Irish politician raising baby gender neutral with 'they' pronouns

[Jumpersaurus]

This guy loves publicity but this is just beyond farcical.

"The role that they will perceive for themselves, the type of play that they will perceive for themselves by saying ‘you’re a boy or you’re a girl’. Just let them decide for themselves.
“You want to dress in pink? Fire ahead. You want to dress in blue? Fire ahead. You want to play football? Brilliant. You want to go dancing? Amazing... it’s just not to limit."

He's so close to catching on how ridiculous gender stereotypes are, so so close.

"Obviously, the vast majority of parents do gender their child and I’ve no criticism of that whatsoever, no judgment. But it is true that if you put the label, boy or girl on your child, you definitely increase the chances of them going down one road or another.”

Glad he isn't criticising the rest of us who are 'gendering' our children, whatever that means! Who knew the words we use to denote young humans were just labels 🤷‍♀️

www.independent.ie/news/td-paul-murphy-on-raising-new-baby-gender-neutral-were-describing-juniper-as-a-baby-but-it-is-male-42385502.html

Well the good news is that the parents have accepted the fact that the baby has a sex, and is male. It remains to be seen how Juniper will refer to themselves when they are able to articulate their feelingz.

Exactly!! He's bending over backwards to please the TRAs but failing miserably!

Juniper is not what I would consider a gender neutral name. Good luck to the poor child, PM lives in Tallaght IIRC

Its so revealing when people say nonsense like this, personally I don't feel limited or put in a box by being a woman. Its much better to teach children similar to what was done when I was a child that there is no limits on what you can do regardless of your sex a woman can be a car mechanic, a man can wear pink

Oh my god that poor child.

Imagine how much shit that poor child is going to get from HIS peers when he gets to school.

So if they want to be seen as a boy (or girl) when they grow up, that'll require a gender transition?

Two days in nursery and little Juniper will be identifying with the male paw patrol characters and refusing anything pink

I find it very uncomfortable reading him refer to his newborn baby as 'it' quite a few times, and 'the baby', 'the child', it comes across like he's very disassociated from his son.

Quote from The Irish Times -
"It’s an interesting thing, when you get the cert in the hospital, which says the sex of the baby, it says gender as male or female – when it means sex. It’s wrong. It’s the wrong word. What they mean is sex. They’re talking about their biological characteristics.”

So if he acknowledges sex and gender are separate entities what the hell is he doing referring to his son as 'they' (or 'it'!). I just don't get him at all, is he too thick to understand what he's saying or does he assume his supporters are the thick ones?? I've always found him disingenuous but this is another level.

www.irishtimes.com/health/your-family/2023/03/14/paul-murphy-we-dont-want-to-limit-them-by-saying-youre-a-boy-or-youre-a-girl-let-them-decide/

Murphy says if Juniper decides at the age of three that they are a boy “then we’ll say he and we’ll just say, ‘oh yeah cool, you’re a boy, excellent. And you’re free to change your opinion and you’re free to change your gender identity in the future if you want. We’ll respect that and we’ll change the pronouns that we use. If you say you’re a boy, then great you’re a boy. Or if you say you’re a girl, then great you’re a girl.’ But we don’t want to make that choice for Juniper. That’s for Juniper to discover their own gender identity as opposed to us to assume based on their sex.”

www.irishtimes.com/health/your-family/2023/03/14/paul-murphy-we-dont-want-to-limit-them-by-saying-youre-a-boy-or-youre-a-girl-let-them-decide/

What an utter silly bollocks this man is. It would be much more "gender neutral " to allow his son to explore whatever the boy likes, whether that's rugby or sewing (or both).

But if it's transitioning, and you are trans, to go from e.g. girl to non-binary, or from boy to agender, surely it's the same the other way around?

No idea what he's on about really. They accept that the baby is a boy, and have no problem with male pronouns, and say that they want their child to play with whatever toys they are interested in. So....ok? 🤷🏻 I guess that just wasn't 'special' enough

'I find it very uncomfortable reading him refer to his newborn baby as 'it' quite a few times, and 'the baby', 'the child', it comes across like he's very disassociated from his son.'

Yes, good point

So if the child likes soccer they are a boy? Or dancing a girl? Even though both boys and girls can play soccer and dance. Such sexist bullshit, masquerading as Liberal and progressive

When you see your child as an extension of your identity and a tool on which to act out your personal hobby horse regardless of what confusion you may inflict? Concerns about fitness to parent, right there.

I do see what he means. Even if you raise your child in the toys are toys and clothes are clothes mindset the rest of the world will put gender stereotypes onto them. They will still go to school/play group/parties and be faced with ‘girls can’t play football’ or ‘dolls aren’t for boys’.

I still thinks it’s a bloody silly way to raise a child and it won’t last.

This man is 40 years old. Obviously not the sharpest star in the sky!

what happens when Juniper identifies as a cat when he’s 3. Are they going to put him out at night?

Or a super hero, throw him out the window to teach him to fly?

After-all Juniper can be anything Juniper wants.

I can imagine the conversation with the other kids in preschool. ‘Are you a boy or a girl or Wha?’

I find it very uncomfortable reading him refer to his newborn baby as 'it' quite a few times, and 'the baby', 'the child', it comes across like he's very disassociated from his son.

This is exactly what I thought.

That's it in a nutshell really, he just wants to be special.

He couldn't virtue signal to his base by just being a white man producing a son (with his surname no less!) with his female partner with whom he is in a heterosexual relationship. That wouldn't give him any brownie points now would it!

The problem is that gender stereotyping of babies and young children happens quite subconsciously. Even when carers think they are treating male and female children the same, studies show that they don’t. Boys are played with more boisterously, etc etc.

So unfortunately, as everyone knows the child is a boy, the whole exercise is utterly pointless.

I notice he had no problem conforming to tradition and giving the little boy his surname though.

That's it, we can't subvert conditioning by pretending we can just ignore it as if the child is growing up in a vacuum.

Telling my daughter she can do anything a boy can do is something I have to do actively as a parent, I need to instil this in her constantly. But telling my boy he too can do anything a girl can do is much less natural, it takes a concerted effort on my part every day. I'm working against generations of conditioning that tells me to be a girl is 'lesser'; I hate it and disagree with it to my core, but it's there all the same. I cannot be so arrogant as to think I can subvert this with no active effort on my part.

My parents brought me up gender neutral in the 80s. Not with this silly they/them language, that wasn't a thing back then, but in practice it meant no Barbie dolls or Disney princess movies, no dresses or long hair, no playing tea parties and no toys with girls on the box.
I hated it and became magnetically attracted to anything pink and sparkly by about age 6 and wanted to be a fairy princess.
It's all just very silly and any choice you make for your child is "limiting" them including calling them "they/them".

You see what I find so ridic about the ridic scenario is that he is the TD for Dublin South West and lives in Tallaght. I know many great people from Tallaght, but much like my own working class part of Belfast this will NOT be something people there will be doing anything other than laughing at. Oh he’ll get all the blow hards on Twitter applauding him but his actual constituents? I couldn’t see it.
It was so depressing reading his comments today because he is so close to actually getting it. I’ve watched him over the years and he isn’t the sharpest tool in the box. He’ll be absolutely devo’d if the child grows up to be, dare I say it, a typical young boy who loves diggers and kicking a ball.

I foresee Juniper going non contact with his parents at 16 and changing his name to Peter.