Raising a Gender-Neutral Child

When Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper had an offspring, they decided that their Baby Sasha should not be influenced by society's prejudices and preconceptions when it comes to gender:

They referred to their child as "The Infant" and only allowed him to play with "gender-neutral toys" in their television-free home.

For the first five years of his life Sasha alternated between girls' and boys' outfits, leaving friends, playmates and relatives guessing.

But the couple have finally revealed his sex after it became harder to conceal when Sasha started primary school.

Yesterday Miss Laxton, a web editor, said that she thought gender stereotyping was "fundamentally stupid".

"I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping," she said.

"Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?

The gender of Sasha was finally revealed (he's a boy) when he started school: Link - via Arbroath


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"Yesterday Miss Laxton, a web editor, said that she thought gender stereotyping was "fundamentally stupid""

And I think these parents are fundamentally stupid. They cannot hope to counter gender stereotyping by simply hiding the boy's wiener. All they probably achieved was fundamentally messing up the kid for the rest of his life. Damn, people like that make me so angry (just like parents who would name their baby "apple").
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Seriously? The kid knows he has a penis, and knows that the boys and men he sees around him have penises, too.

You simply can't avoid the rest of the world in raising a kid this way. It's simply not possible, and the efforts to do so are silly.

I work hard to be sure my daughter doesn't feel obligated to like "girly" things, and now she loves building stuff, repairing the house, football and the like. And she also loves barbie, Disney princesses and pink clothes.

In other words, I let her make the choices.
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Er... except this story is inaccurate. I live in the same village (Sawston) as Sasha and his family, and the only surprise to me was that his gender was a secret for the past 5 years. I hardly know him, but always knew he was a boy. They even told my wife that Sasha is short for Alexander.

But it makes a good story for the Mail and Telegraph!
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