Baby X

[mlerules]

Fascinating. I read a story 'bout Baby X way back in grade school, 'bout a kid whose gender wasn't known. It impacted me very much and started up a really good line o' thought in my head that's stuck w/me. Now it's happening in real life. More here.

It'll be interesting seeing how this plays out.

Comments

[quetz.livejournal.com]

I actually still have the "Baby X" story, in a compilation called "Stories for Free Children" that were taken from the pages of Ms.

[mlerules.livejournal.com]

Cool. I haven't found many people who've read it before.

[ignusfaatus.livejournal.com]

I like Storm's expression in the second article. :)

[evilgerbil.livejournal.com]

I thought this story was going to be different, about a child born with a physically vague or conflicting gender. I am often struck by what some people think is a progressive attitude about parenting, but to me seems rather odd. There seems to be a movement to let the baby be in control, like baby led weaning, elimination communication, letting the baby pick its gender. Children can understand the difference between people encouraging them to be nurturing of baby dolls and cook in the play kitchen, a feminine stereotype, and play with trucks and guns and don't cry over skinned knees, a masculine stereotype. I think trying to rise above these stereotypes is a good thing. But children are family simple, and I don't know that even at 5 years old, they can grasp even the less complex facts about gender other than boys wear pants and girls wear dresses and have babies.

Encouraging the child to "challenge gender roles" as the article says smacks of indoctrination as much as encouraging girls to play with Barbie dolls and wear frilly pink dresses. It almost sounds like they are trying to raise their children in a genderless world, which is going to be confusing and harmful when they start interacting with society at large. We've got a pretty clear bipolar gender system here in the west, without much of a spectrum, and these kids are being raised to be genderqueer by default. An ultra liberal upbringing can be just as stifling as an ultra conservative one. I hope the best for the kids.