Support NeoGAF

[Dice//]

Shouldn't that label be for sex? If it is so, I see little reason to label it as Undecided. Issues of determination of a baby's sex could be resolved by more detailed examinations at the hospital. The sex is important information for medicine, no?

As for the use of the word "normal", it is TECHNICALLY not offensive when used in the meaning "most commonly found", but it invokes offensive connotations regardless so I see no reason to not use the word "cis" instead. It's a manner of effective communication, also.

Feels like this will invite further ostracization and bullying instead of curbing prejudice. Too early for such a move, I don't think it would be effective. Change has to start somewhere, though - so in the end, I just wish the best for the kid.

On the contrary, stuff like gender identification can happen pretty young. I don't think there was ever a time where I EVER liked wearing dresses, even for big occasions. Things will be difficult for the kid if the environment they're in doesn't allow for growth. But if they go to a school with a teacher who thinks the idea is stupid or doesn't stop bullying or similarly tries to insist that a sex organ determines how you're supposed to behave, then it might be tough. A supportive enough environment can mean the opposite where a kid doesn't feel ostracized or pressured because she doesn't like pink or he doesn't like toy cars.

Also, there's two sides to this, and a lot of people forget that there are also many people who grew up having JUST as hard a time because they felt restricted in what they were "allowed" to like.

 

[Platy]

As someone mentioned before, not everyone has the money, Until then i dont mind making that distinction as long as you look like the gender you are aiming for.Sorry but i call it as i see it, Thats all i really have to say on the matter

I am a butch trans woman. I have hairy legs and hate dresses. I am a decade on hrt and srs is on my to do list.

How is that looking like the gender you aim for ? What I aim is for a "dykes on bikes" look with less leather, but lots of people read it as looking male.

 

[MazeHaze]

You are delusional.

And your "they're only a woman if they get a sex change" and "I call em like I see em" attitude is horrendously offensive, ignorant, and you come across as a straight up bigoted ass hole who refuses to acknowledge his shitty transphobic views. Youre like half a step away from "you guys are the real bigots for not accepting my views"

 

[casablanca]

Poor kid.
irresponsible parents.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

Really now. You think hormones is all it takes to be a woman?

That's why you brought up this? There's nothing vague about this.

Jfc, that's a disgusting comment from the other poster. It's wholly transphobic.

 

[Laiza]

The indoctrination begins.

See:

Till the babe has some sort of illness that warrants it, this is speculating and baseless to talk about. Again, I'll join the bandwagon and say these parents are dumb quacks if they don't divulge their baby's sex if a medical need became apparent; otherwise they're no better than parents who opt out of medical treatment for naturopathy

And yes, everyone does this for newborns. Go to any baby shower and you see immediately how quickly things get gendered —— you are literally born into it. I doubt any newborn girls are gonna have shirts with little cars on them as much as I doubt any boy's are gonna get onesies with flowers on them.

 

[KingSnake]

My sister consciously kept her kids away from so called gender norms to allow them to discover their own identities.

Keeping the kids away from gender norms it's perfectly fine and even recommended. Keeping the kid away from its own biological sex is a totally different thing altogether.

I'm trying to imagine as a parent how can you even do that with a 3 or 4 years old. Like if somebody tells the child at kindergarten "you're a boy" and the child comes home and says "I'm a boy" that's it? How do you exactly see a child deciding this? How do you even explain what is a boy and what is a girl in such a way that the child makes informed decision? Or you drop "boy" and "girl" altogether and then the child needs to explain every time his parents' world views?

I see no issue for a child to discover their gender when they are able to understand the concept. But that comes later than first years of interacting with the world.

 

[A Link to the Past]

The indoctrination begins.

In my experience, a lot of people who talk about indoctrination are they themselves indoctrinated. There's a reason why my first thoughts relating to that word are Sargon of Akkad and Stefan Molyneux.

 

[Audioboxer]

Parents have been using their children as social/political projection dumps since time began. The majority of kids will be heavily influenced by whatever ideologies (religious/social/scientific) their parents subscribe to and that will be how it is going forward. As a kid develops into an adult most will break away from the parents and make their own minds up (often starting heavily around teenage years beginning). Which may actually be them subscribing to whatever their parents believe by choice, as in they agree with all their parents have instilled in them. Or when they disagree it often leads to accusations of parents trying to indoctrinate or restrict their learning choice and so on. One of the wonders of the internet is a vast wealth of knowledge for any young teenagers to be able to browse and get some education they may lack from their close minded or overly hostile parents. An area of ongoing improvement though needs to be in schools, as the internet can be far too much of a wild wild west to solely rely on educating minds.

Kids who fail to "grow up" or become adults away from their parents often end up in a therapy of some sorts. It should be no surprise to anyone a lot of issues in adults failing to cope with life ends up coming from parenting, whether a lack of parenting, missing parents or parents who try too hard to get their child(ren) to strictly conform to their views of the world. These sorts of failings usually come from religious indoctrination, but life is complex and there are huge webs of social and political disagreements for people, let alone children/parents to have. While every parent will want to try and somewhat shape or influence their children, there also has to be compassion to love them for who they are and let them make their minds up on many things.

Everyone in here can make calls of what they believe may happen but only time will tell how this kid grows up, and this one decision alone doesn't say everything about how the kid's parents will raise them in totality. It's not new that parents push their views on their kids, it's how it's always been. If it's within the legal system and can't be proven to be abuse, you just have to hope for the best that most parents will do their best to nurture, love and help their child develop without being total dictators about how the child grows and develops.

To be a bit closer related to the whole debate it's no shocker for anyone to admit most children assigned at birth will indeed grow and develop within the route that lines up with their biological appearance (figures are always routinely like 95~99%+). When it becomes clear as a child develops that isn't the case we live in a society where that can be easily changed and supported (at least in some parts of the world). Our best approach is to take a child for what it is and wait until they develop a bit, rather than overly complicate the situation for a baby that cannot even communicate properly. I know it's a heavily contested argument how young is young enough to start making serious changes/discussions, but talking and educating is one thing. It's irreversible biological changes via medication and surgery that are most contested. The short debate being summed up as it's not the case every tomboy girl, or overly sensitive boy is a gender dysphoria case in the making. Hence why kids need to be allowed to be kids sometimes without doctors/psychologists and overly paranoid parents buzzing around them like they're test subjects.

And for what it is worth people who go really far off the deep end and start outright rejecting all biology and psychology, it's not really any worse than people claiming the earth is 6,000 years old or that evolution is a fabrication. Humanity will continue to have many minds that will outright reject evidence and science till humanity is extinct. Or as the anti-vax folk routinely do they take the one report that casts doubt and say "ah hah I knew it" versus the 1,000 that say otherwise. Confirmation bias can be a form of indoctrination for many at times, and in the modern society, there can be a shit ton of bunk published studies.

As for the lowercase name debates, it's nonsensical. It is dumb and nothing on genuine debates around gender/sex, but what can you say, as I said above humanity will continue to do strange things till we go extinct. Structures within our languages, such as capitalisation and punctuation are not forms of oppression though, that much is certain (some posts in here seem to refer to the lawyer somehow suggesting that).

 

[Nev]

Okay the thing about the capital letters was when I couldn't contain the laugh.

 

[MazeHaze]

Keeping the kids away from gender norms it's perfectly fine and even recommended. Keeping the kid away from its own biological sex is a totally different thing altogether.

I'm trying to imagine as a parent how can you even do that with a 3 or 4 years old. Like if somebody tells the child at kindergarten "you're a boy" and the child comes home and says "I'm a boy" that's it? How do you exactly see a child deciding this? How do you even explain what is a boy and what is a girl in such a way that the child makes informed decision? Or you drop "boy" and "girl" altogether and then the child needs to explain every time his parents' world views?

I see no issue for a child to discover their gender when they are able to understand the concept. But that comes later than first years of interacting with the world.

I don't really think this parent is keeping the kid away from their own biological sex, they're just keeping it off of public record. Huge difference.

 

[plagiarize]

Your first and last paragraph contradicts themselves.

Gender expression is different from gender.

The only way to know is if the kid say.

I disagree.

I mean gender is hugely complex and there is a lot of variety within a given gender including tons of overlap. Yet there are still examples of parents knowing their kids were transgender long before the kid even understood the concept.

Maybe we're going off the rails here, but if there was someone who was born female, who did all the stereotypical things that women do, because those are the things she *wants* to do, and not things she feels like she has to... I would be pretty confused if they said they were a man.

We shouldn't force things on people based on their gender, like color choices or dolls vs action figures, but I think there are inherent differences between genders all the same. Just not of the pink vs blue variety.

Again, I am not remotely qualified to try and to quantify that. But the transgender people I know sure seem to be the gender they identify as. I can't really explain the 'seem' part there.

There are differences in brain patterns between people that identify as male and people that identify as female, even within a single sex: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/

These manifest in outwardly identifiable ways in many cases.

 

[Funyarinpa]

On the contrary, stuff like gender identification can happen pretty young. I don't think there was ever a time where I EVER liked wearing dresses, even for big occasions. Things will be difficult for the kid if the environment they're in doesn't allow for growth. But if they go to a school with a teacher who thinks the idea is stupid or doesn't stop bullying or similarly tries to insist that a sex organ determines how you're supposed to behave, then it might be tough. A supportive enough environment can mean the opposite where a kid doesn't feel ostracized or pressured because she doesn't like pink or he doesn't like toy cars.

Also, there's two sides to this, and a lot of people forget that there are also many people who grew up having JUST as hard a time because they felt restricted in what they were "allowed" to like.

Exactly what I mean - I feel it is likely that the kid will encounter an environment where they will face prejudice (but then again, how would they come to know the kid's sex is undecided?), so I am worried. I don't deny that not being subjected to preconceived notions of gender roles would be beneficial- I just don't see it happening in today's world.

 

[Binabik15]

God damn, this is just terrible parenting. A home birth when you're on testosterone and who knows what? Yeah, best medical support in an emergency available this way...not.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

As someone mentioned before, not everyone has the money, Until then i dont mind making that distinction as long as you look like the gender you are aiming for.Sorry but i call it as i see it, Thats all i really have to say on the matter

You think trans people have to fit YOUR definition of 'effort' before they can identify as the gender they are? Who the fuck are you for anyone to give a shit about, or make such life choices because of, your transphobia?

 

[Laiza]

Poor kid.
irresponsible parents.

I wish drive-by posts like these were bannable.

Sadly, I see we don't live in that kind of just world.

 

[SirRattleBalls]

And your "they're only a woman if they get a sex change" and "I call em like I see em" attitude is horrendously offensive, ignorant, and you come across as a straight up bigoted ass hole who refuses to acknowledge his shitty transphobic views. Youre like half a step away from "you guys are the real bigots for not accepting my views"

Did you just assume my gender.

 

[Dice//]

Did you just assume my gender.

you saying that ironically?? :/

 

[Aselith]

The indoctrination begins.

Everyone gets indoctrinated as they grow up. The question is...to what?

 

[plagiarize]

Keeping the kids away from gender norms it's perfectly fine and even recommended. Keeping the kid away from its own biological sex is a totally different thing altogether.

I'm trying to imagine as a parent how can you even do that with a 3 or 4 years old. Like if somebody tells the child at kindergarten "you're a boy" and the child comes home and says "I'm a boy" that's it? How do you exactly see a child deciding this? How do you even explain what is a boy and what is a girl in such a way that the child makes informed decision? Or you drop "boy" and "girl" altogether and then the child needs to explain every time his parents' world views?

I see no issue for a child to discover their gender when they are able to understand the concept. But that comes later than first years of interacting with the world.

Most kids at kindergarten age have little comprehension that gender and sex go hand in hand:

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/when-do-children-develop-their-gender-identity/

Before the age of five, children don’t seem to think that gender has any permanence at all. A preschooler might ask his female teacher whether she was a boy or girl when she was little, or a little boy might say that he wants to grow up to be a mommy.
Research supports this early flexibility in children’s gender concepts. For example, in a well-known study, psychologist Sandra Bem showed preschool-aged children three photographs of a male and female toddler.

In the first photo, the toddler was naked; in the second the toddler was dressed in gender-typical clothing (e.g., a dress and pigtails for the girl, a collared shirt and holding a football for the boy); in the third photo, the toddler was dressed in stereotypical clothing of the opposite gender.

Bem then asked the children a variety of questions. First she asked them about the photo of the naked toddler and the photo of the toddler dressed in gender-typical clothing, asking children whether the toddler was a boy or a girl.

Toddlers think that changing clothes will also change gender. Donnie Ray Jones, CC BY
She then presented the children with the same toddler dressed in opposite-gendered clothing. She told them that the toddler was playing a silly dress-up game, and made sure that the first nude photo of the toddler was still visible for reference. She then asked the children whether the toddler in the third photograph was still a boy or a girl.
Most three- to five-year-olds thought that a boy who decided to dress up like a girl was now indeed a girl. It wasn’t until children understood that boys have penises and girls have vaginas that they also knew that changing your clothes doesn’t change your gender.

Our adult understandings of gender and sex don't apply to pre-schoolers. At least according to the studies.

 

[MazeHaze]

Did you just assume my gender.

You don't get to be riled up about pronoun usage when you sit here spewing transphobic garbage.

 

[Laiza]

God damn, this is just terrible parenting. A home birth when you're on testosterone and who knows what? Yeah, best medical support in an emergency available this way...not.

Uh.... wrong thread?

Not... seeing where you're seeing any of this.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

This whole thing is stupid.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Did you just assume my gender.

A cute attempt to get around that you're engaging in hateful, bigoted speech, but emphasis on attempt.

 

[Izuna]

Uh.... wrong thread?

Not... seeing where you're seeing any of this.

It's in the article

We don't know why the birth wasn't done in a hospital, however.

 

[plagiarize]

Did you just assume my gender.

Your username is 'SirRattleBalls'.

They are just responding to you with the appropriate pronoun for the gender you have chosen to present to us.

Anything else would be rude.

 

[Transhuman]

What a fresh new take for page 9.

Should we really suspend the law

Spoiler

of grammar

for one person?

 

[MazeHaze]

God damn, this is just terrible parenting. A home birth when you're on testosterone and who knows what? Yeah, best medical support in an emergency available this way...not.

Who said they're on testosterone? And why would you assume they're on "who knows what?" And who says they didn't have a doctor/nurses on hand? Seems like you're making a lot of assumptions to reinforce your already negative opinion on the whole situation.

 

[KingSnake]

I don't really think this parent is keeping the kid away from their own biological sex, they're just keeping it off of public record. Huge difference.

It's in the article.

"I'm raising Searyl in in such a way that until they have the sense of self and command of vocabulary to tell me who they are, I'm recognising them as a baby and trying to give them all the love and support to be the most whole person that they can be outside of the restrictions that come with the boy box and the girl box,"

 

[JeTmAn81]

Till the babe has some sort of illness that warrants it, this is speculating and baseless to talk about. Again, I'll join the bandwagon and say these parents are dumb quacks if they don't divulge their baby's sex if a medical need became apparent; otherwise they're no better than parents who opt out of medical treatment for naturopathy

And yes, everyone does this for newborns. Go to any baby shower and you see immediately how quickly things get gendered —— you are literally born into it. I doubt any newborn girls are gonna have shirts with little cars on them as much as I doubt any boy's are gonna get onesies with flowers on them.

Not my kid, she's been wearing blue and pink, cars, trucks and princesses since she was born. There's nothing inherently gendered about any of it, and we let her pick what she likes. She's wearing a dress right now.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

Your username is 'SirRattleBalls'.

They are just responding to you with the appropriate pronoun for the gender you have chosen to present to us.

Anything else would be rude.

Lol

Fucking owned, nice job!

 

[Vault Dweller 111]

"Searyl"?

Oof

 

[KingSnake]

Most kids at kindergarten age have little comprehension that gender and sex go hand in hand:

You didn't answer my question. How do YOU see this going? How can a 3 years old child decide the gender?

 

[Laiza]

This whole thing is stupid.

The thing that's stupid is how many posts in this thread are as content-free as your's.

If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise, why even bother posting a reply?

 

[MazeHaze]

It's in the article.

That doesn't say anything about keeping the child's biological sex a secret from them.

 

[Pattycakes]

Did you just assume my gender.

Damn from your replies in this thread you're such a fucking bigot

Your username is 'SirRattleBalls'.

They are just responding to you with the appropriate pronoun for the gender you have chosen to present to us.

Anything else would be rude.

Gottem

 

[KingSnake]

That doesn't say anything about keeping the child's biological sex a secret from them.

If you tell the child "you're a boy" how are you letting the child decide?

It's clearly stated that they don't want to tell the child that, the child should decide when the child had command of the vocabulary.

 

[Platy]

That doesn't say anything about keeping the child's biological sex a secret from them.

I keep picturing the child looking at their genitals and a censor bar being in place

 

[A Link to the Past]

Your username is 'SirRattleBalls'.

They are just responding to you with the appropriate pronoun for the gender you have chosen to present to us.

Anything else would be rude.

The best part of this thread is watching SirRattleBalls follow up making bigoted statements by then demonstrating a lack of foresight that his last comment would have gotten this response lmao.

 

[Dice//]

You didn't answer my question. How do YOU see this going? How can a 3 years old child decide the gender?

Well what does a 3 year old need sex organs for if not solely to determine this sort of 'treatment' they get for being a boy or girl.

I've said it before, I'll say it again, but kids are....surprisingly sharp with respect to what they do or don't like from an early age. It's not 100% determined, obviously there's room to grow, but you can pick up pretty young if they're not 1:1 on what being a girly-girl or a boyish-boy is all about.

I knew I never liked dresses and my brother never really liked playing with cars. We both identify as a girl and boy respectively, but the point is to leave that sort of "pressure" off the table.

Not my kid, she's been wearing blue and pink, cars, trucks and princesses since she was born. There's nothing inherently gendered about any of it, and we let her pick what she likes. She's wearing a dress right now.

That's great! I was similar, I played with X-men figures and Barbie dolls. I'm still a woman and I love wearing a sexy outfit from time to time.... And I like playing videogames (i.e.; something still considered a "guy's hobby"). x)
Things are a lot easier when you're allowed to "flex", toys and clothes on either gendered spectrum are lots of fun.

 

[plagiarize]

to the whole debate it's no shocker for anyone to admit most children assigned at birth will indeed grow and develop within the route that lines up with their biological appearance (figures are always routinely like 95~99%+). When it becomes clear as a child develops that isn't the case we live in a society where that can be easily changed and supported (at least in some parts of the world). Our best approach is to take a child for what it is and wait until they develop a bit, rather than overly complicate the situation for a baby that cannot even communicate properly. I know it's a heavily contested argument how young is young enough to start making serious changes/discussions, but talking and educating is one thing. It's irreversible biological changes via medication and surgery that are most contested. The short debate being summed up as it's not the case every tomboy girl, or overly sensitive boy is a gender dysphoria case in the making. Hence why kids need to be allowed to be kids sometimes without doctors/psychologists and overly paranoid parents buzzing around them like they're test subjects.

We don't know the kids gender before they have developed ideas about gender. Babies literally have no concept of it. Kids younger than 5 don't seem to understand their gender is related to their genetics in any way.

'Allowing kids to be kids' is meaningless in this context. A transgender kid isn't not being a kid because they're transgender.

Puberty brings with it irreversible biological changes, and if we could do better to identify someone as transgender at a young age, it would be better for them.

And for what it is worth people who go really far off the deep end and start outright rejecting all biology and psychology, it's not really any worse than people claiming the earth is 6,000 years old or that evolution is a fabrication. Humanity will continue to have many minds that will outright reject evidence and science till humanity is extinct. Or as the anti-vax folk routinely do they take the one report that casts doubt and say "ah hah I knew it" versus the 1,000 that say otherwise. Confirmation bias can be a form of indoctrination for many at times, and in the modern society, there can be a shit ton of bunk published studies.

I presume then, that this scientific study showing difference in brain activity between transgender and cisgender people will convince you that transgender is a real think backed by hard science. It is not a rejection of biology. Here is some actual biology for you to look over.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/

 

[MazeHaze]

If you tell the child "you're a boy" how are you letting the child decide?

It's clearly stated that they don't want to tell the child that, the child should decide when the child had command of the vocabulary.

You tell the child they have male genitals. Having male genitals doesn't mean someone is a boy.

 

[Platy]

The best part of this thread is watching SirRattleBalls follow up making bigoted statements by then demonstrating a lack of foresight that his last comment would have gotten this response lmao.

To be fair his avatar is of a head with a mask and a torso. Most men I know don't have just a torso or masks so he is not exactly "dressed" like the gender he identifies

 

[plagiarize]

You didn't answer my question. How do YOU see this going? How can a 3 years old child decide the gender?

Why do they need to? Three year olds don't think gender is related to their physical sex. So why is this three year old going to get bullied or assigned a gender based on their physical sex by other three year olds?

 

[HawksWinStanley]

"Searyl"?

Oof

It'll either work in the kid's favor because bullies will have too much material to work with and deem it too easy to bother, or the kid'll get the shit beaten out of them on the reg.

Either way they're in for a rough childhood regardless of the parent's intentions.

 

[iRAWRasaurus]

The thing that's stupid is how many posts in this thread are as content-free as your's.

If you have something to say, say it. Otherwise, why even bother posting a reply?

Perhaps I just woke up and first saw the thread? Anyways I am Too lazy. Just what I think. I never paid attention to the whole sex gender thing, so I think it's stupid and pointless.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Perhaps I just woke up and first saw the thread? Anyways I am Too lazy. Just what I think. I never paid attention to the whole sex gender thing, so I think it's stupid and pointless.

And I know shit all about algebra, but I neither look down on it for that nor do I say "man this shit's dumb lul." If you don't know anything about a subject, calling it stupid and pointless doesn't do much more than make you look kind of silly.

 

[KingSnake]

You tell the child they have male genitals. Having male genitals doesn't mean someone is a boy.

Why do they need to? Three year olds don't think gender is related to their physical sex. So why is this three year old going to get bullied or assigned a gender based on their physical sex by other three year olds?

Because the other children in the kindergarten will be boys or girls. And your child will talk to them about male organs.

 

[MazeHaze]

Perhaps I just woke up and first saw the thread? Anyways I am Too lazy. Just what I think. I never paid attention to the whole sex gender thing, so I think it's stupid and pointless.

You know who doesn't think it's stupid and pointless? Transgender people.

 

[plagiarize]

Because the other children in the kindergarten will be boys or girls. And you're child will talk to them about male organs.

Please read the article I shared.

Kids of that age think that gender is defined by what you wear and do rather than whether you've got a knob or not. Let me quote the appropriate bit again:

She told them that the toddler was playing a silly dress-up game, and made sure that the first nude photo of the toddler was still visible for reference. She then asked the children whether the toddler in the third photograph was still a boy or a girl.
Most three- to five-year-olds thought that a boy who decided to dress up like a girl was now indeed a girl.