Letting a baby pick its gender(s)

Recently, a couple in Canada was criticized for refusing to reveal the sex of their newborn baby, Storm. There have been lots of articles about it, and here is one that I found a couple of weeks ago--



http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-world-canada/20110527/CN.Canada.Genderless.Baby/



I shared this story with a friend, who in return had a similar story for me. Ever heard of Baby X, from the 1970s? This is the story of a couple who raised a little X, who ended up being the most well-adjusted kid in its school. I've found the book on Amazon, and my understanding is that this is an excerpt? Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.



http://www.gendercentre.org.au/22article4.htm



Anyway, I find some areas of gender/queer studies absolutely fascinating. I'd love to look more into this issue, but for now, here are these two pieces. I do find myself wondering how much of what we do is based on what we truly feel, versus what society tells us to feel. And what's amazing is that some of this stuff is so deeply engrained into our psyche that we don't even pause to ask why things are the way they are. For instance, look at my post on shooting anvils. I copied the text from the e-mail directly, and as you can see, the sender calls the sport a true "guy thing." Does my wanting to try it out make me a guy?

And do you ever notice how it's okay for girls to be tomboy-ish, but it's not okay for boys to be girly? It's good to be a Daddy's Girl, but bad to be a Mama's Boy? Of course, the article about Baby X was written back when gender roles were more strictly enforced than they are now. Back in the day, all girls took home ec classes, and all boys took woodworking. I daresay that those two sets of classes should be brought back into the school curriculum, but I believe that they should be mandatory for all students.

So yeah. That's enough of my opinion. I just find this all extremely interesting. I do believe that any Baby X, such as Storm, could grow up to be a perfectly happy and healthy individual. If anything is going to eff things up, it's how he/she/it/etc is accepted by our highly categorized society.

Best of luck to you, Storm!