[Kaunisenkeli]

Originally Posted by Quiet Man Cometh

I remember reading a cute little story in college. Can't remember what it was called, something like "Baby X" (X being the name I can't remember) and it was a about a couple that raised their kid with the sex a secret. They dressed the kid in gender neutral colours and gender neutral clothing (overalls so people couldn't tell gender by which way the buttons went on a shirt) and the kid did both masculine and feminine things, it had a gender neutral name, and eventually in school other kids began doing things that their "genders" weren't supposed to do, like the sporty boy vacuuming floors and the girly girl mowing the lawn. Parents started throwing a fuss until they demanded the kid's sex be determined. We never did get the answer to that, but the point was that the kid knew perfectly well what it was, and that everyone else would know when it actually mattered, the implication being that someone's sex doesn't matter until reproduction comes into things.

Pretty sure it's fiction, but. I liked the story. The parents were all frustrated but the children couldn't care less. My mother raised me somewhat the same way. We wore boys' clothes sometimes when she thought the girls' clothes looked stupid. She got us toy trucks and things as kids. My sister took faster to the "boys' toy section" than I did, but it didn't matter to her that I still liked My Little Pony and my sister was all over the toy insects and snakes. My dad taught my sister and I to shoot and fish. It never occurred to me until college really that those might not have been considered typical "girl" activities.

I'm not sure about your story, but I've heard of at least some parents who raise their child without gender until the child can speak for itself.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/...170824245.html
http://www.parenting.com/blogs/show-...-gender-secret
Two articles on a case from the US.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ild-Sasha.html
And one from the UK.

It's an interesting idea, and certainly changes a problem the medical community had with intersexed children from quite a while. It used to be common practice when a child was born intersexed for them to be assigned at birth on the basis of which genitalia seemed dominant, and the parents tried to raise them from there in the "box" the doctors had slotted the child into (sometimes with disastrous results).

In developmental psychology, there is a case that taught the world (although not immediately because of one doctor's huge problem with ethics and actually listening to the evidence, but that comes later) that gender isn't something that comes in with the child's upbringing (re: nature vs. nurture debate). This was the now infamous Twins Case. I believe the story of David (born Bruce, raised as Brenda until puberty) Reimer speaks for itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GhbVFjIaN0
http://www.slate.com/articles/health...ender_gap.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer