boxcarxo:

mountsthelens:

mytongueisforked:

fuckyeahfeminists:

metaconscious:

“So it’s a boy, right?” a neighbour calls out as Kathy Witterick walks by, her four month old baby, Storm, strapped to her chest in a carrier.

Each week the woman asks the same question about the baby with the squishy cheeks and feathery blond hair.

Witterick smiles, opens her arms wide, comments on the sunny spring day, and keeps walking.

She’s used to it. The neighbours know Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby. But they don’t pretend to understand it.

While there’s nothing ambiguous about Storm’s genitalia, they aren’t telling anyone whether their third child is a boy or a girl.

The only people who know are Storm’s brothers, Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2, a close family friend and the two midwives who helped deliver the baby in a birthing pool at their Toronto home on New Year’s Day.

“When the baby comes out, even the people who love you the most and know you so intimately, the first question they ask is, ‘Is it a girl or a boy?’” says Witterick, bouncing Storm, dressed in a red-fleece jumper, on her lap at the kitchen table.

“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs,” says Stocker.

When Storm was born, the couple sent an email to friends and family: “We’ve decided not to share Storm’s sex for now — a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm’s lifetime (a more progressive place? …).”

Their announcement was met with stony silence. Then the deluge of criticisms began. Not just about Storm, but about how they were parenting their other two children.

The grandparents were supportive, but resented explaining the gender-free baby to friends and co-workers. They worried the children would be ridiculed. Friends said they were imposing their political and ideological values on a newborn. Most of all, people said they were setting their kids up for a life of bullying in a world that can be cruel to outsiders.

Witterick and Stocker believe they are giving their children the freedom to choose who they want to be, unconstrained by social norms about males and females. Some say their choice is alienating.

In an age where helicopter parents hover nervously over their kids micromanaging their lives, and tiger moms ferociously push their progeny to get into Harvard, Stocker, 39, and Witterick, 38, believe kids can make meaningful decisions for themselves from a very early age.

“What we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It’s obnoxious,” says Stocker.

Jazz and Kio have picked out their own clothes in the boys and girls sections of stores since they were 18 months old. Just this week, Jazz unearthed a pink dress at Value Village, which he loves because it “really poofs out at the bottom. It feels so nice.” The boys decide whether to cut their hair or let it grow.

Like all mothers and fathers, Witterick and Stocker struggle with parenting decisions. The boys are encouraged to challenge how they’re expected to look and act based on their sex.

“We thought that if we delayed sharing that information, in this case hopefully, we might knock off a couple million of those messages by the time that Storm decides Storm would like to share,” says Witterick.

They don’t want to isolate their kids from the world, but, when it’s meaningful, talk about gender.

This past winter, the family took a vacation to Cuba with Witterick’s parents. Since they weren’t fluent in Spanish, they flipped a coin at the airport to decide what to tell people. It landed on heads, so for the next week, everyone who asked was told Storm was a boy. The language changed immediately. “What a big, strong boy,” people said.

The moment a child’s sex is announced, so begins the parade of pink and barrage of blue. Tutus and toy trucks aren’t far behind. The couple says it only intensifies with age.

“In fact, in not telling the gender of my precious baby, I am saying to the world, ‘Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what s (he) wants to be?!.” Witterick writes in an email.

Continue reading at ParentCentral

omg i got into an argument with someone about this last year bc I was saying how AWESOME it was and she was like ‘wtf everyone will think the kid is a freak’ but this is srsly kickass.

I love how people think that the parents are imposing their political ideologies on the child without reflecting on the ways in which normative gendered sets of behaviours are ideological impositions as well. I’ve always thought about the possibility of having children and how I would allow them to make autonomous choices at such a young age. Interesting article.

 a+ name baby, we match. it kind of bothers me how androgynous clothes or anything that’s really considered gender neutral tends to swing towards societally male things like short hair and straight pants but it’s better than nothin.

Aha, I got into a little argument with my boyfriend over this subject. He seems to think that raising your child that way can only have negative affects and leaves the child confused as it grows up. And that their gonna grow up to be serial killers and some odd shit. Not that he’s read anything about it or done any actual research. I’ve never once heard that a child brought up that way grew up with huge mental problems and what not so… Honestly, it’s between the child and his/her parents. Now if their was proof to say that raising a child this way was a bad thing, and did more harm then good..okay. But it annoys the fuck out of me when people are bound and determined that their opinion is totally and absolutely correct when they don’t know shit about the subject. And I also do not see the reasoning with asking my opinion on the subject.. Seeing as because it clearly is the opposite, and your going to act like I’m wrong and totally crazy for it.. Why did you ask me to tell you what I think if your just going to put my thoughts on it down.. It’s an opinion. And I’ve heard a lot more about it then you have so.. Just no. Sometimes the boyfran needs to be smacked.

THIS IS SO AWESOME.
also i think it’s hilarious when other people claim it’s not ok to “raise your child with your beliefs” with things like this, or raising a vegan child, or anything else that’s not instantly socially accepted, but if you say you’re raising your child strictly religious, THATS FINE.  

This is fantastic!  I love this.  My aunt gave my older cousins, who are twins, all sorts of toys and used all sorts of colors for decorating rather than worrying what stuff “should” be just because of gender roles and binary enforcement, and I always loved that.  My mom always found it cool that I liked video games (albeit a bit annoying, as she felt about all of us + our habit…) and Legos and making clothes for Barbies and yadda yadda, which was nice.

I think it’s important for a child to not have to feel pressured into any specific roles.  So many little girls are pressured into being “pretty” and pretend they’re princesses when they should be able to pretend and/or be whatever/whomever they wish.  Little boys are so frequently pressured to not cry, to play sports, to win, etc.  Forcing your kid to feel pressured into anything sucks, but especially when it means that they aren’t allowed to explore their identities and limits their options.  I’m not saying that girls can’t pretend to be princesses or OH NO THEY’RE FULFILLING THE BINARY’S EXPECTATIONS!, but I am saying that nobody should tell them they can’t be a prince or a knight or a goddamned half-elf bard if they so choose.

So, kudos to these parents. =D

Source: metaconscious

26 May 1870 maritimeandspace Permalink

sowingdoubt:

nedhepburn:

I wrote a guide to drinking for Thought Catalog. An excerpt:

4. Order a drink. No need to have the bartender near you. Just announce it like the second male lead in a Sam Shepard play at a community theater table read. Own it.

Is drinking like a man better than drinking like a woman?

And I drink like both, which is neither here nor there, but equally as fucking rad (and/or silly) as either.

Source: nedhepburn

13 May 65 sowingdoubt Permalink

“After an unidentified transgender woman tried to use the bathroom at a Baltimore McDonald’s, two patrons started attacking her in full view of other customers and employees. These employees can be heard on the video shouting words of encouragement to the attackers. It’s time we DEMAND that justice be served and that EVERY McDonald’s employee involved in this brutal hate crime be held accountable.”

It takes a certain kind of person to turn a blind eye to violence when it’s literally in the same room as they are, particularly a random act of violence resulting from hatred.  It’s terrifying to think that you might be doing something as simple as pissing and others will deem it so offensive to themselves that they feel it necessary to actually physically harm you.  Comments are terrible—insults are still cruel and rude and completely hateful—but it’s a much larger breed of horrid to decide it’s worth it to physically inflict violence on another human being just to prove the point: You’re not welcome.

And it scares the breath out of me that people can actually watch a hate crime take place (or any violent crime, for that matter) and not only make no attempt to stop it, but also to try and make it worse.  If somebody who was born with a dick utilizes the same bathroom as I do, then who the fuck am I to stop them?  This includes trans women, genderqueers, extremely “masculine” men, “feminine” men, whatever—it doesn’t matter what the parts are or what people identify as: it’s a fucking bathroom.  It’s there for pissing and shitting and changing tampons and a whole variety of lovely things, and who the fuck is to say that one person is “qualified” to utilize a space and another isn’t?

Additionally: If you have any (as in, any—that includes, but is not limited to hating trans* folks, the “I don’t care as long as they don’t talk to/hit on/come near me” approach, the “they’re making it up” approach, etc.) prejudice against trans* people of any sort, I strongly urge you to unfollow me.  I’m not going to try and convince you to change; I just simply wish to avoid associating in any way with those who are transphobic.  Merci.

26 April 17 Permalink