Boy or Girl? This 4-Month-Old is Being Raised Genderless

Once you announce your child's sex, you're bombarded with an endless parade of gender-specific clothing and toys. This blue and pink extravaganza is something I've always struggled with. I don't want my daughter conditioned to be a girly-girl just as I don't want my son to think that he has to be an athlete. That's why I find one Canadian couple's decision to raise their child genderless fascinating.

Storm is 4-months-old. The beautiful baby has adorable chubby cheeks, bright blue eyes and blonde hair that could belong to either a boy or a girl. But as the Toronto Star reports, there is nothing ambiguous about Storm's genitalia. It's just that Storm's parents -- David Stocker and Kathy Witterick -- have chosen not to reveal their child's gender.

"It began as a offhand remark. "Hey, what if we just didn't tell?" And then Stocker found a book in his school library called X: A Fabulous Child's Story by Lois Gould. The book, published in 1978, is about raising not a boy or a girl, but X. There's a happy ending here. Little X - who loved to play football and weave baskets - faces the taunting head on, proving that X is the most well-adjusted child ever examined by 'an impartial team of Xperts.'"

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"It became so compelling it was almost like, How could we not?" says Witterick.

The only people who know are Storm's two brothers, Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2, and a couple of family friends including the midwives who delivered Storm. The couple tells Toronto Star reporter Jaymie Poisson they plan to keep Storm's sex a secret as long as Storm, Kio and Jazz are comfortable with it.

"If you really want to get to know someone, you don't ask what's between their legs," Witterick says. That's why she sent the following email to friends and family after Storm was born:

"We've decided not to share Storm's sex for now - a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation, a stand up to what the world could become in Storm's lifetime (a more progressive place? …)."

Family and friends support the decision but struggle with how to explain the gender-free baby to others. They also worry the children will be taunted because of their parents' decision.

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So what prompted the Stocker's unusual decision? The couple says they want to free their children from social norms and the rules of society. Being genderless, they believe, is giving their children the ultimate choice to be who they want to be. Some say the parents' decision will backfire and ultimately alienate their children from their peers.

A valid point. The couple has been experimenting with gender identity for years and their 4-year-old, Jazz, is already well-acquainted with the ridicule of those who don't understand why he has long hair and likes the color pink. Jazz and Kio pick out their own clothes and decide whether or not to cut their hair. Just this week Jazz picked out a pink dress which he says he loves because it "really poofs out at the bottom. It feels so nice." Jazz also keeps his long hair in three braids, two in the front and one in the back. He loves to paint his fingernails. He also wears a sparkly pink stud in one ear. His choice -- his parents don't even wear jewelry or nail polish. Society has conditioned us to think this is feminine behavior that probably means the little boy is "gay." But stop and think about it: Why is pink a feminine color? Why is nail polish girly? Because society tells us it is. Yet, when you give a child freedom to choose what they want to be, what really is wrong with a boy liking sparkles? They're sparkly!

Jazz's younger brother Kio keeps his curly blond hair long too and loves the color purple. "As a result, Jazz and now Kio are almost exclusively assumed to be girls," says Stocker, adding he and Witterick don't out them. It's up to the boys to correct assumptions about their gender.

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That may be why the third time around, Stocker and Witterick figured they could really give their child a blank slate by not sharing his or her gender. "We thought that if we delayed sharing that information, in this case hopefully, we might knock off a couple million of those messages by the time that Storm decides Storm would like to share," says Witterick.

On the one hand I applaud the parents' bravery in confronting a society riddled with gender identity assumptions that pigeon-hole so many of us but, much like the kids' grandparents, I also wonder whether the social experiment is causing more harm than good to the children. For example, Jazz is old enough to go to school but wants to stay home because he is upset by the other kids' reactions to his choice of pink and his long, braided hair.

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Monica Bielanko was born and raised on the wild frontier of late 1970's Utah. She once went to see an unknown band from Philly and three months later she married the guitar player. They are still hitched six years later. She lived in Brooklyn, New York for a few years and she misses the Big Apple bad. She works in TV news. She loves nachos and beer and music and books and her two black labs. Her heart belongs to her toddler, Violet and her newborn little boy, Henry. Oh yeah, she also likes wine. When she's not babbling you can find her at thegirlwho.net.