Arguing with some hogs about it and not sure where I stand. Feel like it's a noble goal that should happen some day, but personally, if I had a kid I wouldn't do it because I'd fear they'd get bullied for it. Thoughts?
Arguing with some hogs about it and not sure where I stand. Feel like it's a noble goal that should happen some day, but personally, if I had a kid I wouldn't do it because I'd fear they'd get bullied for it. Thoughts?
I think its unfair to burden a child with being a "theybe" (if you want to call it that) unless you are a part of a community which normalizes the practice.
In the absence of such a community, I think the best thing to do is to try to avoid gendering the child as much as possible. Pick a gender neutral name (and favor use of name to pronoun), have gender neutral clothing, participate in wide variety of normally considered gendered activities, etc.
Just my two cents. Not an expert or anything though.
Edit: as I'm thinking about this more... Another thing is to also praise the child in a gender neutral way. If the child's sex is female, offer praise for their strength, etc. If child's sex is male, praise for their their gentleness, etc.
Is forcing "gender neutrality" on them really that different than just treating them as their assumed gender and giving them the freedom to decide otherwise? Either way you are forcing some kind of gender on them.
If you treat them with an assumed gender, are you really giving them that freedom?
Can you explain what you mean by this? Letting a male child cook with you or taking them to dance lessons isn't forcing them to be female lol.
I'm referencing this more specifically:
Treating them as some genderless entity is no better than assuming their gender at birth but giving them room to decide otherwise. This comments talks about it better than I can.
And there's a big difference between gender conformance (clothes, activities, and personality traits like you mentioned) and gender. Of course don't make your child conform to a gender, but that doesn't mean treating them as if they have no gender.
How is giving a child the name taylor forcing them to be a genderless entity? Or teaching them to throw a baseball and also take dance?
If they say "I don't like dance" then don't make them go lol.
If the child says that they are a girl, that's fine. I'm not saying you turn to her and tell her she isn't.
Children don't need their parents to tell them what their gender is - theyre pretty intuitive about that.
Maybe you didn't see my edit, but again, these aren't gender. They are gender norms. One can easily break norms while still being cis, and you don't have to treat your child gender neutrally to allow them to do those things.
As for naming your child, it's inherently making an important decision for them no matter what. I don't see any more harm in giving someone assumed to be male a male name and leaving them free to decide if they want to change it than giving them a gender neutral name. Are we going to expect every single child to pick a new name later in life? Also most gender neutral names are just kinda meh IMO.