Cenk and Ana watch an old clip of a couple in Sweden that want to keep their child “genderless.” Cenk says his opinion has not changed, while Ana says her position has become harsher. They discuss gender roles in the cultures they grew up in.
This is not liberal, this is child abuse. Parents have every right to push their ideas about gender roles quite a bit, but they do not have the moral right to experiment with the very identity of their kids. The legal aspect is different, but morally you have to lead your kids and be the role models that your kids use to create their own identities.
Kids can live perfectly good lives if they have good homes with good role models in their parents, even if they eventually find they are homosexual or transgender, for example. With a bit of drama and maybe some therapy for some or all in the family, these issues get resolved when kids are old enough to at least understand the issues. But a kid with no role models is just a mental case in the making. No human being is able to cope with a total void in the most significant aspects of their life. Humans abhor the void, and create aliens, ghosts, gods and so many other things to fill the void spaces. When the void is a huge part of your identity, you will be very lucky if that void does not become a total break down of your identity.
My dad yelled at me when I accidently told him a came out on Facebook. He punished my brother for playing with Barbies. My daddy laughs when I get mad and yells at me when I express emotion in my voice. I don’t like him. I love him irregardless. I just wish he could respect me the way I respect him. That’s all I want in life. Everyone I know respects me besides members of my family. I apologize for venting on the Internet, I got called an attention whore today and I don’t know if it’s even socially acceptable to voice my opinion on there Internet anymore. I’m just depressed so many people can’t see past their own introspection.
Auto-In-corrects. When I told my dad I was bi, he said, “WHAT, I just thought you only liked girls.” When I told him I was gay, he said, “no way.”
I said, if you wanna argue, talk to me when I’m done with my shower.
When I got done, he said, “so you never wanna get married and have kids.”
I’m pangender and I want kids. I’m pangender because Trans people exist and they’re beautiful. I’m Gay however because I’m mainly attracted to men, so it’s easier to say I’m a Gay pangender than a pansexual. I just vent and express my opinions on the interent. I’m sorry if I bother people or come across insincere. It’s not my intent.
dDErss
I really appreciate your understanding transgender issues. Many people don’t think about the agony of being a young transgender child and knowing the puberty you are going through is the wrong one and there is nothing you can do. Luckily for me, I “pass” a term transgender people use for other transgender people who are not obviously transgender. I got lucky, others don’t get as lucky and it’s super important to understand that if your young child tells you they are transgender its vital you listen. You don’t have to immediately allow your child to transition ( in fact you can’t) but there are ways you can block puberty from happening with no significant negative side effects and you can do this until around 16 years old. in that time you should take your kid to therapists let them explore and not force either puberty on them until they are ready and it won’t be a torturous, horrendous experience.
I mean.. interesting. Those parents are brave to attempt something like that… but I’m not sure if its the best thing for a child that will have to come to terms with gender roles regardless of it’s upbringing. And it’s odd, while I personally support a trans individual’s right to choose their own path, I would in no way support legislation that required parents to allow pre-pubescent minors to begin transitioning. I do not know personally, but have been told by friends that identifying as trans and beginning the transition earlier than later leads to “better” outcomes for the individual; I just don’t think I or anyone else has the right to march in and tell parents how to raise their child.
In my opinion Cenk and Ana misunderstood the point of this parenting approach. It was not only about allowing the child to play with Barbies or toy soldiers regardless of his/her gender, it was more about not forcing the child into a certain gender identity.
The amount of confusion and suffering many transgender people go through during their childhood should make any thinking empathetic liberal worry about framing their children into specific gender.
If the Swedish parents would skip the “genderless” stage and would refer to the child as “he” before he identified as a boy himself, and it was a case of a transgender, they would have probably never learned about his gender identity until much later. And that could turn out to be tragic: transgender cases are especially severe for a boy since if she (using pronoun of biological boy’s accepted gender identity) only comes out by her teens her features become so masculine that no amount of surgery would make her a believable woman she wants to herself to be (for example, there is no neck thinning or shoulders narrowing surgeries). This contributes a huge amount to the sky-high suicide rates among teenage transgenders. Allowing a child freely understand his/her gender allows to start appropriate therapy much earlier, preventing alien body features to develop, and it could be literally life-saving measure for your child.
Another issue is whether a child with such parenting would be bullied during the “genderless” phase. In many areas within Sweden it would be be the case, so such parenting is perfectly acceptable. In many other areas, the bullied could be severe and harm the child as much or more than potential gender identity issue. There is no universal answer: it depends on local society where a child will be raised. But the fact that parents only need to keep the “genderless” phase for only about the first five years of child’s life greatly helps since even in generally hostile communities you can arrange this period in a way where the bullying would not be avoided.
Comments
This is not liberal, this is child abuse. Parents have every right to push their ideas about gender roles quite a bit, but they do not have the moral right to experiment with the very identity of their kids. The legal aspect is different, but morally you have to lead your kids and be the role models that your kids use to create their own identities.
Kids can live perfectly good lives if they have good homes with good role models in their parents, even if they eventually find they are homosexual or transgender, for example. With a bit of drama and maybe some therapy for some or all in the family, these issues get resolved when kids are old enough to at least understand the issues. But a kid with no role models is just a mental case in the making. No human being is able to cope with a total void in the most significant aspects of their life. Humans abhor the void, and create aliens, ghosts, gods and so many other things to fill the void spaces. When the void is a huge part of your identity, you will be very lucky if that void does not become a total break down of your identity.
Animals are innocent.
I would say movement and vibration are the universal langauge…I just work with the Deaf community…they dont seem to need our music
The day I asked my bullies if I was a nice person was the last day they bullied me.
My dad yelled at me when I accidently told him a came out on Facebook. He punished my brother for playing with Barbies. My daddy laughs when I get mad and yells at me when I express emotion in my voice. I don’t like him. I love him irregardless. I just wish he could respect me the way I respect him. That’s all I want in life. Everyone I know respects me besides members of my family. I apologize for venting on the Internet, I got called an attention whore today and I don’t know if it’s even socially acceptable to voice my opinion on there Internet anymore. I’m just depressed so many people can’t see past their own introspection.
Auto-In-corrects. When I told my dad I was bi, he said, “WHAT, I just thought you only liked girls.” When I told him I was gay, he said, “no way.”
I said, if you wanna argue, talk to me when I’m done with my shower.
When I got done, he said, “so you never wanna get married and have kids.”
I’m pangender and I want kids. I’m pangender because Trans people exist and they’re beautiful. I’m Gay however because I’m mainly attracted to men, so it’s easier to say I’m a Gay pangender than a pansexual. I just vent and express my opinions on the interent. I’m sorry if I bother people or come across insincere. It’s not my intent.
dDErss
I really appreciate your understanding transgender issues. Many people don’t think about the agony of being a young transgender child and knowing the puberty you are going through is the wrong one and there is nothing you can do. Luckily for me, I “pass” a term transgender people use for other transgender people who are not obviously transgender. I got lucky, others don’t get as lucky and it’s super important to understand that if your young child tells you they are transgender its vital you listen. You don’t have to immediately allow your child to transition ( in fact you can’t) but there are ways you can block puberty from happening with no significant negative side effects and you can do this until around 16 years old. in that time you should take your kid to therapists let them explore and not force either puberty on them until they are ready and it won’t be a torturous, horrendous experience.
I mean.. interesting. Those parents are brave to attempt something like that… but I’m not sure if its the best thing for a child that will have to come to terms with gender roles regardless of it’s upbringing. And it’s odd, while I personally support a trans individual’s right to choose their own path, I would in no way support legislation that required parents to allow pre-pubescent minors to begin transitioning. I do not know personally, but have been told by friends that identifying as trans and beginning the transition earlier than later leads to “better” outcomes for the individual; I just don’t think I or anyone else has the right to march in and tell parents how to raise their child.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9028479/Couple-raise-child-as-gender-neutral-to-avoid-stereotyping.html
Dunno how reliable my random google “what did the kind end up being” search was, but according to this– Cenk was right, it was a boy.
Good find.
In my opinion Cenk and Ana misunderstood the point of this parenting approach. It was not only about allowing the child to play with Barbies or toy soldiers regardless of his/her gender, it was more about not forcing the child into a certain gender identity.
The amount of confusion and suffering many transgender people go through during their childhood should make any thinking empathetic liberal worry about framing their children into specific gender.
If the Swedish parents would skip the “genderless” stage and would refer to the child as “he” before he identified as a boy himself, and it was a case of a transgender, they would have probably never learned about his gender identity until much later. And that could turn out to be tragic: transgender cases are especially severe for a boy since if she (using pronoun of biological boy’s accepted gender identity) only comes out by her teens her features become so masculine that no amount of surgery would make her a believable woman she wants to herself to be (for example, there is no neck thinning or shoulders narrowing surgeries). This contributes a huge amount to the sky-high suicide rates among teenage transgenders. Allowing a child freely understand his/her gender allows to start appropriate therapy much earlier, preventing alien body features to develop, and it could be literally life-saving measure for your child.
Another issue is whether a child with such parenting would be bullied during the “genderless” phase. In many areas within Sweden it would be be the case, so such parenting is perfectly acceptable. In many other areas, the bullied could be severe and harm the child as much or more than potential gender identity issue. There is no universal answer: it depends on local society where a child will be raised. But the fact that parents only need to keep the “genderless” phase for only about the first five years of child’s life greatly helps since even in generally hostile communities you can arrange this period in a way where the bullying would not be avoided.