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Non gender fear of faux pas

(52 Posts)
GlamM Sun 15-Sep-19 19:02:23

Evening GN

I wondered if anyone else has had the ‘ fear ‘ when congratulating new parents on the arrival of their little bundle of joy.

Despite rehearsing ‘ they’ I still put my bloody foot in it and said ‘ he ‘ it was not intentional but every time I got enthused about said littleone I messed up. I ended up slinking off mortified and dreading that I had deeply offended the parents.

Anyone else had a ‘ I wish the earth would swallow me up ‘ moment.

GagaJo Mon 16-Sep-19 22:29:19

I watched the videoclip about the parents raising the child as gender neutral and I thought it was fairly sensible.

They just wanted their child to develop into whoever the child themselves thought they were with no gender assumptions being made by people outside the family. Fair enough.

All this 'Oh she's a pretty girl' or 'He's a big strong boy' stuff is quite extreme socialisation really.

BradfordLass72 Mon 16-Sep-19 22:00:49

....or even "girl" grin

BradfordLass72 Mon 16-Sep-19 22:00:23

I know this is an ultra-revolutionary idea but how about:

'Is this little darling a boy or a gilr?'

GlamM Mon 16-Sep-19 19:32:08

Not at all , I wanted to know if anyone else had a similar experience. If I wanted to cause outrage I’d talk about the B word

GlamM Mon 16-Sep-19 19:30:30

No , the baby is called river , I have two boys and a grandson myself , baby looked like a boy . However that was a genuine slip from me as it’s all I am used to having had no girls. I am asking purely to see what others would do and not to cause offence. I have no issue with them calling the baby them / they , it is just confusing.

GlamM Mon 16-Sep-19 19:23:54

Baby is called river .. so no wiser there confused

MissAdventure Mon 16-Sep-19 16:15:52

Surely there is a difference between intersex and gender neutral though?

NanaandGrampy Mon 16-Sep-19 15:10:42

How do you raise a gender neutral child ? In terms of clothing that rules out dresses and skirts etc so the child will be dressed in trousers all the time which surely veers towards more masculine clothing ??

Am I the only person who sees a world 50 years from now where everyone is called they, dresses in identical grey dungarees and is gender neutral ? ?

GagaJo Mon 16-Sep-19 15:06:20

and another friend whose baby had chromosomes which were varied between male and female. No uterus or ovaries.

GagaJo Mon 16-Sep-19 15:05:41

And what if you DID look inside a nappy and find a variation of genitals? I knew a person whose baby was born with a penis lump and a vestigal vagina. There are MANY people walking around who are NOT solely male or female but don't make it obvious to all and sundry.

grandtanteJE65 Mon 16-Sep-19 14:26:43

I am full of sympathy for those who feel that their physical sex doesn't correspond to the way the feel, but surely this is a problem that they become aware of once they are old enough to know that all living creatures are either male or female?

A baby presumably doesn't know or care whether it is male or female.

I find it hard to believe that people honestly believe they can avoid gender conditioning of young children simply be changing a pronoun!

Anja Mon 16-Sep-19 14:08:40

Have I wandered off this planet onto one made of blue cheese?

Parsley3 Mon 16-Sep-19 13:53:23

I wondered about that, ann. Did she never babysit at all?

annsixty Mon 16-Sep-19 13:39:20

Can you really believe the Gran didn't take a little peek inside the nappy?

janeainsworth Mon 16-Sep-19 13:37:09

Bluebelle I accept trans and bi etc as adult choices but I totally draw the line at calling a baby ‘it’ or ‘they’
Spot on with that comment.
I can’t help wondering if the OP was just trying to see how many outraged comments he or she could elicit from what he or she imagines as the reactionary members of Gransnet.

BlueBelle Mon 16-Sep-19 13:28:06

beckett I ve reread the original post and can’t see anything about parents refusing to say what the baby’s sex is and it was that post I was answering

I m afraid I will continue to call babies he or she
I accept trans and bi etc as adult choices but I totally draw the line at calling a baby ‘it’ or ‘they’ which doesn’t make sense anyway you can’t look in a pram and say ‘they are beautiful’ if there’s only one baby Oh pleeeese

suedonin that link is hilarious the mothers Christian name if ‘Hobbit’

annsixty Mon 16-Sep-19 13:18:18

If this is the couple featured on the BBC website today the mother's name is Hobbit.
I think that says it all.

Luckygirl Mon 16-Sep-19 13:03:48

Non-binary - may the lord preserve us! I am glad that I am nearing the final stage of life! grin

Callistemon Mon 16-Sep-19 11:32:24

Male, have changed this twice but apparently not acceptable!

Callistemon Mon 16-Sep-19 11:31:36

anno
So many people looked in the pram and said 'Isn't she gorgeous/beautiful' etc
I used to say 'It's a he, that's why he's wearing blue boy's clothes!'
He's still gorgeous in his 40s! But definitely make.

However, I do realise that some people are non-specific, but this is not the majority.

Sparklefizz Mon 16-Sep-19 11:23:20

Crikey GagaJo Your link has really taught me something today.

Actually, a fair proportion of humans do not fit into the male/female dichotomy. Somewhere between 1 & 10% of humans are not solely male or female.

www.nytimes.com/1993/03/12/opinion/how-many-sexes-are-there.html

GagaJo Mon 16-Sep-19 11:21:34

Contrary to popular belief, children these days are actually quite accepting of non standard gender identity or sexuality. So much so I'm often nicely surprised at school.

SueDonim Mon 16-Sep-19 11:15:57

Maybe it's these people. www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-bristol-49693983/the-parents-keeping-their-child-s-sex-a-secret

Beckett Mon 16-Sep-19 10:47:40

BlueBelle - the problem is the parents in sunseekers post would not say - they would just say it was gender neutral, may even then give a lecture about labelling children.

BlueBelle Mon 16-Sep-19 10:37:47

If it’s not obvious... pink dress blue trousers ( yes a lot of people still use the colours) then just say ‘what a beautiful baby what did you have boy or girl’ what’s wrong with that ?
And if it’s a girl she’s beautiful or he for a boy I for one am not going to think twice about any gender based stuff till they re in their teens
Not worth even thinking about