If you really want to get to know someone, you don't ask what's between their legs

The Gemini Twins.

I wonder when they do intend to tell what Storm's gender is?

I hope it's before Storm becomes aware enough to understand the "It's a boy/girl" headlines that are sure to happen.

I was thinking that this will always be something that is mentioned about his/her life should they ever do anything notable. "Storm ______, whose birth created an international uproar when his/her parents decided to keep his/her gender a secret, won the Nobel Peace prize today....."

The NYT has probably already stated a file for his/her obituary.

According to the original article the parents say it is up to the kids.

Oh, but they are...except for the other two children in the family.

That means even the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. do not know.

I know that. But there is a difference between raising a child not to feel bound by rigid gender roles, which is fine, and completely trying to deny the child's gender so that others react to "it" as being gender-less, which I think is rather crazy and potentially harmful to the child's psychosocial and identity development.

Gender identity is an essential part of one's "self" for most normal people, and it is shaped by both biological and social forces. The former cannot be controlled at all, and the latter can be controlled by parents only to a very limited extent. There is nothing wrong with letting other people react to the baby on the basis of gender--buying pink or blue garments, or dresses rather than pants, or speaking about the baby as he or she, rather than "it" or Storm--it gets very awkward even just talking about a baby without using gender pronouns. Simply letting other people acknowledge the biological fact of Storm's gender is not going to damage Storm in any way. Apparently, the parents just don't want Storm pushed or boxed into any preconceived notions of how boys or girls should behave, or think, or dress--and that's fine, but only up to a point. So, then the parents shouldn't transmit messages to Storm about any expected gender conformity, and they should leave all options and choices open. But that's quite different than trying to control how others act toward Storm, because the parents cannot control the entire prevailing, surrounding culture which will influence Storm as he/she moves beyond infancy. And that culture will include other children that Storm will interact with who will also apply peer pressure for Storm to behave in certain ways. Let the parents teach Storm how to react to such pressure, as he/she grows older, but they should quit trying to control everyone else's behavior toward Storm and quit pretending that Storm is biologically gender-less.

It's one thing to try to add flexibility to the notion that "biology is destiny" by opening up choices and options about gender behaviors, and quite another to try to deny the legitimate place of gender identity in a child's psychosocial development and social interactions. I don't believe parents should sacrifice their child's normal development in order to carry out some sort of social experiment to satisfy their own desires. Poor Storm has no say in any of it.

Hopefully before Storm is of an age where choices have to be made about using the boys restroom or the girls restroom. There are some gender conformity realities that Storm will have to learn to live with.

Realistically I don't think they can keep this up much beyond infancy--it would just become more absurd than it already is the longer it goes on.

Says a lot about the age we live in, I think. Not long ago, this wouldn't have been "news."

Frankly, it doesn't much interest me what happens to the particular kid. But I find the responses to it here interesting. I absolutely get where the parents are coming from. As a weirdo of somewhat weirdo parentage, though, I also get that there could be a great internal battle over how much you want your kid to fit in vs. how much you want them to be unshaped by the rigid roles prescribed by society. Seems to me an imbalance in either direction has the potential to cause an individual great harm.



(oh, hey, there's another page here...)

The automatic, default pronoun
in the absence of knowledge to the contrary is: He.





David

since they're not hiding the kid during diaper changes etc., the extended family mustn't be around too much - so nothing to be concerned about

What's wrong with IT?

That is contrary to the known cellular biology of mammals.
All mammals r either male or female.
Therefore, we know that neuter gender cannot be a viable choice,
as it woud be, if we were discussing rocks.





David