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By Rebecca, June 24, 2009 2:22 pm

From an article about a Swedish family:

Pop’s parents, both 24, made a decision when their baby was born to keep Pop’s sex a secret. Aside from a select few – those who have changed the child’s diaper – nobody knows Pop’s gender; if anyone enquires, Pop’s parents simply say they don’t disclose this information.

“We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset,” Pop’s mother said. “It’s cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead.”

…with a second child on the way, Pop’s parents have no plans to change what they see as a winning formula. As for Pop, they say they will only reveal the child’s sex when Pop thinks it’s time.

I think this is pretty cool. There’s something powerful about allowing a child to notify the world of their gender, if and when they choose to. But, of course, there are those who are objecting:

“Ignoring children’s natures simply doesn’t work,” says Susan Pinker, a psychologist and newspaper columnist from Toronto, Canada, who wrote the book The Sexual Paradox, which focuses on sex differences in the workplace.

It sounds to me like the parents aren’t “ignoring children’s nature,” they’re allowing their child to identify for his or herself what that nature is. At the same time, I do think this statement of Pinker’s is probably more accurate:

“It’s unlikely that they’ll be able to keep this a secret for long. Children are curious about their own identity, and are likely to gravitate towards others of the same sex during free play time in early childhood.”

But, nevertheless, I think it’s worth it to give Pop the ability to state his or her own gender, rather than having it be built into every interaction before he or she makes a conscious decision about it. Thoughts from the peanut gallery?

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By Rebecca, September 30, 2008 7:56 pm

I hesitate to write this post when things are actually going pretty well, but feel like I need to if I want to work through some of it…

When I started transitioning I knew it would be hard work. Hard physical work, like the excruciatingly painful and horribly expensive hair removal, and hard emotional work, like changing how I interact with friends and loved ones.

What I didn’t really think about were all the little ways in which it would wear me down.

Things like having people I barely know feel that they then get to make assumptions and judgments about me (not even necessarily negative ones!)  because they know I’m trans. Like Jack, whose brother and brother’s wife were both trans, so even though I just met him he felt completely comfortable asking me how long I’ve been on hormones. And, damn me for not thinking ahead, I told him instead of giving a noncommittal answer to indicate it was none of his business. An answer like “trans people go on hormones for the rest of their life” or “none of your bloody business, person-I-just-met.”

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