The kid who's parents think it's cool to let their kid chose their sex.

Actually they're the People who think they know everything annoy those of us who do group.

 

TBH I don't care.

Even if it may be more for the benefit of the parents rather than the children, perhaps not, the worse they are doing is giving children choice.

Not that I necessarily agree that children can make rational decisions at a young age but this thread has gathered just as many pages that I imagine one concerning child mental or physical abuse would.

That's interesting to me in itself.

 

Fair enough

 

I read The Times actually.

 

But can you complete the crossword?

 

Ditto. Then the Telegraph online since they started charging for the Times website (bah!).

What about Sudoku?

 

Isn't it?

Children can't make very rational choices at that age, but deciding what gender you are isn't a rational choice. It's how you feel inside, and can starkly contradict the rational facts of your apparent body gender.

And to be honest, allowing a four-year old to choose between wearing a dress or trousers today is no big deal.

 

Coward.

 

Everyday.

 

This is quite interesting to me as it exemplifies, or perhaps even excaggerates my views on parenting.

If I ever end up having children then I'd like to avoid telling them how to act or behave in certain situations and instead provide them with the encouragement to work out what is appropriate behaviour themselves.

That isn't to say I'd want to let them run riot until they get run over by a car and learn road safety the hard way or something similar, but it seems to me that the best way to bring up your kids well is to make 'virtues' valuable to them and not just obligatory; you can spend years trying to indoctrinate children with values through authority and a stern attitude but it won't ever mean anything to them unless they can see the incentive in it for themselves.

 

I don't think it's fair to post that

Excuse my simpleton Daily Mail view, but if it quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then I say it's a duck! I think you'd be a damn annoying ultrasound technician or midwife

 

I don't think it's a great idea, as I think it just makes a bigger deal out of their gender than if you treated them as a boy/girl as per 'normal' parenting'.
And Nexxo, ofcourse letting a child choose whether to wear trousers or a skirt isn't that big a deal, however I do think that the child should know the potential consequences, otherwise you are potentially opening them up to more bullying than normal (deliberately worded since you posted earlier about all children getting bullied )
And while yeah I think it's up to the parents to bring up their kids how they want, as a general point, there is a line though, and some of the comments make it seem as though they don't think there is?
If I know parents bringing up a child to be a theif, then I would say they should stop, they aren't bringing their child up well, and that my parenting methods (pretty much anyones) would be better. (this point isn't specifically about this story, just in general)

 

We've covered this topic already, but I feel it bears repeating: where do we draw the line of what is "normal" in a modern household insofar as parenting during adolescence?

If a parent tries to bring up their child within the context of a non-theistic belief system (if you can call it that) within a predominantly Muslim or Christian community, should the parents be required to alter their behaviour patterns so as to force the prevailing religious belief system upon their child, as it is the norm? In areas of the world wherein slavery is still an accepted, common practice, should the family that doesn't own a slave dedicated to their child be forced to have one, as it is normal within that community to do? Maybe you are somebody that considers genital mutilation to be a normal part of societal behaviour within the context of rending a child into an adult, and therefore any parent that doesn't needlessly perform surgery on their infant without anaesthetic should be forced to? There is also the possibility that you deem it necessary at the age of five to force into wedlock your daughter to an uncle, nephew, neighbour, or even yourself, as is the common practice within your community? Don't overlook those parts of the world that look down their noses at the female gender in whole, and find it an affront to the family whenever one is born, forcing the parents to either abandon the female child, or drown it in the near-by river, as is the norm.

None of these are too far outside of the box insofar as common societal norms within the context of parenthood, and they're all still common practices in parts of the world not too far removed from where you or I sit. If you want to argue that your biased, limited view of adolescence is the only right one, then you'd better be prepared to defend such a stance, as every other person the world over would beg to differ. Keep in mind that every human the world over is biased towards their upbringing in some regard as they've only ever had one, and therefore their opinion on any particular "right" way of doing it is necessarily wrong by definition. There can never be a right answer to a question that shouldn't be asked in the first place, as it is simply a fallacy the idea of there being one way to teach a human being, and only one way. My opinion, and that of many people who have looked into this sort of thing professionally is that humans should raise their offspring the way that makes the most sense to the parent without violating societal laws in regard to the human rights of the child. This mightn't be right to you, but there isn't any definition of right within the context of parenthood.

The less we get caught up in what is "right" and "wrong" the better, as neither really exist within the scope of parenthood from a non-biased perspective. The obvious caveat being, as stated earlier in a previous paragraph, distortions to the societal laws in regard to human rights, as no matter the number of years since they first emerged kicking and screaming for life's tepid embrace: a human is a human, irrespective of ability to spell the word.

 

What choice?

If you have a dick, you're a male. Its quite simple. No need to let the child 'choose', and its not parents forcing their choice either, there is no choice in the gender.

Sexuality is where the choice is, not you're actual sex.

 

You can choose your sexuality, just as much as you can choose what gender you'd like to be.

Most people are born with one type of reproductive organs, so yes, what gender they are is obvious... but then modern human influences and observations start, and anything goes.

I'm sure soon enough, just because someone is ginger, doesn't mean they have to be ginger, perhaps eventually people will custom build their children's specifications, from the womb, maybe before conception?
I'm not looking forward to seeing this sort of thing happening btw

 

That is kind of the point of all this, yes. Though they're allowing the child to explore their sexuality and gender identification/personification through not allowing outside interference with gender bias, which is rife in every society and has permeated all things without exception. It would be rather difficult to go about all this by very clearly stating to the world that the child has one particular set of reproductive organs, but asking everybody: now treat the human before you as though the bit between the legs is irrelevant. That just flatly doesn't work, as has been proven time and again. The way they're going about it just makes more sense, and has a higher likelihood of actually working to allow the child it's own gender identity.

 

All true. I don't really think it's an issue at all.

I mean at that age I liked dressing up in the cat outfit my mum made me for a play. It wasn't even a consideration as to whether I was a cat or not, it was just that, a kid in a cat outfit.

I wore it after the play as well, it was great, I thought no more beyond that.

Similarly, it's adults that are passing judgement on what these kids are wearing and so on when they're at an age that they won't even be thinking about such things, they'll just be wearing what they want.

I don't think it's even an issue of sexuality and gender for the children, that's an issue adults are concerning themselves with. I mean would anybody be interested in this if they dressed like bees all the time because they just liked it? No, I don't think so.

 

The comments of: 'you are the gender of your genitalia' are a nice illustration of those who think they know everything. Now listen to someone who does know a little bit about gender development, 'cause he's, like, a psychologist and all and it is part of his job to know

There are about sixteen factors that make up what we commonly think of as "gender". Some are physiological, one is genetic, two are neurological, a few are psychological and societal/cultural.

First, genetics. XX vs XY chromosome, right? This, so we learn, determines which way your body develops. We all start off as female, but the Y chromosome steers things in the male direction, in part through development of the testes which produce the powerful mutagen testosterone.

Except that some boys are insensitive to testosterone. Their bodies totally ignore it. So they develop as females. They are for all purposes girls --but with XY chromosome pairs, and without a womb or functioning ovaries (the development of which requires an XX pair). They have a vagina indistinguishable from XX girls. They are neurologically wired female and feel female.

Things get more complicated when people have XXY or XYY combinations. One in 500 males has XXY chromosomes with no obvious abnormality except infertility, perhaps smaller testes and some breast tissue. One in 1000 has Klinefelter syndrome. XYY is present in one in 1000 males and results in taller growth and possibly some learning difficulties. XXYY is rare and results in a host of learning difficulties and some physical development problems as mentioned above. XXXX interestingly can result in anything from a normal to severely underdeveloped female. Turns out those chromosomes do a lot more than regulate sexual development.

Hormones are tricky too. The brain converts testosterone into oestrogen and vice-versa (so does fat tissue). Hence a girl's brain needs to be bathed in testosterone to develop female, and a boy's brain in oestrogen. For the rest of their bodies it works the other way around. Get the balance wrong and they may end up with gender wiring that does not match their bodies: men trapped in female bodies and women trapped in male bodies. A few may not feel any gender at all. It also has consequences for sexual orientation.

Confused yet? Some children develop genitals that are somewhere in-between male and female. There is a host if generic mutations, hormone imbalances and other poorly understood factors responsible for these intersex conditions.

There are psychological case studies in which children were raised as the wrong gender because of a cursory peek at their genitals. It was not until their adolescent gender dyshoria led to further medical examination that definite characteristics of the opposite gender were found, such as an XY chromosome pair or rudimentary undescended testicles. These children knew what sex they were all along. It was the adults who made the mistake. There is also a case of a boy who, after a circumcision went badly wrong, was reconstructed as a girl, given female hormones and raised as a girl. He nonetheless was dismally unhappy and gender-dysphoric throughout his childhood. As an adult he converted back to the male he always had felt he was.

Cultural gender concepts are also important. The Hon of the Dahomey tribe in West Africa was a prestigeous army of several thousand female warriors, well-documented since the 1600's. They repelled European invaders numerous times. In the 1800's they defeated the French --including the Foreign Legion-- twice. In 670 BC Britain passed a law that no women could fight in the army --suggesting that they had done. In fact, many women have fought alongside men throughout history, pretending to be men. Anything you can do... Vipersgratitude in an earlier post highlighted the arbitrary cultural conventions around girlhood and boyhood.

I could go on a bit if you want, talking about attachment and abuse experiences in sexual orientation, the psychology of cross-dressing and how cognitive functions in the brain reconfigure to the other gender when exposed to different hormones during gender reassignment.

tl;dr: gender is not the binary, stable and global trait you believe it to be. There is no such thing as "male" or "female" hormones. Genitals are not a reliable indicator of sex. And we all have nipples for a reason.

So before you make your ethnocentric, sexist assumptions please read up on the facts. Daily Mail readers (and Times readers; posher papers with longer words do not make for a more open mind, even if you can read them without moving your lips) think they know; geeks know they think. Which are you?

 

So what you're saying Nexxo, is that on the extremely rare chance a baby might possibly not be the gender they first seem, we should raise all children to be ignorant of gender

That's a little bit extreme in my humble opinion.

If 1 in 500 men are infertile due to XXY chromosomes, they are still men. I don't think gender or chromosomes are anything to be ashamed about. There are enough problems in the world due to insecurities, can you imagine how much more chaotic the world would be, if everyone grew up being taught, that just because they appear as a certain gender, doesn't mean that's who they really are?

Boys and girls do lots of crazy things to prove themselves without being told this!