Raising a theybe: "alienated babies"

[Lamahaha]

An excellent article on a worrying phenomenon.

www.spiked-online.com/2019/11/18/theybies-raising-alienated-babies/

I thought the paragraph quoting the "demi girl" was satire at first.

She doesn't have a mother, she has a person who gave birth to her.

It is all very messed up, definitely not child led at all. I do worry for Sparrow once they reach the age when children define each other as boy/ girl as they will not know where to fit in.

I read that the other day. I'm really worried for that 8 year old.

Mum, am I a boy or a girl?
You're a boy.
Am I a boy because I wear trousers?
No dear, boys and girls can wear trousers or skirts. You're a boy because you have a penis. Girls have a vulva not a penis.
-----
Parent, am I a boy or a girl?
I don't know Rainbow Unicorn dear, which feels right to you?
I don't know, what's the difference?
There's no difference, just feelings.
Well, I have a penis, does that help?
No dear, boys and girls can have penises.
Sometimes I like wearing trousers and sometimes I like wearing skirts.
That's just your presentation dear, boys and girls can wear skirts and trousers. Your gender is about how you feel.
I just feel like me.
Well dear, perhaps you're not a boy or a girl. Perhaps you're one of these special rainbow people. Let me find a list and we'll see what you like the sound of ...

This article touches on something I've noticed, which is a belief in gender essentialism often seems to be tied to efforts to completely remove gender expression from the world of young children.

Learning the difference between boys and girls, men and women is an important part of child development. I understand the wish to not push children into sexist stereotype boxes, girls do this, boys like that, but to pretend sex is irrelevant is abusive in my opinion.

Well put Third

In a all seriousness does anyone else feel worried for this 8 year old child growing up? I'm not suggesting that the 'household' isn't loving I'm more concerned that the natural instincts you grow up with will be so broken down that actually this child will be more at risk as the child will be taught not to question those instincts.

I use 'child' and 'household' as those are the words do not talk about biology and 'household' is used in the article.

I think it would be far more progressive to raise a child who knows their biological sex, and knows that it doesn’t have to define what they wear, like, play with, do as a career or who they choose to love.

I found this a profoundly sad article. Moving rather than infuriating. Children's natural identity formation is being stunted and obstructed rather than made free.

Jan Macvarish is interesting generally on family structure and the Parenting Industrial Complex's endless interfering. I don't agree with everything she says by any means but she's an invigorating thinker and her book aimed at non-academics is well worth reading.

www.amazon.co.uk/Neuroparenting-Expert-Invasion-Family-Life/dp/1137547324?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Yes goosefoot. When I was pregnant I realised it was hard to get baby clothes that weren't pastel pink or blue, or white. I wanted to get some bright colours so I looked online for unisex stuff. This lead me down a bit of a rabbit hole and eventually I discovered "gender neutral parenting" which I thought was great at first. Until I realised it wasn't what it seemed. What I thought the concept was, was to let kids be kids basically. Let them play with the toys they wanted to play with and not to restrict them with ideas like girls shouldn't play with toy cars. But then I realised that there was a logic fail going on. And what started with: girls should be able to play with toy cars, toy cars aren't just for boys, turned into: my girl likes to play with toy cars, my girl is actually a boy. Obviously that's not an actual example but that was pretty much it. And people didn't seem to notice the jump going on. It is weird.

I do worry for these kids. At some point they're going to realise they have bogstandard male or female bodies not rainbow-special ones. It seems to me there's a good chance of them ending up feeling alienated from their own bodies or betrayed by those around them who've been portraying sex as a choice.

For their sakes I hope their teenage rebellion takes the form of the surreptitious reading of biology books.

When I first read the reference to "demi-girl", I assumed it was satirical, something said by a young adult in reference to their experimental childhood. But no, this is an eight year old. They are doing this to an eight year old.

I don't understand how you raise your child to be this "gender-neutral".

What do you do about toilet-training? Teaching about washing and hygiene? Underclothing? How do you explain necessary biological differences to a child when they start nursery or school?

I can't see how this works.

I have a toddler dd who we bring up in a very 70s genderfree way (we encourage her to copy us when we use tools etc) but even as a baby, I would voice female-specific messages to her about hygiene, so she knew from an early age that there were certain things you did and didn't do after toileting.

I'm sure parents of boys must do that too.

So I can't work out how you bring up a child with this level of refusal to recognise biological sex.

Vegan-cat territory?

In my view children have the right to understand their own bodies and how they function. Denying them the factual knowledge of their sex denies this and puts them at risk physically and psychologically.

As a girl I was prone to urinary tract infections. My brother never got them. I remember thinking how unfair that was and also being worried that I was doing something wrong. As my parents weren't denying my sex my mum was able to take me aside and explain that girls and women have smaller bladders and shorter urethras. That it wasn't that my brother was doing something right that I wasn't. It was just down to physiology. She was able to both empathise with my sense of unfairness and set aside my fears.

How can a parent explain these things if they won't acknowledge sex? How can they prepare their child for puberty? How can they answer simple questions about where babies come from? It is cruel to pretend sex doesn't matter.

‘ Parents undertaking a gender-neutral approach usually aspire to ‘freeing’ their children from rigid gender stereotypes, so that they can ‘achieve their full potential’. But Hazel’s speech to camera serves as a warning of the dangers of raising a child without such a meaningful framework. It means the child is cut off from the frameworks which root him or her in a particular family, and connect him or her to the wider world.’

I read this as a critique of a gender critical approach too. It’s saying gender is important to upbringing, isn’t it? So GC sceptical AND genderist sceptical.

I think sex is important to recognise in bringing up kids (and leads to lots of interesting conversations about gender) but I don’t respect gender as a directive category for child-rearing.

There’s likely harms in bringing up any child in any narrow political environment, though and I get all of what is being said about that.

What is really crossing a line is setting these poor kids up for the publicity. Don't do that. Don't film them and broadcast it. Don't use them in this way.

Kids deserve privacy. It's a consent and safeguarding issue.

I read the first pages of that Lang, and I was reminded of my parents’ generation, where scientists believed they could do better than nature with baby formula.

There’s something very arrogant about throwing out everything our forebears had learned about child rearing.

Gender neutral in the sense of rejecting stereotypes is good - but it seems like these misguided people are trying to raise their children sex-neutral which isn't possible and is liable to be damaging.

What worries me most about this is that the children will likely become more and more isolated as they get older. Their peers aren't going to accept this horseshit without questions, and the kids have been trained to view questioning as both a personal attack and an attack on the worldview of their family unit. How are they going to form and maintain friendships with kids their age? Childhood play tends to involve a lot of conversation in which X is a girl and Y is a boy stuff comes up. Will children who say that stuff be banned from coming to play again? Will Hazel be banned from going to the houses of friends unless a promise can be extracted from their parents to play along with the demi-girl stuff? Even parents willing to do that would likely balk at "demi daughter".

What happens when they hit their teens? How are they going to square dating with the expectations of both themselves and their parents? Despite the best efforts of the trans lobby the potential dating pool of peers willing to play along 100% all the time is likely to be limited. How do you teach a female child what she needs to know about the ways in which boys and men can present a danger to here when you're pretending sex doesn't exist?

It just seems like their world is going to get narrower and narrower until they either give up on even trying to find any sort of social contacts outside their family or rebel and run away from it all. Both scenarios are psychologically damaging. It's kind of like what you see with kids raised in religious cults, but with a much smaller group of "approved" peers to mix with.

thirdfiddle your post is absolutely spot on.

I'm in an online group with a bunch of parents who believe that their DC will reveal their gender to them when they're old enough. I was invited by someone a few months back who doesn't know me nearly as well as she thinks she does, who assumed I'd be into this stuff. I stay as it's like a slow moving car crash I find it hard to look away from.

Comments from two mothers of boys stood out to me this week. Both of their sons identify as boys. But both mothers seem to be trying to hold on to the possibility that their DC might be trans or non-binary.

This, for example:

Our oldest is trans non-binary. He most identifies with the term gender creative, in part because he prefers to keep his male name and pronouns for now. He’s 7.5. What we’ve done as a family is talk about all these things openly in a general kind of way, and then check in with him on his own every few months, to make sure he’s feeling good and we are still supporting in the way he needs to be supported.

We have an appointment at the end of this month with a gender clinic, just to find out what our future options might be, and what to look for in terms of puberty if he decides he’d like some kind of intervention like puberty blockers

Why on earth are they talking to a gender clinic?! He isn't showing any signs of identifying as a girl, despite their frequent questioning. This is nuts.

The other mother is asking for advice as her DS clearly IDs as male but has asked his mother to use non-binary pronouns, just at home and not tell anyone. This was after lots of conversations about pronouns from the mother, and he said it was because of his long hair, people think he's a girl. Here's some of the advice given:

Id say as a non-binary person ask. Ask them if they are someone other than a boy or girl and then if offer to look through lists or genders online to see if they can find one that fits. Seems like they are giving clear signals to me. If they were cis would you be questioning outright affirming them?

I think the answer to the last sentence is yes, she would be questioning it if he was "cis" as that's exactly what she and the other parents in the group are doing. Constant questioning of their kids, until they give them the answer they so desperately want to hear - that their kid is extra special and they can now demonstrate how wonderfully accepting they are.

Once the DC have been deemed trans or non binary, do their parents still constantly question them, to check they're not actually "cis"? Do they fuck. Because that'd be "conversion therapy" and what they need is affirmation.

They honestly can't see what they're doing, is my perception. They really think they're supporting their DC in expressing their true selves, when what they're actually doing is gaslighting them and very damaging.

There are loads of these parents about btw. Not just the small number who hit the press.

Lawyers and therapists are going to make a lot of money out of the fall out from this in years to come.

There’s something very arrogant about throwing out everything our forebears had learned about child rearing.

Yes. She's very interesting on the intimate dynamics of families. I think, rather than either anti-genderist or anti-gender critical, she's rebelling against the entire Parenting Industry.

She's a really provoking writer and gives a lot of pause for thought, I think.

Bloody hell, arethere

I hope whoever sees them at the gender clinic tells these parents not to be so bloody silly.

he said it was because of his long hair, people think he's a girl

Christ this stuff makes me want to scream. Will a prepubescent boy with long hair occasionally be mistaken for a girl? Yes. It happened to my long haired son from time to time prior to puberty. It is an easy mistake to make in prepubescent children. Does long hair on a boy make him any less of a boy? Don't be ridiculous.

What we’ve done as a family is talk about all these things openly in a general kind of way, and then check in with him on his own every few months, to make sure he’s feeling good and we are still supporting in the way he needs to be supported.

"Are you trans yet? Well, you said you weren't in July, what about now? Still no? No problem, we'll be asking again in January, and then in May, and then..."

Why are they badgering that poor kid?