Okay, so let me break this down as a parent of both a boy and a girl.
1. To raise them gender neutral or not, is kinda forcing them to behave in a certain way, one way or the other.
How? Gender neutral isn't telling them anything, it's just not telling them certain things.
2. The problem isn't about our kids. I agree, it's about society, and new things/ways to raise your child but which has shown to be ineffective.
People raise their kids gender neutral so that they can send a message to society that gender stereotypes don't have to define who you are. They aren't doing it just because they are afraid their kid will turn out transgender, as seems to have been implied.
3. True. But I have a choice as a parent with which society I stand, and whether or not I invoke those ideas in my kids. It's like the choice of religion/political party etc. I am the guardian of my child, and I must protect and raise him. Not society.
Absolutely. But the point that you may as well not bother raising a kid gender neutral because society will lead them to be gendered anyway is missing the tragedy of the commons point.
4. Neither is society. But I'm a better suited individual as I'm with them every single day, I am the one who wakes up at night to help them when they can't help themselves.
Absolutely you are probably better than society At it. My point here is that what you perceive your kids to want is likely very heavily influenced by unconscious bias. And it would be remiss of you to not recognise that.
5. True. But gay men still pee differently than women.
Gay males do yes. I'm glad you agree.
6. That's what laws and society dictate. When they are born they get classified as a boy or a girl or intersexed. I didn't choose it. Hell, I didn't even choose to have twins, God did. And he picked their sexes. My son, who is a boy has a penis and does boyish things just like I did, and I didn't force anything on to him, he's 2 ffs!!
But there is no difference between boys and girls at that age apart from physical things. The fact, if it is actually true, that your toddler of male sex acts like a stereotypical boy is either random or more likely because of societies influence.
Again, I want to raise the issue of the age of the child as a critical factor. Between the age of 0 to 13 your child is very incompetent on many issues, and gender neutrality is just another topic to be thrown in the bowl for which such a child have no idea of the concept. I say if you want to raise your kid gender neutral, do it when they understand the concept and what it entails. prior to that let them just be a kid and play and not be aware of all the horrible things in the world
Gender neutrality isn't another topic, gender is, theoretically. But I agree in practice that it would be confusing because it would contradict other messages society is giving.
