral was boy /girl can do whatever they want (but know about him her self well (bio sex))
but parents raised their children non sexual.(? )
kids can't even answer the question "are you boy or girl?"

and now there's movement changing kids to trans gender
because he love pink and she love blue.

i feels like gender neutral parenting was a kind of trap.

"boy can love pink love dress"
->"love pink and dress you must be a girl"

Hi skql

When I think of how I grew up, and others of my generation I think it was fairly gender neutral but everyone knew who was a boy and who was a girl and I went to exclusively girls schools.

But clothes: most of us wore pass downs, so if the older sibling was a boy then likely the pass downs were boys clothes. I grew up on a farm and had a pony. I spent my entire life in jeans or jodhpurs and welly boots. I always wore welly boots even in high summer with my shorts as they protected my legs from nettles and brambles.

Toys: my older sister loved Lego, and we had a toy farm that had been my father's. I hated dolls, preferring the dog or the cat. Mostly I was outside, doing stuff like mucking out.

Playmates - whoever was around, boys or girls.

I don't feel as if "gender" intruded into my life at all.

Maybe it was like that years ago were you are.

Then we had big business and the explosion of pink v blue, girls toys, boys toys, Disney. It's all awful in my opinion.

Some people try to rebel against it and insist on only wooden toys for instance. And choose gender neutral type clothes and toys.

But the new gender neutral parenting seems to go beyond that, to not tell their child if they are a boy or a girl. Seems pretty mad to me. One day they will have to give contraceptive advice to their child for instance. And living on a farm I knew what was male and what was female and where the lambs and calves came from, I doubt I'd have been fooled about being gender neutral. Maybe a gelding? But they are still male.

I also felt like my upbringing was largely gender neutral. There were some things that were separate, but not really things like hobbies or who could be considered good at math or career choices or anything like that. I could wear boys clothes most of the time.

There were a few things like Guides or Scouts that were seperated but they were seen as equal. And clothes for picture days or weddings, that sort of thing, which ticked me off at the time though in hindsight I think it was a very good lesson that clothes don't make you who you are, they don't have that kind of power.

For boys it was more restrictive, mainly around clothes and maybe some toys.

Once puberty hit a lot changed, but that was driven by sex of course.

@skql English isn’t your first language yet you manage to spell every word so well, better than many English people! Well done

@FannyCann @Goosefoot so true. my self raised by gender neutral too.
what i am worrying is in home, raising kid gender neutral way but when kids go to school if teachers or peers think kid a trans, pushing transition to them will be awful.

maybe i'm overreacting...

@alicewond thanks. but i think my english expression is very childish.
i have been lurking since i joined mumsnet so...i don't know i'm troll lol.

I raised my children as 'gender neutrally' as I could.

This meant that I didn't impose gender 'norms' on them - neither of them were told that they could/couldn't/should/shouldn't/must/mustn't do something because they were a boy/girl.

They both pursued whatever interests they wanted to and worn the clothes they like the best and are both still quite certain that one of them is male and the other is female.

I read on another thread that someone said a lot of the narratives of TW seem to include an overbearing dad who punished them for liking 'girl' things and, I have to say, that's what I've noticed too.

If these boys had been allowed to have long hair and play with dolls, they'd just have been boys with long hair who played with dolls! But children internalise their parents' voices and if you are told often enough "you can't do/wear/play with X because only girls do that" it's not too difficult to see why a boy might conclude that he must really be a girl then.

I don't think it was. I think if you look at society now, it is decidedly more gendered. Which feeds into the trans narrative. It is so gendered now, that some kids reject that and that is exactly what TRAs prey upon.

My upbringing was pretty gender neutral. Not deliberately but I think it was just simpler times.
Yes I had a big dolls house but it was filled with action men and thundercats
I played football with my brother and climbed trees.
Rarely wore dresses and still don’t really like them.

Gender neutral used to mean not forcing children to comply with sexist stereotypes.

Now it means something different, it means parents gaslighting their DC that sex doesn't exist. That genitals are neither female nor male. Asking their DC if they feel like a girl or a boy and telling them it's their choice from a very young age. Trying to avoid talking about sex differences in the animal kingdom as it doesn't go along with their nonsense thinking on this (seriously). Celebrating their trans or "gender fluid" conforming DC - and patting themselves on the back for being so woke - and socially transitioning them at a very young age, then being insistent the idea came from the child, not their influence AT ALL.

I'm in a Facebook group with a load of these types, they're fucking nuts. Their poor children.

Sorry, ignore the "conforming"in my post! I deleted something about gender non conforming kids as my sentence was getting too long, but left in the conforming by accident, sorry for the confusion!

But by total accident, I wonder if it kinda makes sense though?! I guess DC who are trans or gender fluid due to parental influence ARE conforming - but to their parents stereotypes, rather than societies...

With regards to clothes and toys, yes I grew up wearing hand me downs from my brother, and we played with each others toys, but I think it is important to remember that clothes and toys were relatively expensive in the 70s/80s when I was a child.

The shift to highly gendered products has occurred in tandem with those products becoming relatively cheaper. Parents can afford new clothes and toys for each child to a much greater degree than used to be the case. Manufacturers, in order to maximise profit, have therefore encouraged the idea of boy things and girl things. I don't think they set out to make society more gendered so much adjusted their business plans in accordance with shifts in relative cost. In short, I think it is more cock up than conspiracy.

The shift in meaning of 'gender neutral' is something very different. It is a product of the muddled thinking of postmodernism and queer theory. There is an element of conspiracy there.

Ultimately children need to be grounded in reality to grow into confident, comfortable in their own skin adults (teenage insecurities not withstanding). They need to know their sex. They need to know that while their sex does not restrict their interests it is an unchangeable facet of their reality just as their adult height or skin colour is. I am of the view that it is downright abusive to lie to children and pretend they have any choice in their sexed reality.

I'm in a Facebook group with a load of these types, they're fucking nuts. Their poor children.

I used to be as well, I had to leave in the end. Not only that but they were so illogical and contradictory around gender in general.