Raising Children "Without Gender"
Ugh.
I'm not some big fan of ostentatious gender. IMO our own culture typically turns it into a grotesque parody. Going to extremes with respect to gender wasn't something we really had on the farm so much. Radically over-muscled dudes ape-walking around exaggerating their masculinity and hyper-feminized women both tend to strike me as a little bit weird, honestly.
But Jesus Christ, those people in that article are nuts. For one thing, of course, they're experimenting on their own kid. For another, the experiment is strongly predicated on an incoherent idea--"gender identity." (Two incoherent ideas, I guess, if you count "social construction...")
Look, gender isn't "social." It's behavioral. The genders are masculine and feminine. (And, sort of, androgynous. Though that's more like not having a gender.) As for the idea of not pushing your boys to exaggerate their natural masculinity as it develops--I'm on board. Largely, at least. Ditto not pushing your girls to exaggerate their natural femininity as it develops. But trying to isolate them from understanding this somewhat significant (though radically overblown) aspect of human behavior is...well...pretty fucking crazy, honestly. But none of this is really about the kids, I'd bet. This is all about the parents getting to implement their nutty political ideas. Every good thing about this stuff could be achieved just by making it clear to the kids that they don't have to go out of their way to act masculine or feminine. All the cloak-and-dagger shit about keeping the kids sexes secret and insulating them from normal humans...that's way messed up. Kids're gonna end up puzzled outcasts...like they were raised by a cult or postmodern wolves or Mennonites or something. Or, rather: that's my guess. But I guess we'll see.
I'm all for not necessarily playing by our society's somewhat weird rules on this score. To my mind, gender isn't some big-ass deal. It's just a thing. But I'm not for this kind of crazy crap. Though it's about what I might have expected from the following person:
Here's hoping that the kid turns out alright--but I'm not what you'd call super optimistic.
I'm not some big fan of ostentatious gender. IMO our own culture typically turns it into a grotesque parody. Going to extremes with respect to gender wasn't something we really had on the farm so much. Radically over-muscled dudes ape-walking around exaggerating their masculinity and hyper-feminized women both tend to strike me as a little bit weird, honestly.
But Jesus Christ, those people in that article are nuts. For one thing, of course, they're experimenting on their own kid. For another, the experiment is strongly predicated on an incoherent idea--"gender identity." (Two incoherent ideas, I guess, if you count "social construction...")
Look, gender isn't "social." It's behavioral. The genders are masculine and feminine. (And, sort of, androgynous. Though that's more like not having a gender.) As for the idea of not pushing your boys to exaggerate their natural masculinity as it develops--I'm on board. Largely, at least. Ditto not pushing your girls to exaggerate their natural femininity as it develops. But trying to isolate them from understanding this somewhat significant (though radically overblown) aspect of human behavior is...well...pretty fucking crazy, honestly. But none of this is really about the kids, I'd bet. This is all about the parents getting to implement their nutty political ideas. Every good thing about this stuff could be achieved just by making it clear to the kids that they don't have to go out of their way to act masculine or feminine. All the cloak-and-dagger shit about keeping the kids sexes secret and insulating them from normal humans...that's way messed up. Kids're gonna end up puzzled outcasts...like they were raised by a cult or postmodern wolves or Mennonites or something. Or, rather: that's my guess. But I guess we'll see.
I'm all for not necessarily playing by our society's somewhat weird rules on this score. To my mind, gender isn't some big-ass deal. It's just a thing. But I'm not for this kind of crazy crap. Though it's about what I might have expected from the following person:
But as her partner, Kat — who goes by they/them pronouns — contemplated what sort of parent they wanted to be, they realized that “Mom” didn’t seem like a good fit, that, actually, they felt more like a trans man. “They were undergoing their transition while we were trying to get pregnant through sperm donation,” Andrea explains. “They had top surgery while I was pregnant. It was a lot of change.”These are obviously not the most mentally stable tools in the shed. Oh, hai, "mom" doesn't sound like a good fit...think I'll chop my breasts off...
Here's hoping that the kid turns out alright--but I'm not what you'd call super optimistic.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:45 PM
3 Comments:
It’s like an Onion article...
...but it’s not.
Kids are pretty smart and observant, and culture and the media are unbelievably pervasive. Not to mention the effort that they will need to constantly, always need to put into this charade in order to have paltry chance at success. I'd say good luck with that to the parents, but I hope they fail and fail hard. It will be hilarious if they have a boy.
While these folks are certainly nutty, one minor observation: All parents experiment on their children, one way or another.
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