Gender Neutral Children

Some parents choose to raise their children in a gender neutral way. By doing this, they are not revealing the sex of their child to the public. They allow their children to dress and play with girl and boy toys. They do not want their children to be influenced by the stereotypical gender roles because they believe it limits them to act in one specific way. Two examples of children who were raised gender neutral are Sasha and Storm. Sasha of Canada and Storm of the UK were both born male but friends, family, and acquaintances were not made aware of the sex of these children. Sasha's sex was kept a secret for five years because his parents believed it was hard to keep it a secret when schooling started. Storm did not attend public school. Sasha was referred to as 'the infant' while Storm responded to boy and girl pronouns. Both of these children fall on a wide spectrum when it comes to acting or dressing more male or female. Unfortunately, many critics of this practice believe these families are experimenting on their children and raising them in a poor condition. I do not agree that this practice is for experimentation. I believe these families sincerely believe in limiting the chance of skewing their child's potential by categorizing them into a specific gender. I am interested in the long term effects of this practice and hope more families consider this. It is interesting that both Sasha and Storm prefer to dress in dresses and play with dolls because they do not know the female stereotype that this holds. However, I do believe you can teach children to be open-minded when it comes to playing with different boy and girl toys even with their gender identified. By not addressing a child's gender, the child will most likely have self identity issues and confusion in the future. He or she will eventually catch on to the secret as he or she grows older and experience the evils of the real world stereotypes.