The Prince has a penis

The child would be free to choose a gender if they wanted to; if they wished they could do so as soon as they saw other groups of children they identified with. It wouldn't be like the parents would be stooping over them the whole time and preventing them for ever adhering to gender stereotypes - the only difference would be that the child would decide instead of the parent. The child can call themselves 'boy' or 'girl' if they wanted.

By the looks of the rest of your post you agree with doing this anyway: let the child decide how they want to act and what they want to do and how they want to express themselves. The only difference I can see is that you would label them a boy or girl from the start, which to me has connotations and expectations of gender stereotypes and which is why I and others here don't think assigning that label is a good idea.


Also if everyone was raised in this way, you wouldn't get into the situation where there is one child who is raised in a gender-neutral environment while all of their peers aren't. This would be the ideal and the issue I quoted would never arise.


edit: oh and also I don't think anyone here thinks the British royal family would be a very good candidate for starting this social change; they are just a good instigator for this conversation because everyone can see the intense importance that is wrongly being put on what gender and sex the child is.

 

..Around here, if you did that, you'd get laughed at. You're also going to get looked at strangely if you "provide your own gender pronouns".

...Whatever that's supposed to mean.

 

As we've said before, a sex is just a label. If the kid asks "Am I a boy or a girl" then tell him/her what their sex is because of their genitalia, much like what most parents do. That's not assigning a gender, that's assigning a sex which is already done.

As for the transitioning, yes that would still happen with transexual people. But the therapy won't be nearly as long because the dysphoria won't be as confusing, since they haven't been assumed things and told they should like certain things. Simply put, it would just be HRT and SRS. Nothing traumatic. Yes, schedules would have those things and there would still be a lot of medical things. But there's nothing that the kid will be going through that nobody deserves.

And there may be cis boys that like My Little Pony and girls that like Star Trek. I have them as friends. But the society we've grown up in has still demanded certain "boy" things and certain "girl" things. Gender dysphoria DOES have those included. It's a package deal, really.

I want to say it's okay for you to want your kids to be cis because of the aforementioned, but I still can't. Here's why: If your kids EVER found out that you wanted them to be cis, they'd probably conform instantly. Nothing against you specifically, but they want their daddy to be happy and to like them.

So wanting them to be cis? Eehh.. I'd think it's better to want your kids to be who they are, and without worrying that someone will hate them for being who they are. Trans, cis, gay, straight, whatever.

 

Honestly, I think a lot of people are missing the point. The kid right now is too young to care whether or not he has a declared gender. The problem that exists is not just about trans* issues, though of course there is always a slim chance that the child could be trans*.

The core of the problem, and this goes beyond this one child and is a critique of culture as a whole, is the very intense gender conformity that exists during this period of a child's development. Take a moment, step back, and think about it.

This is the period in life that is setting the groundwork for everything that comes afterward. This is when children are learning to talk, walk, and interact with the world around them. I strongly encourage everyone who knows someone with a young child to simply observe how people interact with that child.

You will notice that boy children are treated differently than girl children. Even the way people talk to them is different. People are cooing over them, the little boys are told how "strong" they are and how "tough" they're going to be when they grow up. The little girls are told how "pretty" they are, and other superficially vain things. Seriously, just go sit and listen to someone talking to a female infant child and a male infant child, and it'll become quickly apparent at how different they are treated.

Then take a walk in the kids section of a toy store or watch a bunch of commercials for toys for kids. You will notice that it is probably one of the most blatantly sexist experiences that you're likely to have in your entire life, short of working for the Mayor of San Diego.

And if you think I'm exaggerating, just watch the video down below. It nicely outlines how much sexism impacts children.

[YOUTUBE]MFn81_HAvWg[/YOUTUBE]

How can this type of sexism in the toy industry and culture as a whole not be harmful to them? How does all of this shape them in terms of how they view both themselves and those of a different gender?

This isn't just an issue that impacts the trans* community, it impacts everyone. If we want to live in a society where everyone, regardless of gender, are treated as equals it has to start when they're kids. Not when they become teenagers or adults - the first opportunity they really have to begin thinking for themselves.

This means creating a space for children to be expressive of themselves regardless of gender. It means actively trying to create a world where individuals can develop their OWN identities without having OTHER PEOPLE force those identities upon them. It means pushing back against the messages that say, "This is how a boy / girl is supposed to act / dress / think / behave." It means seeing people as just that - people, and not as what happens to be between their legs.

 

Oh, no! The horrors of being laughed at! :eek:

I get more looks and things thrown at me for walking hand-in-hand with my boyfriend at the mall.

And compared to the shit that trans* people have to go through every single day of their lives that is the fucking least I can do.

 

More than anything, you're just going to make things awkward. Frankly, if someone asked me, in real life, what pronouns I wanted to be addressed with, I wouldn't enjoy being put on the spot. It'd make me uncomfortable, and I'd hate it, because I wouldn't know what to answer with.

...Gender neutral would just result in me being pissed off at them..

 

For that reason is why I offer MY preferred gender pronouns. If the person wants to share theirs then they know its safe to do so and if they don't then I will try and use their names instead of pronouns.

If the person doesn't know what I mean then it simply turns into a teaching moment and then we move on.

In practice its actually fairly easy to navigate.

 

Once again, if society was like this this wouldn't be an issue and it wouldn't be awkward. We would be used to doing it. Yes, the initial change from our heavily gendered society to one that is less so would be somewhat difficult for some people, but that's not a reason to stick with what we have now.

 

There is a huge, vast, massive gulf between enforcing strict gender roles, and announcing that a baby is a boy.

 

Don't shift the goalposts now. This isn't just about announcing that the prince is a boy.

This is about the idea of forcing an entire gender- and all the baggage that comes along with that- on a child. You claimed that it would be harmful to not force a gender upon a child. And I don't think you've made a good case as to why.

 

WOULD YOU PEOPLE BOTHER TO READ MY WHOLE POSTS BEFORE ATTACKING ME?

my god, are you people that desperate to fight.

if you would have bothered to read my posts, each of them, you would notice that I keep saying TIME AND TIME AGAIN that we need to take into account when a child expresses their gender identity!

how many times do I have to repeat myself.

psychologist, psychatrist, and pediatricitions are practically in nearl complete agreement on this FACT that the proper way to deal with gender identity is to take into account the child's expression of it.

I am not moving the goal post, you are picking fragments out of my posts, THEN IGNORING THE REST.

it is rude to take remove the full context of what is being said just becuase you have an ax to grind.

the real experts take transgendered expression seriously, and they dont go around saying that raising a child as a boy or a girl based on their physical body is wrong, what they say that what is wrong is suppressing a childs expression of their gender.

YET AGAIN, the time to deal with a child's gender expression, and their possible reality of being transgendered is when they express it, and society needs to destigmatise gender expression, and when a child expresses a gender identity different from their physical gender, we need to treat them with compassion and dignity, a statement I have made multiple times in this thread, AND THE PEOPLE PICKING FIGHTS CHOOSE TO IGNORE.

context context CONTEXT!

 

So what do we do before they start expressing their gender?

 

Emberstone, your main flaw here is that you're saying there are different types of genders, and while the main message of what you're saying is true, it's not different TYPES of genders. It's the difference between gender and sex. Most people here have taken what you might have meant as "sex" and took it as "gender" along with everything gender includes.

 

you raise them as the gender their body expresses. That doesn't mean you enforce some strick society based idea of what it means to be a specific gender is. No study my universities academic study database and search program brought up disagreed with that. the medical community who study childhood development are in agreement.

childhood development experts say you take the cue from the child when the child has developed the congative faculties to comprehend and express a gender identity.

what we need to focus on is AGAIN, destigmatising transgendered expression, and work to ensure that when a child expreses a gender identity that doesnt match their physical sex, that we approach them with COMPASSION and DIGNITY.

but the experts dont agree with gender-neutral child raising, even in recent, peer-reviewed studies. apart of how the cognative faculties that allow the expression of gender identity form, according to the experts is by growing up in the context of ones physical gender. the same experts, AGAIN, say that the expression of a gender that doesnt mesh with the physical gender is not a bad thing to be suppressed, and for the health of the child, the cue HAS to be taken seriously.

so far, the only people I have found promoting it are people who have no actual medical experince, and basically, make their arguments aggressively, and in a way, barbericly, on web forums.

 

The body doesn't express gender. Your whole line of argumentation is flawed.

 

so why do I keep making a distinction between physical sex, and gender expression?

Again. before you nitpick what I am saying, read all of what I am saying.

You just took me to task by taking out of context what I was actually saying, and ignoring the full context.

 

You already made a whole foolish line of argument about there being different kinds of genders, indicating you did not know the difference between gender and sex. You're in way over your head here. Gender and sex are two different things, and they don't necessarily line up at all.


The only reason to continue to force genders onto children is to please all the simpletons out there who can't handle change and want to enforce the traditional gender binary upon everyone. The views you espouse are reactionary and contrary to the progressive values the LGBTQ community is fighting for, that no child's unique individuality ever be suppressed to conform to antique societal constructions.

 

STOP CHERRY PICKING!

biologically, you have a gender, and the point of transgenderisem is that a person feels that their physical gender does not match their gender expression. when you have a penis, your body expresses a male gender, and when you have a vagina, your body is expressing a female gender. boy and girl are monikors defining a persons gender, be it physical, or the emotional expression of someone whose physical body does not reflect their gender identity (transgendered).

hence why I keep, OVER AND OVER, making the distinction between what the body says, and what a person knows to be true, hence why I keep using the scientific phrase "gender-expression".

so are you saying that medical experts are wrong?

 

I just went through all your arguments a 2nd time, and you're not using the word sex in either one of them except for the last one. So yes, I did catch on that you made distinctions. You were saying "physical gender" when the actual term is "sex"

Biologically, the term is "Sex" which is based on genitalia. Mentally and emotionally, the term is "gender"

You might also notice that your legal documents and all your medical records use "Sex" to label what's between your legs.

It's like labeling a banana a "long, skinny oblong yellow fruit" when you really could just be using the term "banana"

 

I find it hard to believe that people are going to be adversely affected by not being told they are a boy or girl, especially if they are in an ideal society where their peers also aren't told whether they are a boy or girl.
I know that people are adversely affected when they are told they are a boy/girl when they actually aren't, even in the most accepting and compassionate environments.

Isn't this the same line of thinking that everyone should be raised as straight until they decide they are otherwise?