A look at the difference between sex and gender as it relates to child raising.
Originally appeared at HyperVocal.
After reading a few articles covering the recent story about Beck and Kieran, the couple who only revealed the sex of their child when he was five and starting school, I seem to be in the minority. I praise these parents for having the courage to do something that is clearly not a popular decision, and they probably knew that. People are calling it child abuse and saying that the parents are insane. That can’t be true. These people, hiding behind their computer screens, are afraid of difference and change.
There are so many questions to be asked here. Like how far does our sex and/or gender play a part in our early childhood? How far does it restrict children from being themselves, playing with certain toys, or playing with other children? And, as a consequence of this, how far does that have a negative effect on said child and/or society in general? Or, on the other side of the table, how far would being genderless affect you? I am not a child psychologist but what I do know is that we humans are a pretty predictable bunch. We like to feel safe in the space that we find ourselves in, and to feel safe, we need to know ourselves. Does not presenting as typically “boy” or “girl” in our early years hinder this and as a consequence damage that human being? And more so, damage society as we know it?
I personally say nay one hundred times over. Some would argue that it, without doubt, does damage the child because female and male brains work and grow differently, for example. I say that has nothing to do with it. This is about gender, not sex. This is about society and how we are treated just because we happen to be a certain sex. This is about changing the notion that two sexes (for the most part) equals two genders. This is about making children, and subsequently adults, not feel even a tiny smidgeon of shame because of what they like/play with/feel. This allows boys to cry and girls to uncross their legs and sit whatever way they wish.
There is a pre-school in Stockholm, Sweden which bans the use of the words “him” and “her.” Everyone in the school is treated as one gender, or without gender. The children do know what their biological sex is but they are not treated or referred to as “girls and boys,” just “friends” or “hen,” a gender neutral word borrowed from Finnish. The books are carefully selected so that traditional gender roles are not presented. In other words, you can be whatever you like. And most importantly, you can be whatever you like because no one is telling you how boys and girls are “supposed to be” in the first place.
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I hear this boxing in a lot from parents, like they’re scared that a boy who likes “toys that are made for girls” will grow up to be gay. They think that either a) the fact he wants to play with this toy means he is gay and b) letting him play with it will increase the chances of him being gay.
There are so many things wrong with this. Firstly, they’re confusing gender with sexuality. They are assuming femininity in males (and masculinity in females) equals gay. They are also assuming that interests/toys you play with is associated with a certain sex and the other sex must never be interested in it “because it’s not right”. For example, knitting is associated with women because an activity like this fits in with their expected role: the passive role within the binary of the hunter-gatherer and domesticity. We have moved beyond this. It’s pathetic and it needs to change. We are thrust into “girls’” or “boys’” clothes from birth and expected to follow these rules. Rules like shopping in the section labeled “womenswear” where if we diverge from this norm we are suddenly different, labeled as “other”. People might argue, “let boys be boys and girls be girls, it is natural and that’s just how it is, the two sexes are different, deal with it” but think about it, how many times were you reminded to cross your legs because it is “lady-like”? If you’re a male reading this? And if you’re a female reading this? Yeah, I thought so. “Lady-like” is a social construct. Gender as it relates to males and females is a social construct.
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The Swedish school and parents who chose not to disclose the sex of their child to others are not trying to confuse the child’s perception of their own biological sex, it’s gender that they are unraveling. They are opening up opportunities and providing a safe space for the child to be anything they want to be. Is this not the best freedom of all? I know I could have benefited from it in my teens when I wanted to cut my hair into a style which happens to be associated with males. I didn’t cut my hair and wear things I truly wanted to until years later. If there hadn’t have been an issue with a girl wanting to present in a more typically boyish way, I wouldn’t have waited!
Everyone who commented negatively on the articles seemed to be missing the point. They wrote things like “the boy will not know whether to stand or sit when going to the toilet” and “How is a pink fairy costume gender neutral?” These children know their biology and know how to go to the toilet and regarding comments like the latter, a fairy costume is not gender neutral only because people like you say it isn’t. People like you say it is “for girls” when the reality is any child, regardless of their sex can find it fun and interesting to dress up as a fairy. It is all about learning and being imaginative and there is nothing wrong with it. Stop being so afraid and you might learn something.
If we all grew up aware that we don’t have to always identify with “what we are supposed to” then the world would be a much more pleasant, more open and understanding place to be. These parents may be called abusers and insane but those accusing them should take a look at themselves and ask when was the last time they tried to put someone in a box out of fear. Yeah I thought so. Please stop being afraid.
Originally appeared at HyperVocal.
Ray Watterson writes about fashion, food, reviews, queer issues, gender identity and anything else that interests her happening in the world today. Follow Ray at @queerotackybeau.
—Photo eleanorhearnphotography/Flickr
About HyperVocal
I’ll try to restrain myself here. This is absolutely ridiculous. I personally know thousands of happy, well adjusted men and women raised as boys and girls respectively, being called him and her with no ill effects, and no gender confusion or angst as this foolishness is certainly to cause those children when they eventually have to manage in an environment where he and she, and him and her exist.
…and clearly the thousands of people you personally know are fully representative of all 7 billion other people?
Or perhaps you mean: pragmatically speaking, a child raised without conformity to social norms will be subject to pressure from others who aren’t open-minded about nonconformity (though the status quo is not a good reason in and of itself to keep the status quo)
“…and clearly the thousands of people you personally know are fully representative of all 7 billion other people?”
Evidently. Otherwise, feel free to point out the where a majority or even significant minority of the 7 billion of parents are clamoring to raise genderless children.
“Or perhaps you mean: pragmatically speaking, a child raised without conformity to social norms will be subject to pressure from others who aren’t open-minded about nonconformity (though the status quo is not a good reason in and of itself to keep the status quo.”
As a male, feel free to show up to a job interview wearing wearing a dress and high heels for a sales job. Or, feel free to show up on your first date wearing a dress and high heels.
Do you have a control group of people who weren’t raised as boys and girls? If not you really don’t know how well adjusted they are in comparison.
I said nothing about people who weren’t raised as boys and girls. Feel free to fill us in on that.
What I said was being raised as a boy or girl does not cause the vast majority of humans any problem whatsoever. The evidence is there is no groundswell of parents demanding to raise gender-free children. Hence, this whole notion is out of touch with reality.
On the other hand, if the writer and others want children where no one can tell if they are male or female, they are free to do so.
Raising a child to be the wrong gender is traumatic. And the thing is, kids don’t come out with a sign plastered on their foreheads “i’m transgender”. In my case, I’m not raising my kid without gender because, let’s face it, that requires privileges that most don’t have. But I am telling him that he will be loved just the same no matter if he changes it or leaves it as is.
Your experience raises an interesting question for me. If gender is strictly socialized how on earth could transgender people exist? It seems to me, and please forgive me if I am underthinking this, that transgender people have an innate (meaning non socialized) identification with a specific gender that is different from the one expressed through physical characteristics. If this is the case then gender must be largely determined innately, not through socialization.
I do believe that most gender characteristics are not strictly binary but rather are distributed across a non-normal curve with significant skewness; basically there ARE men and women who exhibit the “characteristics” of the other gender but they are a significant minority. Using their existance to “prove” that normal gender characteristics are socially constructed is incorrect. Instead, why not focus on accepting people for who they are instead of pretending all traits are equally distributed?
I would have to agree that gender is innate. Nobody is trying to argue that children should adhere to social expectations based upon their gender. In an effort to create an environment where it is okay to be different, trying to downplay the existence of gender feels like it is doing the opposite.
Just because something exists doesn’t automatically make it bad. Gender identity is there for a reason and not to be taken so lightly. Norah Vincent had to undergo a lot of therapy after she spent a year living disguised as a man for her book Self-Made Man. The experience didn’t teach her that gender was irrelevant. Instead it taught her to appreciate her own identity as a woman and gave her deeper insight into what it means to be a man.
At the end of the book she appears to abandon any insights she may have gained about men and reverts to a heavy – handed femenist stereotype of men which is a misandrist charicature.
These parents have engaged in an experiment with their infant. This is absolutely abusive on their part. Furthermore I have no doubt that they would not have done this had it been a girl.
Once in the school setting this kid’s life is going to absolute hell.
Raising someone in ANY WAY WHATSOEVER is an experiment with that infant.
With or without religion. With or without little league sports. With or without kids’s vacation camps. Going or not on camping (with trailers). Going or not wild camping (in the woods). Teaching them, or not, to fish, to hunt, to build, to dismantle, to understand, to read certain genres/authors/topics…it’s ALL an experiment.
Absolute rubbish. Human beings have been raising children successfully for millenia. I say again, and with certainty, that this child will go through hell because of this.
How do we know its successful if its the only thing we’ve ever known. its like if the first person to build a bike were to not put a seat on it and say well they just pedal standing. it works therefore he will believe it is successful. but not until someone tries to put a seat on it will the world realize there is a better way.
This is not about raising a transgendered individual, as if that were even possible.
This is more about allowing a child to think and act freely, for a while, without the “boys don’t do that!” “act like a girl!” stuff….the couple went, in my opinion, too far as in not telling outsiders the childs gender. I do believe though that letting a child explore their likes and dislikes without societies own set of rules as to what gender roles are is actually quite modern, quite now…we don’t tell little girls they have to grow to be housewives any more, do we? So why only buy them easy bake ovens and aprons …we don’t assume all boys want to be cops or soldiers any more and yet we dress them in those uniforms from birth….
Our children will grow and suit their genders just as God intended but may be, just may be if we loosen up the guidelines a tad in the beginning, they’ll be all the happier for it.
“Sasha … has been banned from sporting combat trousers… and is also encouraged to wear flowery tops at weekend”
Methinks the parents are less into “choice” than they put on. Why the need to ban or encourage?
See, that’s why I’m calling bullshit on this whole thing. This isn’t about the kid, it’s about the parents proving how progressive they are. There’s a distinct pattern to these stories.
1. All the kids (or the ones I’ve heard of) are biologically male (because tomboys don’t make headlines)
2. The kids all (supposedly) “choose” things that are associated with females, and I find it hard to believe that they all do. A few of them? Sure, why not? Bt every single one? Riiight. Law of averages calls bullshit on that (And that’s because boys playing with “boy toys,” and tomboys, dont make headlines.)
I don’t think what those parents are doing is abusive. I think it’s dumb and certainly not the path I’d take, but that’s why we’re all different.
What I can’t stand is people like the author who assume everyone against this little experiment is “afraid.” Afraid of what?? I have a son and since he’s only 3, I make a lot of decisions for him. All parents do. That’s our job. I’ve decided I don’t want him wearing pink. Mainly because it’s ugly and — yes — girly. But truth be told, I really wouldn’t want my daughter wearing pink either if I had one. The point is, I like some of the gender norms and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Other people can raise their kids however they want. I’m certainly not going to teach my child to target, pick on or ridicule other kids who look and act different. And if my son grows up and finds he has an undying urge to wear women’s clothes, then OK. So be it. I don’t like it and I’ll have to adjust, but if he’s old enough to decide that for himself then who am I to stop him.
However, let’s get away from the notion that anyone who isn’t OK with their own sons wearing pink ball gowns is an ignorant knuckle-dragger. That’s not the case. And just because you do allow that, it doesn’t mean you’re some enlightened genius who knows more than the rest of us.
Gender roles exist. Whether you agree with them or not, they still exist. If you seek to change them or challenge them, fine. Have at it. But sticking your head in the sand and pretending they’re not there is just stupid (like the Swedish school).
“I’m certainly not going to teach my child to target, pick on or ridicule other kids who look and act different.”
Nah, your son will learn that on his own. Enforce the limitations you impose on him on others, because how dare others have more privilege than he does.
“Boys have a penis, girls have a vagina.” This concept is simple and not a social construct.
I was wondering myself how they answered their child’s questions about his body parts. It’s also inevitable that the child would have seen its parents and noticed their differences – I wonder what their answers were, and, if they didn’t tell him, whether it caused any confusion for him?
Assigning it to males and females, and defining maleness and femaleness via genitals, is a social contruct. A penis is a penis. It doesn’t mean you like Lego blocks, or that you’re going to die for your country. It means you have a penis, maybe you can pee standing up (as opposed to “HAVE to pee standing up”, the possibility is there, because it’s physically doable.
These nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway…) do things ahead of the times. They’re innovative. This genderless school sounds bizarre right now, but down the road we may look back and say why didn’t we think of that!
Check out this study, showing Sweden ranking in at number 2 (Denmark number 1), 4-5 countries are nordic in the top ten. Nordic countries are innovative all around:
According to the study, the most innovative countries in the world are the ones “who contribute to the general advancement of mankind’s wellbeing.”
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/top-10-innovative-countries-denmark-leads-world-in-2010-sweden-us-follow/13487
I read your post with great interest but cringed at the “mankind” comment. Mankind is a male chauvinistic phrase because it views the male as the “representative” of humanity. The phrase should have said, “who contribute to the general advancement of humankind’s wellbeing.”
Studies show that people are more likely to think of both women and men when they hear a word like humankind. However, when they hear the word, mankind, they’ll just think of men.
that’s a direct quote after the colon. Perhaps you can take it up with that website or with the study.
But if it makes you feel better…
humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind, humankind,
I know where your coming from…but I can’t remember to be politically correct all the time, it will drive me crazy. What are we going to do with the word woMEN??? How can we politically correct that?
Womyn, of course.
I don’t like this trend.
Let me explain, it’s not the fact that these people are refusing to state what gender their child is (those that are doing so, at any rate)
It’s not that they’re letting their child “pick from both sides of the isle” as it were.
It’s not any of that, that I could care less about, more power to them.
What I can’t stand is that they’re shoving these kids into the media spotlight as a way of yelling “LOOK HOW F***ING PROGRESSIVE WE ARE!!! AREN’T WE AWESOME?!”
Thats what I find to be abusive. Leave the media, and your own egos, out of it. It kinda makes me hope that these boys all grow up to be all star quarterbacks who detest the color pink.
And at any rate *hipster glasses*
I was a boy playing with dolls before it was cool.
Exactly. It is entirely about the parents’ egos. Extraordinary selfishness on their part.
It would be worth discovering whether the parents are the ones who created the media storm around it, or whether they had it shoved on them. Did they post a blog, or call the news or something? Or did the press find out about it and run with it, regardless of what the parents wanted?
If the parents are the ones who initiated the public discussion about their own child, then that is irresponsible. That would suggest that yes, this was done more to prove how progressive they are rather than to provide the best upbringing they could for their children. If, however, the media imposed themselves on this family, then you can hardly blame the parents for that. Just because parents decide to raise their children in a non-traditional way, doesn’t mean they did it simply to show how non-traditional they are.
I personally think raising a child in a genderless household for the first few years is a good one. Or at least, raising a child in a household that does not strictly enforce gender roles is a good one. Then again, as I’ve stated in other comments, I’m of the opinion that most of our gender identity is socially constructed.
There’s a reason they don’t allow scientists to experiment on people without their consent.
This was an experiment and it might have messed the kid up, or then again it might not.
We allow circumcision, and the enforcing of religious rituals and dogma on kids. Sounds like an experiment that we shouldn’t do. It’s abuse.
We still do it, and calling CPS wouldn’t do a thing about it.
I’m more in favor of not imposing gender norms on someone than of imposing any particular religion on someone. Impose critical thinking on someone, it will do them good. Better than “believe everything your parents tell you” thinking works. God-fearing people have NOT made the world a better place.