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

You're absolutely right! Children born to parents with darker skin pigmentation should quite obviously bathe their children in bleach from a young age to aide in the prevention of teasing in schools later on in life! Children in requirement of corrective medical devices (glasses, braces, crutches) flatly shouldn't be allowed to even attend school or be seen in public, as obviously they're a right target for bullies and teasing; just think of what that level of harm is going to do to their mental health!? Oh won't you think of the children!

Gender is just another useless social stereotype. My bits dangle, but other than some genetic markers allowing my bits to dangle (and somewhat affect my mental development and construction therein) I'm not markedly different from those other carbon-based Homo Sapiens about me that don't have bits that dangle. This doesn't in any way make me who or what I am, it is merely a fact of life that I have to deal with, which I focus on about as much as I do my laundry. The sooner we get over pointless social construct garbage like this the sooner we can focus on what really matters: hover-cars. I mean, come on, it's f****** two thousand, eleven already, where is my damn hover-car?

You're missing the point: it's not choosing a gender, it's choosing a methodology of behaviour, dress and aesthetic that doesn't specifically conform to social norms. Despite what some films from the nineties may say, we cannot change gender randomly in a group composed entirely of a singular gender... My DNA has not been crossed with an African frog, so far as I know... And what are the French doing in Africa anyway? Seems a bit odd, that.

But I digress, as physical gender is not what we are talking about: it's outward social interaction that is being discussed, which is being left up to the child to decide upon how to act and react to the world around them in gender-unspecific ways if it so chooses. Nobody has suggested (other than those opposed to this idea) that the parents are going to mutilate the little codger at the first sign that it takes a liking to a barbie doll (or a tonka truck, depending). That would actually be abuse and converse to a healthy mental state for the child, which somebody should step in and smack the parents for. However, as it stands the only way I see the child having issues is from bigoted cretins attempting to force a "normal" childhood upon it once it decides to dress up in a camo-patterned tutu with a flannel jacket, work boots and a stunning pink boa. Simply because you cannot deal with somebody stepping outside of your own ideals of gender stereotypes (irrespective of age) doesn't mean that it is wrong.

Two things: the parents are doing their very best not to impose views upon their children; rather, by telling little Storm that it has a penis and therefore should dress in blue and play with trucks wile throwing mud at little girls would be to impose a view upon the child. Secondly, what the hell is a normal childhood? Nexxo can well back me up on the idea that the stereotypical North American household as portrayed on television is not just as far from typical as it can be, but is also among the worst ways to raise a well-adjusted human to adulthood. To take this on a personal bent, I was terribly abused as a child, but have a good gender identity, am well read, successful in life (to my own standards), am quite physically and mentally fit, and very well adapted within my social world, so should what I went through be considered the normal and approved of methodology? Are all of these the only qualities one wants for all humans? Should we beat our children daily using whatever we can get our hands on? Yell and scream at them that they're not wanted, that you wish them dead? Allow them to be sexually abused by friends and family, turning a blind eye? I'll go out on a limb here and say: probably not, that we want whatever we can for our children. But hey, if the ends justify the means, then I guess somebody like me and my childhood should be held the exemplar. After all, I made it! I'm sure anybody put through the same situations would as well...

Without question, yes. I'm disgusted on a daily basis by those asserting their stereotypical gender-specific traits, vying to sweat the most testosterone in the room in some vein attempt to attract what they only perceive as meat; cannon fodder for the conquest. More parents doing exactly what these two are would go a long way to reducing the perverse sexual abuse that goes on in our society through the idolization and over-sexualization of youth and youthful (yet unhealthy) bodies, and the dilution of the social disallowance of current taboos in dress, attitude, and aesthetic.

 

^^^ Epic post is epic.

Malvolio gets it. These parents did not "wish they had daughters" (for all we know they have them), nor are they withholding concepts of gender from their children. They are simply not binding them to them. I know from personal and professional experience that at all of age 3-4, children are not very fussed about it, and will happily claim to be the opposite gender if asked. By the time that gender becomes a big enough deal that which restroom they pick is an issue (and why should it be anyway? In the Netherlands they have unisex restrooms nowadays, and last time I checked the country did not descend into sexual confusion and debauchery --none that was not imported by British tourists, anyway-- and in Scandinavia people of all genders and ages share the sauna but-naked), they are old enough to know what dangly bits they do or do not have and what that says about their gender, and whether that corresponds with what gender they feel inside.

The other point he (and I) make is that gender roles are not very functional anyway. Many a person has been condemned to an unfulfilled life by their gender. Men cannot be nurses or child carers, women cannot be engineers or CEO's. Men cannot show or talk about their feelings, and if they like children that's got to be suspect, right? Women are irrational, capricious beings who mean "yes" when they say "no". Men are supposed to be warriors, but women can never be. Real men are sexually promiscuous; proper women sexually chaste and demure --yet at the same time so blatantly sexualised it is embarrassing. Men should go out to work and have careers; women should stay at home and raise the kids. Even now they are allowed to have careers, they still should be at home and look after the kids --their workload has simply doubled. Up to 100 years ago women could not vote; until 50 years ago a single woman accountant or doctor could not take out a loan without a signature of her brother or father. We have heard of Watson and Crick, but not of Rosalind Franklin who made an equal contribution to the discovery of DNA. We know of Darwin, but all we remember of Beatrix Potter is her drawings of cute bunny rabbits. We have never even heard of Lise Meitner or Emmy Noether (which may go some way to explaining why we haven't got our hover car yet). We make use if only 50% of the genius we have, blatantly ignoring the half that does not have a penis.

The last time I saw such a hubbub on this forum, and such a blind inability to grasp the issue, was when a woman undergoing gender reassignment to male took the opportunity of happening to have a womb to bear a child for her(him)self and their (female) partner. There was an outcry: if she wanted to be, and be treated as, a man, than she shouldn't bear a child. This person was (get this) having their cake and eating it. People simply could not understand that men not bearing children was not a gender role or cultural imperative but a simple random biological fact. Men just don't have the wombs. This one did, because he happened to find himself stuck in a female body. So he used it.

At times like this I think, like Malvolio, that we are still a long way from hover cars...

And Supermonkey: your daughter is a genius. Here's hoping that society does not condemn her to a life of mediocre servitude because of her gender.

 

Malvolio, if I had a womb, I'd bear your children.

(meaningless statement meant to show immense admiration)

 

I haven't gpt time to reply to all the points you made, but no one is arguing that children being forced to act like their gender should do is right.

The fact is, not telling anyone what sex the baby is has absolutely no advantage over telling everyone the sex, telling you child "you're a boy/girl, lots of boys like football, lots of girls like barbie, but theres no reason you cant like what you want."

Simple.

 

Actually, it does. By not telling people the gender of the child, they are forced to relate to the child as a person in its own right, without gender prejudices and preconceptions getting in the way. How difficult that is for people to do this (and therefore, how deeply those prejudices and preconceptions are ingrained) is reflected in how much people struggle with the concept even in this thread. You simply cannot decouple a person from their gender. You're lost at sea without it. My argument is that you shouldn't be.

Perhaps if people had been able to relate to Franklin, Potter, Meitner and Noether as persons rather than as women, science might have been at least 50 years ahead of where it is now. Perhaps if people had been able to relate to Turing without his sexual orientation coming into the picture, we might not have lost a genius and, frankly, war hero, to suicide.

 

Does it really force people to interact with them as a person though? That's the idea, but family friends might actually find it a lot harder to relate.

What's wrong to relating to a person in because of their gender? It's a fact that men and women are different, to deny that is ignorant.

 

I know it's not 100% relevant, however when I first read this article it strongly reminded me of this:

 

The point I get about not deriving the gender to everyone is that they do not want Storm to be affected by those peoples gender misconceptions, they just don't want OTHER people affecting the work they have put in giving Storm freedom to choice.

Nothing is wrong with describing someone using a gender, but relating that gender to certain activities is stereotypical. We know that men and women are chemically different and are 'proven' to prefer different activities. What we do not know is whether these preferences are subconsciously built in from an early age to fit in with others. If there wasn't specialist gender identities who knows what activities every one of us on this forum would prefer.

You might have found interior design your favourite hobby, Nexxo may have gone into being a hairdresser or makeup artist.

It is also proven early decisions have effects on your preferences, a very strong one would be that you often love a woman/man similar to your father/mother because you were raised by them.

 

That appears evident (judging by the reactions on this forum). But just because it is easier to be prejudiced and harder to overcome it, does not mean we should just take the easy route.

In Apartheid South Africa and the segregated Southern States of America it proved quite hard work to get White people to relate to Black people as equals. Nobody would deny that it was the right thing to do though, and worth the effort.

As I illustrated above, and you keep failing to grasp, it all depends on how you construe those gender differences. Do women make lesser scientists, engineers, warriors, leaders just because they are female? Do men make worse nurses, child carers, homemakers just because they are male? I would argue not. But then again, I don't get hung up on a person's gender.

 

How quickly you forget your QI tidbits:

'Up until the 20th century, baby boys wore pink and baby girls wore blue. Boys at that time were also referred to as girls. In 1900, Dressmaker Magazine said "The preferred colour to dress young boys in is pink. Blue is reserved for girls as it is presumed paler and the more dainty of the two colours, and pink is thought to be stronger".

In 1927, Princess Astrid of Belgium caused controversy when she gave birth to a girl, as "the cradle had been optimistically outfitted in pink, the colour for boys". It was believed that blue was more serene and paler, hence it was used for girls.

Interestingly, up until the mid-15th century, all children were referred to as girls. Boys were known as "knave girls" and girls were known as "gay girls". Only in recent times, has calling a boy been referred to a male child, before that it meant a servant.'

 

Oh no, no it's not meaningless It means so much, and you don't even realize

It's quite obvious that your feminine brain is attracted to the masculine words of Malvolio, you could say it's love at first read

[SIZE="-7"]P.S. I'm joking dude, so if you cut your weiner off, I will deny any responsibility[/SIZE]

 

Thanks for reminding us. In fact, in my mother's generation all babies, male and female, wore dresses. In baptising ceremonies all babies still do.

 

That would make for a much better read, though. "Antisocial towelhead lops off wang in order to please mysterious internet hat guy"

 

a bit different than elledan's situation though because the kid is a certain gender.. I'm sure there's a lot worse the kid could grow up in

I mean if his parents want to dress him up as a clown and shelter him.. that's their kid

let's fast forward 13 years

 

TL;DR thread.

Wrong Wrong Wrong. Back when we were hunting mammoth and pooing in caves our parents still brought us up depending on what was between our legs. Those parents should have their children taken away from them. Yesterday.

 

I don't feel as though you're going quite far enough, Mankz. It is an outrage for our species that the first amoebic organisms that started to develop sexual specialization and differentiation for the purposes of reproduction didn't stop what they were doing and revert back to their agamogenesis, gender-neutral ways immediately, embracing binary fission once more, curbing even before the invention or possibility of the current gender issues we've now to deal with. It is those selfish, bigoted, sexist amoebic *******s that started all of this, and we should do something about it four days before the day after tomorrow!

 

You're arguing against change for the sake of 'tradition' (sorry, couldn't think of a more accurate word)?

Men and women through the ages have always challenged gender stereotypes, so what the cavemen did is pretty close to irrelevant today.

 

Take it easy Mankz, it could be much worse you know.

It's not like they are molesting or pimping out their baby, they aren't even letting the baby share meals and bedtime with dogs and cats, so chill dude, it's all good

I wonder if they are rewriting children's stories to remove any use of words such as boy, girl, man or woman? Would they also be photo shopping blue dresses on some of the girls, and pink clothes onto some of the boys?
Cartoons and kids movies would need the same treatment, otherwise in the very near future, the young baby might be asking the question: "What am I?" and then the little baby might receive a response such as "Whatever you want to be "

Just remember, they aren't molesting the child, just neglecting to inform their child a basic fact or two. We can't go taking babies away from every parent who neglects their children!
Babies are tough, just let them do their own thing, leave some food in one corner, and some newspaper in the other, they'll figure everything out

I'm sure the posters in this thread supporting the parents in the op, will raise their own children in the exact same way

 

Regardless of what has been said about the actual topic of discussion, it's "whose" not "who's".

 

Y'know, I was going to do this but when I chanced upon this thread, it was 2 pages long and full of srs bzns.

Props for having the testicular fortitude to point that out.