The Gendering of the Young

[Soon]

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Yeah, Pops. Nip that gaiety in the ass, and get junior kicking some ass and karate-chopping some wood, all while listening to Eye of the motherfucking Tiger. That'll knock those show tunes out of his head and some sense into him. Other tips: Make him change the oil in your pickup, naked. And take him deer hunting, naked. Better yet, queer hunting. You and your drinking buds can go to a local Miami gay bar and show him how to pound the dust out of some fairies, who hopefully haven't taken martial arts classes at Key Biscayne's RDCA.

http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2010/...tle-cross.html

[Nat]

Swedish parents keep 2-year-old's gender secret

A couple of Swedish parents have stirred up debate in the country by refusing to reveal whether their two-and-a-half-year-old child is a boy or a girl.

Pop’s parents, both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.

In an interview with newspaper Svenska Dagbladet in March, the parents were quoted saying their decision was rooted in the feminist philosophy that gender is a social construction.

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”

The child's parents said so long as they keep Pop’s gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female.

Pop's wardrobe includes everything from dresses to trousers and Pop's hairstyle changes on a regular basis. And Pop usually decides how Pop is going to dress on a given morning.

Although Pop knows that there are physical differences between a boy and a girl, Pop's parents never use personal pronouns when referring to the child – they just say Pop.

"I believe that the self-confidence and personality that Pop has shaped will remain for a lifetime," said Pop's mother.

But while Pop’s parents say they have received supportive feedback from many of their peers, not everyone agrees that their chosen course of action will have a positive outcome.

“Ignoring children's natures simply doesn’t work,” says Susan Pinker, a psychologist and newspaper columnist from Toronto, Canada, who wrote the book The Sexual Paradox, which focuses on sex differences in the workplace.

“Child-rearing should not be about providing an opportunity to prove an ideological point, but about responding to each child’s needs as an individual,” Pinker tells The Local.

“It’s unlikely that they’ll be able to keep this a secret for long. Children are curious about their own identity, and are likely to gravitate towards others of the same sex during free play time in early childhood.”

Pinker says there are many ways that males and females differ from birth; even if gender is kept ‘secret,’ prenatal hormones developed in the second trimester of pregnancy already alter the way the child behaves and feels.

She says once children can speak, males tell aggressive stories 87 per cent of the time, while females only 17 per cent. In a study, children aged two to four were given a task to work together for a reward, and boys used physical tactics 50 times more than girls, she says.

But Swedish gender equality consultant Kristina Henkel says Pop’s parents' experiment might have positive results.

“If the parents are doing this because they want to create a discussion with other adults about why gender is important, then I think they can make a point of it,” Henkel says in a telephone interview with The Local.

“You can talk about there being a non-stereotypical gender; if you are a girl you can do the same as a boy, and if you’re a boy you can do the same as a girl.”

Henkel also says a child's sex can deeply affect how they are treated growing up, and distract them from simply being a human being.

“If the child is dressed up as a girl or boy, it affects them because people see and treat them in a more gender-typical way,” Henkel explains.

“Girls are told they are cute in their dresses, and boys are told they are cool with their car toys. But if you give them no gender they will be seen more as a human or not a stereotype as a boy or girl.”

She says that without these gender stereotypes, children can build character as individuals, not hindered by preconceived notions of what they should be as males or females.

“I think that can make these kids stronger,” Henkel says.

Anna Nordenström, a paediatric endocrinologist at Karolinska Institutet, says it’s hard to know what effects the parents' decision will have on Pop.

“It will affect the child, but it’s hard to say if it will hurt the child,” says Nordenström, who studies hormonal influences on gender development.

“I don’t know what they are trying to achieve. It’s going to make the child different, make them very special.”

She says if Pop is still ‘genderless’ by the time he or she starts school, Pop will certainly receive a lot of attention from classmates.

“We don’t know exactly what determines sexual identity, but it’s not only sexual upbringing,” says Nordenström. “Gender-typical behaviour, sexual preferences and sexual identity usually go together. There are hormonal and other influences that we don’t know that will determine the gender of the child.”

Both Nordenström and Pinker refer to a controversial case from 1967 when a circumcision left one of two twin brothers without a penis. Dr. John Money, who asserted that gender was learned rather than innate, convinced the parents to raise 'David' as 'Brenda' and the child had cosmetic genitalia reconstruction surgery.

She was raised as a female, with girls’ clothes, games and codes of behaviour. The parents never told Brenda the secret until she was a teenager and rebelled against femininity. She then started receiving testosterone injections and underwent another genetic reconstruction process to become David again. David Reimer denounced the experiment as a crushing failure before committing suicide at the age of 38.

“I don’t think that trying to keep a child’s sex a secret will fool anyone, nor do I think it’s wise or ethical,” says Pinker. “As with any family secret, when we try to keep an elemental truth from children, it usually blows up in the parent’s face, via psychosomatic illness or rebellious behaviour.”

But with a second child on the way, Pop's parents have no plans to change what they see as a winning formula. As for Pop, they say they will only reveal the child's sex when Pop thinks it's time.

[Soft*Silver]

omg. I cannot believe they would raise a child with no gender. The power and courage of being human lies in the self acceptance of who we are. To cut thru the primative cultural trappings, go beyond the stereotypes of religion and family, to look into the mirror, that great obsidion mirror and see who we are...that is part of the journey of our evolution, to discover what we are not, as well as what we are.

A child's first few years establish the vase of persona that the body will express for the remainder of its existance. To devoid it of any gender, sets it apart from the rest of its species. How did they not see that by trying to not trap this child in a stereotype that they literally snapped off its connection to the rest of us? Pop stands alone. It could create an ego manical personality as well as a totally isolated and fragmentally alone human being.

Again, in theory this sounds like it would work. In their passion, they are myopic and hopefully nieve and innocent about the developmental damage this could do to POP. In reality, POP stands alone. And in a vast universe, this creates an inflated sense of self as well as a very lonely sense of self.

If we want to war against the stereotypes of gender characteristic assignments, then offer it all to a child and tell them they are not limited.

This just sickens me....feminism at its worst....IMO only....

[Cyclopea]

What an amazing gift, to give Pop an infancy somewhat free from the imposition of the sex-based class system we call gender. Since those changing Pop’s diapers or otherwise viewing Pop’s genitals DO know which class Pop would normally have been assigned to at birth, presumably some gender class programming is still being absorbed by Pop via those who “know”, however subconsciously.

Still, in large part Pop is being consciously raised, at least in Pop’s infancy, as simply human.

Softness you seem to be saying that declining to steep one’s child in the early stages of indoctrination of either male privilege or female subjugation somehow strips Pop of an essential part of what it means to be Human?
That to be raised outside of socially imposed gender class one is rendered outside the whole of humanity?

I don’t see how it's dehumanizing to keep the configuration of a kid’s sex organs private until the child is old enough to consent to and direct ones own place in the gender caste system. It allows Pop the right to develop free from the gender class indoctrination normally imposed based on sex assigned at birth- or even in the womb, if the apparent sex is known.
Pop is truly being given a free human infancy, where Pop is free to develop as a human according to Pop’s own inclinations and characteristics.

How is that damaging?

Feminism is about creating a world where those sexed female at birth are allowed to grow up as fully human. A world free from the class system- gender- that one is assigned at birth based on ones perceived reproductive function.
Why does allowing a child a few early formative years free from that forced indoctrination “sicken” you?

I think Pop is a very lucky kid.

[julieisafemme]

Originally Posted by Cyclopea

What an amazing gift, to give Pop an infancy somewhat free from the imposition of the sex-based class system we call gender. Since those changing Pop’s diapers or otherwise viewing Pop’s genitals DO know which class Pop would normally have been assigned to at birth, presumably some gender class programming is still being absorbed by Pop via those who “know”, however subconsciously.

Still, in large part Pop is being consciously raised, at least in Pop’s infancy, as simply human.

Softness you seem to be saying that declining to steep one’s child in the early stages of indoctrination of either male privilege or female subjugation somehow strips Pop of an essential part of what it means to be Human?
That to be raised outside of socially imposed gender class one is rendered outside the whole of humanity?

I don’t see how it's dehumanizing to keep the configuration of a kid’s sex organs private until the child is old enough to consent to and direct ones own place in the gender caste system. It allows Pop the right to develop free from the gender class indoctrination normally imposed based on sex assigned at birth- or even in the womb, if the apparent sex is known.
Pop is truly being given a free human infancy, where Pop is free to develop as a human according to Pop’s own inclinations and characteristics.

How is that damaging?

Feminism is about creating a world where those sexed female at birth are allowed to grow up as fully human. A world free from the class system- gender- that one is assigned at birth based on ones perceived reproductive function.
Why does allowing a child a few early formative years free from that forced indoctrination “sicken” you?

I think Pop is a very lucky kid.

Pop is not free from gender class indoctrination. Pop is surrounded by it everyday. Pop can see how men and women interact with one another and how they are treated by others. Pop can see how women and men dress and behave. Pop can also see how Pop's parents react to people of different genders. Pop might see that a woman presenting in a very feminine way is not treated the same as a woman who presents as masculine. This will inform Pop's thoughts and feelings on gender.

Edited to add that I don't think Pop's parents are bad for doing this nor do I think Pop is being harmed.

[Nat]

Yeah but the cage door is left a bit ajar, no?

[Soon]

Nat,

Have you considered making this story a thread unto itself?

I'd love a poll where people agree or disagree with the parents' decision.

I think it might make for an interesting discussion.

[Cyclopea]

Originally Posted by julieisafemme

Pop is not free from gender class indoctrination. Pop is surrounded by it everyday. Pop can see how men and women interact with one another and how they are treated by others. Pop can see how women and men dress and behave. Pop can also see how Pop's parents react to people of different genders. Pop might see that a woman presenting in a very feminine way is not treated the same as a woman who presents as masculine. This will inform Pop's thoughts and feelings on gender.

Edited to add that I don't think Pop's parents are bad for doing this nor do I think Pop is being harmed.

Yes the kid can observe the gender class system with some objectivity since Pop is not yet personally assigned to either class by society at large.

[julieisafemme]

Originally Posted by Cyclopea

Yes the kid can observe the gender class system with some objectivity since Pop is not yet personally assigned to either class by society at large.

But the child is two years old. I think adults can observe with some objectivity but a toddler cannot. I had not thought about how this would seem to the child until Ruthie mentioned it in the other thread.

[greeneyedgrrl]

Originally Posted by HowSoonIsNow

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http://copyranter.blogspot.com/2010/...tle-cross.html

can i just say i absolutely effin love those picks! who'd wanna stop that??