Great Childhood

[Lydia]

Would you like to have been brought up this way?

http://news.aol.com/article/parents-kee ... t%2F548933

Hugs,

Lydia

[Michelle Miller]

That's some straight up Fictionmania stuff right there.

[DonnaT]

But Toronto psychologist Susan Pinker, author of the book '‘The Sexual Paradox,' said keeping a child's sex a secret is a really bad idea.
"Ignoring children's natures simply doesn't work," she said. "Child-rearing should not be about providing an opportunity to prove an ideological point, but about responding to each child's needs as an individual."

And just how are the parent not responding to the child's needs, I wonder?

[Carolynn]

Can't get the URL to work. Tried cut and paste, but didn't work there either.

I don't know what is in the article for sure, but I do know a TS (24 years old) who was raised as a girl, was a cheerleader in highschool (really cute), tall enough to be on the girl's basket ball team, and is only now beginning HRT. She was raised a girl from age 4 because the single parent was in hiding from an abusive relationship, using an alias and it made it harder to find them if she was documented as female, assuming the searcher(s) were looking for a parent with a male child. When it got to the point they didn't have to hide anymore, all her life records, school records and social security and early work history (she was a teen by then) were so intertwined with the female identity that she just continued it.

Apparently she had no real problems living as a girl, so she may have been gender variant or somewhat intersexed anyway, made moreso by life history. However she is having a few problems at the present time, as she is developing more masculine characteristics, has grown several inches and in other ways seems to be in or approaching a much delayed male puberty. She is in therapy, and part of our 3D support group, and trying hormones to see if that can make things more normal feeling for her now.

I was dubious about her past life as it seemed to go against the experience of "David Reiner" who John Money tried to make a girl and failed, but if Allison was gender variant already then it would make more sense how she could embrace the life she lived. I have seen her photo album of her childhood, and teen years, her two birth certificates (one filed in a state on the east coast, the other court ordered in a west coast state after her mother lied her arse off about why she didn't have a birth certificate from Wyoming where they had lived for a short time), the adoption papers by her stepfather that further hid her mother and herself, and the comments in the year books that shows she was miss popular in junior high and highschool. If it was a story she made up, she went to great lengths to do so.

I have tried to get her to write her story, but she has resisted so far.

So life can follow fantasy, sort of I guess, though the jury is still out on the final result as she now is struggling a bit with her identity.

Carolynn

[DonnaT]

For those unable to open link

(June 29) - A Swedish couple's decision to keep their toddler's gender a secret is stirring debate, especially now that the parents are expecting a second child.
"Pop" is 2 ½ years old, but so far only those who change the child's diapers know whether the youngster is a boy or a girl, TheLocal.se, an English-language site for Swedish news, said last week.

Back in March, the parents gave an interview to the Svenska Dagbladet newspaper, saying they decided not to reveal their child's sex because they believe gender is a social construction.
"We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mold from the outset," said the child’s mother, "Nora." (The paper used fake names for the entire family to protect their privacy.)
"It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead," the mother said.
The parents, both 24 years old, said they never use personal pronouns when referring to the child. They just say "Pop."
The tot wears everything from dresses to pants, and Pop is usually the one who decides what to wear on any given morning. Pop's hairstyle is also changed on a regular basis, so it doesn’t provide any clues.
Swedish gender equality expert Kristina Henkel told The Local that the experiment could make Pop a stronger person, since he or she won’t be subject to gender stereotypes.

"Girls are told they are cute in their dresses, and boys are told they are cool with their car toys. But if you give them no gender they will be seen more as a human or not a stereotype as a boy or girl," said Henkel.
But Toronto psychologist Susan Pinker, author of the book '‘The Sexual Paradox,' said keeping a child's sex a secret is a really bad idea.
"Ignoring children's natures simply doesn't work," she said. "Child-rearing should not be about providing an opportunity to prove an ideological point, but about responding to each child's needs as an individual."
Pinker said the truth is bound to come out when Pop starts school. But Pop's parents say they will only reveal the child’s sex when Pop decides it is time.
"The kid is too young to decide anything on its own. Someone please rescue the kid from its crazy parents," wrote one poster on The Local's comment boards.
But others thought the parents were doing the right thing.
"They're actually thinking about how they're raising their child rather than just going along with what society expects, which, in my opinion, is much better than the majority of people who raise their kids to fit their own vision of what they think their kids should be," another poster wrote.

[Lydia]

Thanks Donna. I don't know why my entry did not work.

Hugs,
Lydia

[Carolynn]

Thank you Donna. Don't know what is with my browser that it refuses to operate some URLs.

Very interesting article. I expect that Pop will inform hir parents of hir gender by the time zhe is 4 or so. The parents are performing a kind of social experiment on their offspring, and it will be interesting to see the result later on, but at the current age, I expect there is little impact for the child. At 2 1/2 yeas old I would not have been able to make a gender determination of myself on my own. That didn't happen until I was three or so, under 4 anyway, and was taking a bath with my female cousin and compared genitalia. Then I walked in on my Uncle while he was urinating. I came to the realization I was more like my girl cousin than my uncle since I couldn't stand up and pee like that, and that was when I understood, or thought I did, that I was a girl or would be.

I think the male pronoun things really made no impression on me when I was younger than the time of that event, though I had to have had some understanding to be forming correct sentences, assigning gender pronouns when distinguising between cousins, mother, aunt and uncle for example, but somehow I can't recall it really seeming to apply to me. After that time, I felt a kind of vague disquiet at the use of the incorrect pronouns, but kinda took it with a shrug. I was always kinda laid back and tried to go with the flow most of the time.

As far as favorite toys, those were airplanes and birds. I was fascinated with things that could fly, and would dream of flying. I would lie on my back on the concrete cover of the cistern and watch the soaring hawks and buzzards and yearn to see the world as they did. I had a doll, and I had a variety of airplane toys, and a couple of flying (gliders) shaped like birds, and often my play alone was with the two (my doll Angel and I) of us flying in the airplanes. I distinctly remember daydreaming of us shrinking down the size of the toys and climbing inside and flying in them, though I knew nothing about controls or control surfaces. It was the act of flying. Most of the cheap little airplane toys were of fighters, but the war aspects of the toys escaped me then. Flying dreams were common for me then, though I occasionally was awakened rudely when I hit the floor after falling off the bed. I think it was during this period I developed a love for the miniature things, the smaller but more detailed the better, and finally made some of my own as an older child, teen, and even as an adult.

My Uncle would bring me a surprise after each of his truck runs delivering flour from the local mill (why no, I wasn't spoiled, whatever led to that idea?). Surprises like a Donald Duck with his nephews waddling behind him you drug about with a string, airplanes, a model truck that I put on a shelf to see and rarely touched, wheel tops that you spun with a twist of your fingers, and other things that I have forgotten. Once he either did not have any money or he forgot to look for something, so he brought me colorful early spring wildflowers in a jelly glass, and those were treasured just as much as a toy, witness that I still have that memory, though they did not last long after picking.

I would pull the blossoms off flowers my Aunt and Mother would plant, and crush them on the porch steps to release fragrance and rub that in the places my mother and aunt would put perfume, then run in excitedly to see if they could smell it on me, and wear towel "skirts" when they said they could. I guess I felt I was "dressed up" then since I associated them wearing perfume with dressing nicely.

[CJ]

Hi all,

There was simply too much extra info in Lydia's pasted url. I shortened it to this: http://news.aol.com/article/parents-kee ... ret/548933. It seems to work.

I wish Pop all the luck in the world.

Love,
CJ

[Gaven McLaren]

That is a very odd story and it does sound something right out of Fictionmania. I would be curious to find out about how this is going. I am sure that if a couple tried it in the US there would be a huge uproar that they were not doing something right for the child and the religious right would have something to say about it.