Anyone know a parent who doesn’t refer to the sex of their child?

[KLFisgonnarockyou]

I have an acquaintance who never refers to their son’s sex on social media. He is 7 years old and refers to his as “they”, “themself”. I know she’s full on TWAW. I think she’s saying her son doesn’t have a gender until he picks one. Is that odd?

Is she trying to maintain some privacy perhaps? You see it on here sometimes, where posters use DC and they/them in an attempt to obscure whether the child is male or female. I guess to make posting information about their child less identifiable.

But, if you know that your acquaintance is fully onboard with gender ideology, then it's perhaps more likely that she is doing it consciously so as not to "gender" him publicly. Which is fairly pointless if you already know that he is male.

I definitely refer to mine as DC and avoid pronouns on here where possible for DC's sake.

It's rife on social media - perhaps as virtue signalling, and perhaps as a way of providing kids with some privacy. The salient question is, how does she refer to him in real life?

yes. This.

I also never post any photos on social media or use their name. It is a privacy thing. My husband has no social media presence either and I never refer to him either. If he wants to be in contact with people or for them to know what he is up to, he let's them know personally.

There was a thread recently about a TD (Irish equivalent of an MP) raiging a child gender neutral (IRL, not just online) - www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4763522-irish-politician-raising-baby-gender-neutral-with-they-pronouns . I've also seen a handful of "human interest" type news items over the last few years re minor celebrities or just random people doing so; I suppose it's something of a trend but still rare enough to be noteable?

It's mildly interesting to me as my parents consciously tried to treat me and my brothers (3 boys, 1 girl) as similarly as possible, so we wouldn't have stereotypically "male" or "female" socialisation. It didn't really work because the same behaviour coming from a boy vs a girl, or a man vs a woman, is received and judged differently by society. It would be interesting to see the impact if no one actually knew the child's sex. But in addition to the ethical/child protection issues, I don't think it would be possible much after 8-10 or so, even with homeschooling and such.

I know a gay couple with a child of about 2.5 who have only ever user gender-neutral pronouns, chose a unisex name, and dress in a gender neutral style. To this day I don't know whether they have a son or a daughter. I suspect the idea is the child will decide for themselves when they're older. 🤨

I see a lot of references to "gender reveals" these days - and I always think "How do they know?" 🤔.

Gender and sex get so conflated, no-one really knows which we're talking about these days.

There is a child in my DC’s class at school whose sex I have never known. I am completely baffled by the whole thing, especially as they have been with my child since reception. The child has a unisex name but looks like a (tall) girl and has always dressed very similarly to the other primary-aged girls, eg pink clothes, party dresses, frills, mermaids, unicorns. They have long hair in a stereotypically girly style and they play overwhelmingly with the girls. However, all the children and the teachers refer to this child as “he”.

I’ve never managed to ask the child’s parent since I really couldn’t think how to say “is your child genuinely a boy?” without coming across like a complete wazzock. Perhaps the parents just use accurate pronouns while letting their son dress how he wants (I hope this is it). But the extremely stereotypical femininity in hair and dress from such a young age does make me wonder if it’s something else.

If this child goes on a residential with my DC, I would be very keen indeed to know which sex they actually are!

Sorry - I realise that’s not what your thread was asking about, OP! The parent doesn’t use “they”. But it’s been confusing me for years.

So what would it even mean, to pick a gender, at some later point? To pick the sexist stereotypes the child feels aligned with?

We are going back on feminism incredibly rapidly. Within the old feminist tradition the idea was that a child could play with any toys and have any hobbies and those would not affected by the child's sex which is immutable.

The thing we were fighting to get rid of (gender, which is the instrument for sex-based oppression) has now been elevated into something important by presumably progressive people. Now both the far right and the far left associate pink, dolls, makeup, heels etc. with the gender 'woman and girls'!

A friend of mine who is full on gender critical did this when her son was young. I don’t think it was anything to do with letting him choose his own gender, but more about minimising the stereotyping he would be subject to.

A relative's family all use 'they' about their teen daughter. I can't do it. I struggle to understand what I'm being told sometimes, as I can't work out who is who from the grammar.

They may work for an unknown person, but it's fiendishly confusing for a single child. Her parents both go all vigorously bright eyed as they do it, which I think is signalling 'this is what we have to say these days and it's all fine, please don't ask!', though I could be wrong.

I don't understand how this works between age two and age 11, say. How do you toilet train a child or explain why they have to use one toilet over another in certain places without referring to being a boy or a girl? How the heck do you help them navigate school where everyone else is quite clearly male or female?

I just can't see how this works practically at all between these ages.

Yes. I know a man going about with a woman's name, who has a gender neutral child.

It seems bizarre to me that you would try to withold that sort of info from a child.

The man is quite angry and isolated. Shouty when people were trying to make sense of the situation. The child might be at school by now.

Separately I know a ten year old girl who is now a They.

I saw an earnest comment on an academic friend's fb post (who is a bit TRA) about how she had a three and five year old who "currently identify as girls" the post was about treating boys and girls differently but it's just so try-hard

There is a trans identifying woman in a parenting group I'm on (which is 99.99999% mothers). They have an incredibly feminine face and a moustache....they look like Freddy whatshisname. They do not refer to their baby's sex/gender at all - baby is a they/them. It was wearing tights and a tutu in the last pic I saw. This person comes across as being super hip and chilled and their posts jar a bit with the tone of the rest of the group (which is very welcoming and non-judgmental btw). They appear to be trying too hard.

100% agree@nepeta

I'm trying to raise my kids as gender neutral as possible (which just means not limiting choices or holding assumptions based on stereotypes). I expect this is common among feminists; my parents raised my siblings and I similarly. I think it was effective for us in that we're all gentle and somewhere in the middle, stereotype-wise. It obviously doesn't mean pretending everyone doesn't have a sex, because that would be a safeguarding nightmare and borderline abusive.

My kids have it tougher because gender stereotypes seem way more entrenched than in the 80s and 90s. The current result is that they are often policed for their personalities by kids who have been raised in more stereotype loving households. It honestly makes no difference to my kids if the scolding comes from a gender ideology perspective or a traditional conservative perspective.

The thing we were fighting to get rid of (gender, which is the instrument for sex-based oppression) has now been elevated into something important by presumably progressive people. Now both the far right and the far left associate pink, dolls, makeup, heels etc. with the gender 'woman and girls'!

They've done a complete number on society, in about as rapid and effective a capture as I've seen any pressure group achieve, ever. It's quite remarkable. I really would be curious to know how they did it. Part the issue must be that most of this stuff was sneaked in by stealth before people started blinking in the daylight, waking up to what was going on, and seeing that this was less a 'live and let live' approach to safeguarding one group's rights to a wholesale landgrab of another's.

Like most GI-sceptics I'm all for not subscribing to the pinkification nonsense, or gender-coding everything from kids' clothes to #BeKind. But it would be difficult to enumerate the many reasons why keeping a child genuinely in the dark about what sex they are is very much counter to their interests. And what, exactly, is the point? They can present as they wish whatever sex they are. And it's hardly as if they're never going to find out.

Sex and gender have become enmeshed in a very unhealthy, co-dependent relationship and are long overdue a divorce.

My friend does this on social media with her child as well as not sharing pictures in there and requesting others not to. It's a privacy thing. Those that no her well know her child's sex and what they look like. There's no need for people on social media to know.

Yes, I’m trying to do this too - as few gender stereotypes as possible, also letting my DC wear, read and play with whatever they want regardless of whether it’s stereotypically masculine or feminine. I know quite a lot of parents doing similarly.

This seems to me a long way off the school parent I know (that I described above), who seems to be using male pronouns but has dressed and styled their child as femininely as possible since the age of 4. At 4 my DC didn’t have much sense of what was “for boys” or “for girls” so they would wear a real mix of different things based entirely on if they liked the colours or shape or the football picture or the sequins on the front etc. It’s harder for me to imagine a 4 year old boy insisting on hair in long bunches with pink ribbons, plus pink dress, plus pink sparkly shoes with long frilly socks etc. Maybe I am overthinking this but feel a bit cautious about the situation.

catabogus my boy's fave colours include pink and who doesn't like sparkles... So I did wonder if you were describing him for a sec! He'd never tolerate the feeling of his hair being pulled into bunches though. And I think even if I had girls I'd probably still err towards tracksuit trousers for comfort and practicality.

I get the cautious feelings though. I feel them too, even though I'm fully aware that other sensible people might feel cautious about me! AAAAAARGH. I really really hate how the global dominance of US culture has effectively erased genuine feminist thought and people think they can only choose between "gender stereotypes but you can choose your sex" and "gender stereotypes based upon your sex".

Yes, I’m trying to do this too - as few gender stereotypes as possible, also letting my DC wear, read and play with whatever they want regardless of whether it’s stereotypically masculine or feminine. I know quite a lot of parents doing similarly
That's what we do too. Online I tend to use they to refer to my DC though.

DC can like what they like and have any personality they like, regardless of their sex because it doesn't matter. I think it helps that they see me and DH having a range of interests as well as fair allocation of domestic load so they're not in a household where dad puts the bins out and mum washes the dishes.

Raising children in a gender neutral way like this should encourage them to question the pinkification and blueification of society.

I'm not sure what parents who deny their child's sex until they've been sufficiently indoctrinated to pick a set of stereotypes realise that's the opposite of freedom and individual expression. It's raising them to pick a box.

This is what we did.

It was when I sat down and showed my teen how stereotypes were being used to diagnose trans people and how Mermaids where using stereotypes, they were horrified. It sunk in that we had never even discussed them 'getting married and having children' or asked them about romantic interests, being heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual.

They had never made the connection that people were using these gender stereotypes to decide their 'gender'.