http:\/\/www.parentcentral.ca\/parent\/babiespregnancy\/babies\/article\/995112<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it\u2019s a boy, right?\u201d a neighbour calls out as Kathy Witterick walks by, her four month old baby, Storm, strapped to her chest in a carrier.<\/p>\n
Each week the woman asks the same question about the baby with the squishy cheeks and feathery blond hair.<\/p>\n
Witterick smiles, opens her arms wide, comments on the sunny spring day, and keeps walking.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s used to it. The neighbours know Witterick and her husband, David Stocker, are raising a genderless baby. But they don\u2019t pretend to understand it.<\/p>\n
While there\u2019s nothing ambiguous about Storm\u2019s genitalia, they aren\u2019t telling anyone whether their third child is a boy or a girl.<\/p>\n
The only people who know are Storm\u2019s 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\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the baby comes out, even the people who love you the most and know you so intimately, the first question they ask is, \u2018Is it a girl or a boy?\u2019\u201d says Witterick, bouncing Storm, dressed in a red-fleece jumper, on her lap at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you really want to get to know someone, you don\u2019t ask what\u2019s between their legs,\u201d says Stocker.<\/p>\n
When Storm was born, the couple sent an email to friends and family: \u201cWe've decided not to share Storm's sex for now \u2014 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? ...).\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we noticed is that parents make so many choices for their children. It\u2019s obnoxious,\u201d says Stocker.<\/p>\n
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 \u201creally poofs out at the bottom. It feels so nice.\u201d The boys decide whether to cut their hair or let it grow.<\/p>\n
Like all mothers and fathers, Witterick and Stocker struggle with parenting decisions. The boys are encouraged to challenge how they\u2019re expected to look and act based on their sex.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe 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,\u201d says Witterick.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t want to isolate their kids from the world, but, when it\u2019s meaningful, talk about gender.<\/p>\n
This past winter, the family took a vacation to Cuba with Witterick\u2019s parents. Since they weren\u2019t 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. \u201cWhat a big, strong boy,\u201d people said.<\/p>\n
The moment a child\u2019s sex is announced, so begins the parade of pink and barrage of blue. Tutus and toy trucks aren\u2019t far behind. The couple says it only intensifies with age.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn fact, in not telling the gender of my precious baby, I am saying to the world, \u2018Please can you just let Storm discover for him\/herself what s (he) wants to be?!.\u201d Witterick writes in an email.<\/p>\n
**<\/p>\n
Stocker teaches at City View Alternative, a tiny school west of Dufferin Grove Park, with four teachers and about 60 Grade 7 and 8 students whose lessons are framed by social-justice issues around class, race and gender.<\/p>\n
When Kio was a baby, the family travelled through the mountains of Mexico, speaking with the Zapatistas, a revolutionary group who shun mainstream politics as corrupt and demand greater indigenous rights. In 1994, about 150 people died in violent clashes with the Mexican military, but the leftist movement has been largely peaceful since.<\/p>\n
Last year, they spent two weeks in Cuba, living with local families and learning about the revolution. Witterick has worked in violence prevention, giving workshops to teachers. These days, she volunteers, offering breastfeeding support. At the moment, she is a full-time mom.<\/p>\n
Both come from liberal families. Stocker grew up listening to Free to Be ... You and Me, a 1972 record with a central message of gender neutrality. Witterick remembers her brother mucking around with gender as a teen in the \u201980s, wearing lipstick and carrying handbags like David Bowie and Mick Jagger.<\/p>\n
The family lives in a cream-coloured two-storey brick home in the city\u2019s Junction Triangle neighbourhood. Their front porch is crammed with bicycles, including Kio\u2019s pink and purple tricycle. Inside, it\u2019s organized clutter. The children's arts and crafts projects are stacked in the bookcases, maps hang on the walls and furniture is well-used and of a certain vintage.<\/p>\n
Upstairs they co-sleep curled up on two mattresses pushed together on the floor of the master bedroom, under a heap of mismatched pillows and blankets. During the day, the kids build forts with the pillows and pretend to walk a tightrope between the mattresses.<\/p>\n
On a recent Tuesday, the boys finish making paper animal puppets and a handmade sign to celebrate their dad\u2019s birthday. \u201cI love to do laundry with dad,\u201d reads one message. They nuzzle Storm, splayed out on the floor. The baby squeals with delight.<\/p>\n
Witterick practices unschooling, an offshoot of home-schooling centred on the belief that learning should be driven by a child\u2019s curiosity. There are no report cards, no textbooks and no tests. For unschoolers, learning is about exploring and asking questions, \u201cnot something that happens by rote from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays in a building with a group of same-age people, planned, implemented and assessed by someone else,\u201d says Witterick. The fringe movement is growing. An unschooling conference in Toronto drew dozens of families last fall.<\/p>\n
The kids have a lot of say in how their day unfolds. They decide if they want to squish through the mud, chase garter snakes in the park or bake cupcakes.<\/p>\n
**<\/p>\n
Jazz \u2014 soft-spoken, with a slight frame and curious brown eyes \u2014 keeps his hair long, preferring to wear it in three braids, two in the front and one in the back, even though both his parents have close-cropped hair. His favourite colour is pink, although his parents don\u2019t own a piece of pink clothing between them. He loves to paint his fingernails and wears a sparkly pink stud in one ear, despite the fact his parents wear no nail polish or jewelry.<\/p>\n
Kio keeps his curly blond hair just below his chin. The 2-year-old loves purple, although he\u2019s happiest in any kind of pyjama pants.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a result, Jazz and now Kio are almost exclusively assumed to be girls,\u201d says Stocker, adding he and Witterick don\u2019t out them. It\u2019s the boys\u2019 choice whether they want to offer a correction.<\/p>\n
On a recent trip to High Park, Jazz, wearing pink shorts, patterned pink socks and brightly coloured elastics on his braids, runs and skips across the street.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a princess!\u201d says a smiling crossing guard, ushering the little boy along. \u201cAnd that\u2019s a princess, too,\u201d she says again, pointing at Kio with her big red sign.<\/p>\n
Jazz doesn\u2019t mind. One of his favourite books is 10,000 Dresses, the story of a boy who loves to dress up. But he doesn\u2019t like being called a girl. Recently, he asked his mom to write a note on his application to the High Park Nature Centre because he likes the group leaders and wants them to know he\u2019s a boy.<\/p>\n
Jazz was old enough for school last September, but chose to stay home. \u201cWhen we would go and visit programs, people \u2014 children and adults \u2014 would immediately react with Jazz over his gender,\u201d says Witterick, adding the conversation would gravitate to his choice of pink or his hairstyle.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s mostly why he doesn\u2019t want to go to school. When asked if it upsets him, he nods, but doesn\u2019t say more.<\/p>\n
Instead he grabs a handmade portfolio filled with his drawings and poems. In its pages is a booklet written under his pseudonym, the \u201cGender Explorer.\u201d In purple and pink lettering, adorned with butterflies, it reads: \u201cHelp girls do boy things. Help boys do girl things. Let your kid be whoever they are!\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Storm was named after whipped winds and dark rain clouds, because they are beautiful and transformative.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I was pregnant, it was really this intense time around Jazz having experiences with gender and I was feeling like I needed some good parenting skills to support him through that,\u201d says Witterick.<\/p>\n
It began as a offhand remark. \u201cHey, what if we just didn\u2019t tell?\u201d And then Stocker found a book in his school library called X: A Fabulous Child\u2019s Story by Lois Gould. The book, published in 1978, is about raising not a boy or a girl, but X. There\u2019s a happy ending here. Little X \u2014 who loved to play football and weave baskets \u2014 faces the taunting head on, proving that X is the most well-adjusted child ever examined by \u201can impartial team of Xperts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt became so compelling it was almost like, How could we not?\u201d says Witterick.<\/p>\n
There are days when their decisions are tiring, shackling even. \u201cWe spend more time than we should providing explanations for why we do things this way,\u201d says Witterick. \u201cI regret that (Jazz) has to discuss his gender before people ask him meaningful questions about what he does and sees in this world, but I don't think I am responsible for that \u2014 the culture that narrowly defines what he should do, wear and look like is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Longtime friend Ayal Dinner, 35, a father two young boys, was surprised to hear the couple\u2019s announcement when Storm was born, but is supportive.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s amazing that they\u2019re willing to take on challenging people in this way,\u201d says Dinner. \u201cWhile they are political and ideological about these things, they\u2019re also really thinking about what it means and struggling with it as they go along.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dinner understands why people may find it extreme. \u201cAlthough I can see the criticism of \u2018This is going to be hard on my kid,\u2019 it\u2019s great to say, \u2018I love my kid for whoever they are.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
On a recent trip to Hamilton, Jazz was out of earshot when family friend Denise Hansen overheard two little girls at the park say they didn\u2019t want to play with a \u201cgirl-boy.\u201d Then, there was the time a saleswoman at a second-hand shop refused to sell him a pink feather boa. \u201cSurely you won't buy it for him \u2014 he's a boy!\u201d said the woman. Shocked, and not wanting to upset Jazz, Witterick left the store.<\/p>\n
Parents talk about the moment they realize they would throw themselves in front of a speeding truck to save their child from harm, yet battle the instinct to overprotect. They want to encourage independence. They hope people won\u2019t be mean. They pray they aren\u2019t bullied. No parent would ever wish that for their child.<\/p>\n
On a night after she watched her husband of 11 years and the boys play with sparklers after dark, Witterick, in a reflective mood, writes to say we are all mocked at some point for the way we look, the way we dress and the way we think.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen faced with inevitable judgment by others, which child stands tall (and sticks up for others) \u2014 the one facing teasing despite desperately trying to fit in, or the one with a strong sense of self and at least two 'go-to' adults who love them unconditionally? Well, I guess you know which one we choose.\u201d<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
Diane Ehrensaft is a California-based psychologist and mother of Jesse, a \u201cgirlyboy\u201d who turned his trucks into cradles and preferred porcelain dolls over soldiers when he was a child. Her newly published book, Gender Born, Gender Made, is a guide for parents of nonconforming kids.<\/p>\n
She believes parents should support gender-creative children, which includes the transgendered, who feel born in the wrong bodies, and gender hybrids, who feel they are part girl and part boy. Then there are gender \u201csmoothies,\u201d who have a blended sense of gender that is purely \u201cthem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ehrensaft believes there is something innate about gender, and points to the \u201970s, when parents experimented by giving dolls to boys and trucks to girls.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt only worked up to a certain extent. Some girls never played with the trucks, some boys weren\u2019t interested in ballet ... It was a humbling experiment for us because we learned we don\u2019t have the control that we thought we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
But she worries by not divulging Storm\u2019s sex, the parents are denying the child a way to position himself or herself in a world where you are either male, female or in between. In effect they have created another category: Other than other. And that could marginalize the child.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that it puts restrictions on this particular baby so that in this culture this baby will be a singular person who is not being given an opportunity to find their true gender self, based on also what\u2019s inside them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ehrensaft gets the \u201cWhat the heck?!\u201d reaction people may have when they hear about Storm. \u201cI think it probably makes people feel played with to have that information withheld from them.\u201d<\/p>\n
While she accepts and supports Jazz\u2019s freedom \u201cto be who he is,\u201d she\u2019s concerned about asking two small boys to keep a secret about the baby of the family. \u201cFor very young children, just in their brains, they\u2019re not ready to do the kind of sophisticated discernment we do about when a secret is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jazz says it\u2019s not difficult. He usually just calls the baby Storm.<\/p>\n
Dr. Ken Zucker, considered a world expert on gender identity and head of the gender identity service for children at Toronto\u2019s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, calls this a \u201csocial experiment of nurture.\u201d The broader question, he says, is how much influence parents have on their kids. If Ehrensaft leans toward nature, Zucker puts more emphasis on nurture. Even when parents don\u2019t make a choice, that\u2019s still a choice, and one that can impact the children.<\/p>\n
When asked what psychological harm, if any, could come from keeping the sex of a child secret, Zucker said: \u201cOne will find out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple plan to keep Storm\u2019s sex a secret as long as Storm, Kio and Jazz are comfortable with it. In the meantime, philosophy and reality continue to collide.<\/p>\n
Out with the kids all day, Witterick doesn\u2019t have the time or the will to hide in a closet every time she changes Storm\u2019s diaper. \u201cIf (people) want to peek, that\u2019s their journey,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
There are questions about which bathroom Storm will use, but that is a couple of years off. Then there is the \u201ctyranny of pronouns,\u201d as they call it. They considered referring to Storm as \u201cZ\u201d. Witterick now calls the baby she, imagining the \u201cs\u201d in brackets.<\/p>\n
For the moment, it feels right.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone keeps asking us, \u2018When will this end?\u2019\u201d says Witterick. \u201cAnd we always turn the question back. Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?\u201d<\/p>\n
jpoisson@thestar.ca<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","topic-tag":[],"class_list":["post-1358","topic","type-topic","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tgr.net.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic\/1358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tgr.net.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tgr.net.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/topic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tgr.net.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic\/1358\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tgr.net.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"topic-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tgr.net.au\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic-tag?post=1358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}