"I didn't assign a gender to my kid. It's up to them to decide" - Time article

[PinkJellycat]

Apologies if this has already been discussed - I couldn't find a thread.

I'm a long time lurker on the Feminism board and reading all of your posts have really educated me. I read this essay this morning and was appalled at how this could be in the mainstream press. That poor child. Myers refers to her damaging childhood in the Mormon church - how can she not realise the damage she is inflicting on her own child?

The second to last paragraph really stood out to me:

"Around their fourth birthday, Zoomer started declaring a gender identity and claiming some gendered pronouns. Brent and I are honoring Zoomer’s identity and expression and answering all their questions in an age-appropriate and inclusive way. (I’m using they here because Zoomer is still exploring gender and I want them to have some autonomy over how they share their identity with the world.)^"
^
I would bet that the child is using his/her biological pronouns and the author is having a tantrum about it.

Link:

apple.news/AfdfgmBWHRHWqwwBgLCSZQg

Zoomer? Perhaps they will identify as a robot dog?

Maybe some is a labrador who identifies as a child because there's better food?

OK, who has assigned gender to a child?

I am not even sure how you go about it, obviously there is the gender reveal party but are there forms to fill in?

The trouble is that I don't think parents really can force this stuff.

We move around a lot, so my kids haven't had quite the same continuous cultural influences that other kids do. They have varied interested and likes. Since going to school of course they've become aware of the societal expectations on boys and girls though - even though they can be quite different in different places (perhaps that's made them even more aware).

So my pink and sparkles loving boy now keeps his clothing a little more conservative (still with some sparkle) - and whilst I can encourage him to express himself, support him where he needs it, I wouldn't want to force him into wearing stuff that makes him socially uncomfortable or force him not to wear something if he wants to. A kind of Supportive Neutral.

I'm not going to paint a target on my kids by lying to them either about their sex, or about what some people might think/say, and that's what I kinda feel these crusading parents are doing.

The trouble is that I don't think parents really can force this stuff

The irony is they think they are not enforcing stuff

Why teach the kid English? Why not Urdu or Swahili? Let the kid decide for itself instead of imposing their racist imperialist standards.

Zoomer knows some daddies get pregnant and some nonbinary parents are called Zazas

Eh?? Zazas?

Poor child. And with a name like Zoomer as well.

" A common critique of gender-creative parenting is that “the kid will be confused,” but Zoomer doesn’t seem confused at all. In fact, they have a more nuanced understanding of sex and gender than a lot of adults. We teach them to use gender-neutral words until a person tells us about themself. We call kids friends. We have taught Zoomer about their own body without using boy-girl labels. Zoomer understands that some girls have penises and some boys have vulvas, and some intersex kids have vulvas and testes. Zoomer knows some daddies get pregnant and some nonbinary parents are called Zazas. "

Ok, I will not get into whether they are confused or everyone else is

But how much of that lot did they choose for themselves?

""Around their fourth birthday, Zoomer started declaring a gender identity and claiming some gendered pronouns."

Over the past few days, My 3.5 ds has declared himself to be amongst other things, mum, an excavator, and a dog.

Unfortunately those things which Zoomer currently 'understands' aren't actually true.

"I’m using they here because Zoomer is still exploring gender and I want them to have some autonomy over how they share their identity with the world."

She is literally turning her kid into a poster child for her own ideology, writing magazine articles and.books about them, but thinks they have autonomy?

It’s so strange.

30 years ago the left were very judgemental of conservatives not providing age-appropriate fact-based sex education to kids. There was a real problem with especially religious conservatives being too embarrassed or sex negative to discuss even correct words for anatomy, let alone where babies come from.

Yet now we have the far left apparently refusing to acknowledge To their children that anatomy exists and it’s how sex has always been defined (and still is for 99.9% of people on earth)?

The fact is, Kids have to be taught what sex is, what the differences are between male and female bodies. They don’t spring into existence with complex concepts in their heads.

Some kids may find it very distressing to learn they are the opposite sex from those they admire such as older siblings or favorite characters in books or shows. Especially once the gender stereotypes come rolling in around age 3 or so. A lot of kids will feel the unfairness Deeply. Some of these kids will grow up to still identify as trans. Others will end up feminine men or masculine women, gay or straight.

Whatever the case, Lying to your children about their bodies and correct terminology never helps.

Those things that Zoomer understands are her mother's beliefs, everyone passes on beliefs and culture to their children whether it be language religion, notions of gender. It is inescapable and there is nothing wrong in it, they can change their minds when they are older.

This ideology is hypocritical and warped. It is about telling people that their natural parenting instincts are wrong and only someone with PhD in gender studies truly understanda.

Not letting your small child participate in a race is just mean - but tbh I don't think there's* a strong case for separating preschoolers* by sex. Two wrongs don't make a right.., Sensible adults set up mixed sex team games so that they can all participate, regardless of their sex (or even more at that age, developmental stage) - up to maybe the start of ks2 in U.K. terms.

The fact is, Kids have to be taught what sex is, what the differences are between male and female bodies. They don’t spring into existence with complex concepts in their heads.

Is that true? If so, why are humans different in this respect to other mammals? Sex is surely not a complex concept, it's a simple fact.

She just sounds like any other mum who is convinced she is supermum, produced a wonderchild and wants to bore the world about it.

This movement is so up its own backside. Hello, folks? Global warming, refugee crisis, global poverty, repressive regimes, pandemic? Your kid has a sex just like everyone else's.

You let a 4 Yr old choose on the basis of 4 Yr old understanding levels and after telling them biology is irrelevant, they're choosing on the basis of stereotypes. There's nothing else there. Whole thing just reinforces sex stereotypes.

Clothes errol? Most animals can see at a glance what sex another animal is. Young humans see social signals if other young humans choose to display them, and often assume that the signals are sex because they're so ubiquitous. We have to explain that no, boys can wear tutus without changing sex etc etc. OK not that complex, but seems very common for kids to be confused at preschool age.

We have taught Zoomer about their own body without using boy-girl labels. Zoomer understands that some girls have penises and some boys have vulvas

So what have they taught Zoomer about what the words "boy" and "girl" mean? What does Zoomer believe are the categories that these labels refer to?

How is Zoomer supposed to work out whether Zoomer is a "boy" or a "girl" in the absence of trusted adults who can delineate the specifics of these categories?

Kids can figure out pretty damned easily what sex category they're in even if you deny them a word for that category; most of them are exposed to the idea that undercarriages come in two distinct models pretty early on and Zoomer's no exception - Zoomer knows whether Zoomer has a body-with-vulva or a body-with-penis. All they've done is deny Zoomer access to the language the rest of the world uses to describe this.

We don't learn language by reading dictionaries. We learn it by listening to it; we figure out what each word means by hearing it used in context.

When Zoomer's out and about in the world, and sees some children described as "boys" and some children described as "girls", Zoomer knows these words do not refer to penis-bodies and vulva-bodies. Zoomer is then left with the job of inferring the meaning of these words from observation. What conclusion is Zoomer likely to draw about the categories these labels are applied to?

"Girl" = generally into skirts, makeup, dolls; unlikely to be into football; expected to maintain a higher standard of decorum at all times
"Boy" = generally into dirt and wrestling; allergic to skirts; shitty behaviour naturalised and handwaved

Zoomer then gets to decide which of these categories best fits Zoomer, and choose a label accordingly.

But Zoomer is being explicitly denied access to a comprehensive understanding of the labels Zoomer's being expected to eventually choose between. Zoomer is learning the stereotypes but not the sexed basis of them.

Zoomer cannot have an understanding of Zoomerself as having an identity that aligns with Zoomer's sex, unless Zoomer is taught what a sex actually is. Equally, Zoomer cannot have an identity that Zoomer feels doesn't align with Zoomer's sex. Because Zoomer is being taught that these mysterious amorphous identity categories of "boy" and "girl" are not linked to the "sex spectrum" in any way.

It's almost like they're trying to deny Zoomer the capacity to develop a cross-sex identity. Which looks a bit transphobic to me.

Yes, it may be the case that small kids can get confused by artificial stereotype markers but I think they outgrow it don't they? (Iirc @KatieAlcock is an expert in this area who may be able to link to something on that if she's time among all her other work!)

If a child is raised to ignore/minimise stereotypes perhaps they would tend to be more likely to notice genuine dimorphism sooner?

It's almost like they're trying to deny Zoomer the capacity to develop a cross-sex identity. Which looks a bit transphobic to me.

Arf. Indeed. If you didn't assign them a gender at birth, then they're stuck being a new sort of non-binary. They can be neither "trans" nor "cis".

You monsters...

(Okay, nobody else was really assigned a gender at birth either, but this bunch explicitly chose not to do this imaginary thing that doesn't happen, and are entering the game on that basis, thus ensuring the child can't play. Much like the sports day. What a pair of gits.)

Although maybe they can be cis-agender, if we thing agender is a gender? (In which case they DID assign a gender. Monsters!) Or if they're female they could be an assigned-agender-at-birth transwoman?

This gender wankery gets even more annoying if people start playing around with the "assigning gender" thing. It's only vaguely stable if you assume the "assigned gender" really means "sex", but once you take that out that assumption you're left with total gibberish.

@zanahoria

She just sounds like any other mum who is convinced she is supermum, produced a wonderchild and wants to bore the world about it.

Or, as my old ma would say, is as daft as a ships cat.

Slight derail, but we are 'assigned a gender'. It's a lifelong process of being forced by society into the femininity box - we are being assigned the feminine gender every time we're expected to do dolls and makeup and being kind and sexually receptive at all times etc etc as infinitum.

We're not assigned a sex, but when we conflate terms and say 'no one is assigned a gender' we're arguing against one of the most fundamental principles of feminist theory: that we are conditioned into the socially-constructed femininity box from birth.

Whenever some dick comes in here and exhorts us all to be kind and inclusive and shut up about our rights because is having full human rights makes men sad, they're assigning us the feminine gender (and getting stroppy with us for rejecting it). We really need to start reporting it for misgendering.

Christ, mum sounds like a hideous person. Poor kid.

I bet that child will be home schooled.

In fact, they have a more nuanced understanding of sex and gender than a lot of adults.
Well, more than their dumb ass parents, certainly, but that wouldn't be difficult. Pair of gormless attention seekers.