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Parents attempt to keep their child gender-free
June 24, 2009 - 4:20pm
Meet Pop, a two-and-a-half-year-old Swedish child whose parents are refusing to say whether the apple of their eye 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.
http://www.thelocal.se/20232/20090623/
It's an interesting decision, but I'm not sure how long they can keep it up especially once Pop has to interact with other children.
Androgynous
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Oip5Zgu2U
I'm not sure if I find this scary or not. On the one hand I don't think one should do experiments on their children, on the other hand our society is one big experiment.
He'll probably be "streamed" when he enters pre school. If he gets both dolls and trucks in the meantime that's probably better anyway.
Oh...so we have determined the gender to be a "he", eh?!
In English, the proper default is "he". It's not discrimination, it's just grammar.
No not discriminatory at all with the 'default' being "he". :D ;)
Androgyny is also big in Japan, so I am not sure why this Swedish couple is newsworthy.
I always felt that sort of grammar quibble was splitting hairs for the sake of splitting hairs. It's only an issue if you make it one, and haven't we got better and bigger fish to fry? :)
I don't think androgyny is necessarily a good thing - gender plays such a huge role in how we define who we are. Most transgender people seem to feel they knew they were the wrong gender from a young age, but presumably were socialized as the gender they physically appeared to be. (not sure if that's a good way to put it)
I was told in university that "zhe" is the correct pronoun to use for those who wish to be androgynous (as one of my profs was).
Will that child be "androgynous" if s/he isn't submitted to strangers' prejudiced manners of approaching it? It's not really androgyny that is at stake as much as adults' expectations and prejudices regarding male and female children and their need to "sex" them.
Studies have been made, also a film "Baby X", showing that adults were unable to relate to a child if they didn't know its sex. What does that tell us about adults?
Oh good grief.
That's as bad as "womyn".
I know. Or as bad as a pregnant woman claiming to be a man?
So, Timebandit, would it be fair to say that you would oppose converting menstruate to womynstruate, temperamental to temperawomyntal, and implement to implewomynt?
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Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!
Very fair, oh aye.
Sometimes it boggles me, the stupid shit we distract ourselves with.
And personally I can fry several fish at a time. ;)
I think if you choose to piss in the wind, you're the only one who comes out of it smelling like pee. ;-)
Making a big issue of the trivialities threatens the other, more important fish getting fried by distracting from them. I tend to pick my battles, and that one just doesn't seem worth it in any practical sense.
Yeah, I agree. I've noticed how differently my brother interacts with his son and daughter. (I'm sure he thinks he treats them the same.)
I used to subscribe to a (now defunct) mailing list for autistic adults. Interestingly, few of us saw gender as important. I don't know whether that was due to our relative independence of social conditioning as autistic people or some difference of the autistic brain as it affects gender perceptions (or both), but it was definitely a feature of the way many (or most) of us experienced reality.
The transphobia in this thread is disturbing, particularly on the eve of Pride weekend in Toronto. But it would be disturbing anyhow.
My first and only suggestion is if you haven't had a particular experience, such as not feeling like your gender matches the gender/sex you were assigned at birth, it's best not to speculate or imagine what it's like. It can be construed as offensive.
There are enough resources in the age of wired information, so please do so.
Some links for basic education on trans issues.
PFLAG: "So what is it like to be transgender?" (pdf)
Trans Access Programs at the 519 Community Centre
Trans Inclusion Policy: Centre for Women and Trans People: University of Toronto
Again what fish to fry timebandit?
This reminds me of the story I once heard of a medieval prince who decided that a certain child should be raised without anyone ever speaking in his presence. The idea was to test the theory that such a child would not be distracted by the local vernacular and would speak the language of God: Hebrew.
I'm given to understand that the experiment did not go well.
When I heard the story, it was an experiment, to see if the children would speak greek or latin.
Within the realm of non-fiction, I think the David Reimer tragedy might be a better example.
He'll gravitate to a set of behaviors on his own.
If you have nothing better to worry about than whether "he" or "she" is a grammatical default, you have considerably more leisure time than I do.
When I was 13 I babysat for a couple with a hermaphrodite baby. As I couldn't tell what gender she was while changing her diaper, I had to ask my mom ( a friend of the couple) what was going on.
I don't know what happened to her, but the plan was to use surgery to emphasise her feminine traits.
I hope they made the right choices for their child. Must have been kind of a surprise for a 13 year old babysitter...
no not actually I disagree with u here a huge part of opression is makin it so subtle that u wouldnt notice and when sum1 points it out ur doing whats expected dismissing it as nothing more then something that doesnt matter. Itz like lets say I point out that european culture is the only one that wears blacc for mourning while all others wear white. Itz anotehr subtle form because many poc who are europeanized do the same thing and their subconcious is taught to associate white with good and themselves with death,decay,etc.
Are you really in control? Think about it would u write off a checc for lets say 100k or take a huge cash sum n give it to sum1 and say im gonna msg u everyday about doing something that would only be 15-20 min taht would def be beneficial to you. Would you do that? U wouldnt would u? That shows for the most part we have patterns, habits, etc as well as the subconcious that controls our actions we mostly in auto-pilot for the most part we can stop ourselves from doing really stupid shit but otherwise no. You could say we got 3 brains. The very old part concered with survival, power and reproduction and it has a huge but subtle affect on us. The regular subconcious and our concious mind. The previous 2 have huge affects and it's one reason why ppl from different cultures percieve things differently, have different accetptances etc. Most of the time you arent told things str8 up but they in your brain somehow.
So remember that b4 u dismiss an opressed person's view as something that's trivial or doesnt matter. The fact that english itself is a racist and patriarichal languge is no surprise to me or many ppl as well as the fact that you dont realize that.
Basically Step Off N Checc yaself.
R_P, I see your point, but I still disagree with you because I don't think you can draw the parallel between your examples and "he" vs "she" in grammar. As well, I am actually a woman, and I think that qualifies me to make a judgement call on what I can consider trivial to my own oppression. I don't feel the least bit oppressed by a simple rule of grammar.
'their subconcious is taught to associate white with good and themselves with death,decay,etc.'
the strange thing with this correlation is that dark, from a farmer's point of view of the soil, is the best.
and many ancient cultures held white as a symbol for death, ancient european cultures.
for some reason this got turned around somewhere along the line. one elderly uncle used to disparage the black bread of his homeland, and would only buy white bread. of course the former was far healthier.
now 'dark' is widely used as negative imagery, when in fact dark clouds hold good rainfall, represent critical shade, as well as a place of 'becoming' (in the soil) from which new life (of many colours) emerges...
I know thats why it hypocritical and anti-life. I never said that it was right only pointed it out na mean religion used too with the imagery of a white jesus as the son of god therefore saying god was a white man and saying therefore that we farther from the image of god and meant to be slaves. As well as the supposed curse of ham which was actually the opposite of what they try to say it was. I aint follow religion but it aint hurt to know about it cuz bare ppl do and it shapes their conciousness.
edit - I c u timebandit but u still have to admit what it does and says about the languae and culture the language is associated with
I think it's overblown as an issue. We have (well, except maybe remind) more important battles to fight, don't we?
I'm kind of with Remind on this default grammar business. Sometimes things which might seem trivial actually turn out to be pretty fundamental. We could really use some new and neutral words. When I was in school, "per" as a substitute for "his or her" was floated but that seemed awkward. In the alternative, what's so difficult about using "he or she"? And, while I'm at it, why does the masculine always go first? Her or his. She or he.
Of course he can, it is after all entrenched systemic white patriarchy, much like a "default" positon in grammer is used to re-enforce males being first in top of mind perceptions. It is but one of many that act to do the same thing, to build a critical mass of sustainable patriarchy. Short sightedness is no friend to women's equality strivations.
And as a woman you are qualified, but I am not, eh? Pffft!
Also, I am still waiting for you to illuminate what you believe are the more important issues facing women, you negate but do not example.