October 4, 2011
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The Price Of Noncompliance
Toronto couple Kathy Witterick and David Stocker did the usual thing that any parents do when their new child is born, they sent out an email notice noting their new baby’s vital statistics and eye color. But what they did differently was to leave short, simple statement about their baby, named Storm.
It read:
“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? …”
Essentially what Witterick and Stoker have decided is to not assume that Storm is cisgender and to leave it to Storm to figure out whom zie is for zimself in the spirit of self determination and autonomy, free of coercive gender stereotyping.
As explained in their own words their choice was as simple as that.
On May 21st, 2011 the family was featured in The Toronto Star in a story about their decision not to coercively gender Storm. In the proceeding days the story was quickly picked up by other news outlets. Men’s Health, local Fox news affiliates, Human Events, and even The Times of India re-posted the story on their websites.
Predictably, the backlash against this act not in compliance with coercive gendering came to a head and Internet Shitstorm Machine sprang to life.
As one can imagine in our cis-centric society, the family has received an enormous amount of criticism and little praise for their parenting choices. They have been accused of making their baby in to a “social experiment”, of “borderline child abuse”, and “being amoral hippies” in commentary from a multitude of sources. This fire storm of controversy and personal accusation have all come in the name of the “the good of the baby”.
But it’s hard for me to believe that any of this criticism can be counted on as being intellectually honest or in the best interest of Storm. Storm and zir’s parents are experiencing what trans people are well used to, namely, they’re receiving criticism that is not about Strom at all. Instead, Storm and zir parents are being used by cis people as foils for their own personal conflicts, confusion and stereotypes about gender and gender relations.
Both Storm and trans people are treated as kind of an abstract concept that cis people can project their own conflicts, fears and anxieties upon. But in either case, it’s not about Storm or trans people; it’s about cisgender people’s anxieties and keeping cis -supremacy in order.
As for the criticisms and “concerns”, let’s go through the three most prevalent objections I’ve seen.
1. “This will confuse the baby and damage zim”
This argument is obviously flawed in the fact that it assumes that Storm will grow up to be cis or have a binary gender identity/expression, which of course is not to be taken for granted. It also assumes that coercively raising a child as male or female as people usually do is inherently “natural” and doesn’t do damage to people when it fact it can have the opposite effect, as borne out by the lived experiences of both cis and trans people. What Storm’s parents are doing is the opposite of coercion, they’re letting Storm to figure out zir own gender for zirself. How could allowing a child a carefully considered range of freedom be damaging?
2. “This is social experiment with a political agenda.”
Again we see the effects of cis-centric thinking at work here. The truth is that I’m an experiment, you’re an experiment and we’re all experiments of a cis-supremacist and misogynistic society. Saying this ignores that children are influenced by gender stereotypes and depictions of gendered behavior dozens, perhaps hundreds of times a day. People only notice this when someone refuses to conform to these stereotypes or decides not to teach them to their children, as Storm’s parents are doing.
Socialization can come in good and bad forms. For example many kids today are socialized in to racist ideology and behavior. Yet we don’t talk about the evils of that kind of socialization because it would challenge white supremacy prevalent in American society. And in this case, we don’t hear about objections over gender socialization until people are giving their children the free will in a challenge to cis-supremacy.
And our normative gender relations and stereotyping have an enormous political agenda, namely in defending patriarchy, heterosexism and cis-supremacy to the bitter end.
3. “The child will be bullied and harmed by others”
This is about the only argument I’ve seen that actually could honestly have concern for Storm’s welfare as a top priority. But the logic is still broken, it puts the onus on an individual who somehow different to avoid being abused on compromising their integrity at their own expense. The logic privileges that “fact” that bullies will bully over the safety of the abused and that the parents are “asking for trouble”.
Of course Storm could be bullied for not being assigned a gender at birth. But that’s far down the road and as zir’s parents point out, people could bully zim for other reasons. Bullies don’t need a reason to bully. Storm’s parents acknowledge this danger in the story and seem to be on alert for anyone who might marginalize Storm. In the end the problems with bullies are bullies, not Storm or how zir’s parents raise zim.
Though the ugly face of cis-supremacy has revealed itself with its usual speed in this episode, we need to support and honor the parenting choices of Storm’s parents. To overcome cis-supremacy we need to support parenting choices that offer the most constructive forms of freedom and flexibility to our children in order to enjoy their life to the fullest extent possible.
The saddest fact about Storm’s and zir’s parent’s story is that they simply cannot win in the cis-supremacist Catch-22. If Storm grows up to be cisgender/cissexual and of a binary gender expression people will then hail that as an example of the triumph of gender essentialism. If Storm grows up to have a non-binary identity or is transsexual, then the parents will be further demonized and denounced for somehow “brainwashing” or “damaging” Storm.
And this is what you get for non-compliance with society’s ultimate cis-supremacist agenda.
Comments (14)
The only problem I have with this is that this will getting confusing for that child once he or she hits puberty. Men and women are built different biologically…women get their periods and breasts not to mention they can get pregnant while men will go through their first erections, etc. The parents will have to eventually explain the difference between being a man and a woman.
On a rhetorical level, I love the Orwellian language here. “Coercively gendered” is awesome, as well as “being assigned a gender at birth.” It makes the status quo sound so violent and oppressive. I think we could find something more powerful than “cis-centric” and “cis-supremacist,” though, because that doesn’t sound either as ominous or scientific (and therefore plausible) as terms like “anthropocentric.”
On the other hand, I have always felt like the genderless personal pronouns are a bit much. They feel a bit too attention-seeking. Much better, I think, to rework most of the sentences so that pronouns are unneeded.
Have you ever heard of David Reimer? I got his book. He was a twin and at age two, when a circumcision accident took away his penis, he was raised as a girl. He always knew it wasn’t right, because he actually WAS a boy. it really messed him up that he was not allowed to do all the ‘boy’ things his twin was enjoying, and he said it never felt right. The moment he was told that he actually WAS born a boy, he wanted to BE a boy.
In light of that, it seems that we actually are bent a certain way depending on what gender we were born with. No matter what society does, we are born the way we are born, and the genders are different. That’s just the way it is.
I think we should just raise them as what they were born as and wait and see if they have a problem with it. Find out whatever they are naturally drawn to, and then encourage them to blossom in whatever their God given talents are, Not try to relive our youth through them, and not try to force our ruined dreams for ourselves on them. Let them find their own dreams and then encourage them to pursue them.
My oldest daughter, who will be a full fledged 18 year old adult in March, says she is asexual. She has no desire to be with a man or a woman. If that makes her happy, it is fine with me. She hates dresses, and never wears them, she isn’t into makeup, and her hair is currently red, yellow, blue and black. Most “Christian” moms would have a heart attack but I don’t mind. It’s her hair.
I didn’t have a problem with this at all at first. Then I realized it’s not satire. Now it’s not so much that I have a problem with it, as that it is objectviely a problem. That is pretty much child abuse. They are basically forcing that child to be ashamed of his or her gender instead of doing the normal, healthy, human thing and learning to own that gender and rejoice in it. As if there was something shameful about being male or female. Poor Child. These people need a lot of prayers.
@mtngirlsouth - i have to agree. i think it’s better to raise a kid as their genetic gender, as most of us will happily embrace that gender, and just be open to the idea that the child may change their mind. I wouldn’t force my son to wear pants if he liked dresses or force him to play with trucks if he likes barbies, but I’m also not going to refuse to tell people his genetic gender or treat him like his genetic gender until he indicates he wants to be treated otherwise.
What she said. And, by she, I meant @mtngirlsouth .
I for one am out of here!
I love absolutely everything about this article. Everything, everything, everything.
@mtngirlsouth - I’ve read that story; it’s heartbreaking. I’ve also read a lot of books by trans people, including one I’d like to recommend to you. It’s called The Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Feminism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, and it’s by Julia Serano. That’s the first book I read that allowed me to feel normal, because it gave me words to describe my experience. I’d never argue that all genders are the same, but I would argue that there are more than two genders, and that the parts you’re born with aren’t as important as the brain you’re born with.
Regardless of whether or not we ever meet in the middle on this issue, Sam, I encourage you to keep reading and exploring– I know you will, and I like that about you.
interesting story!! it reminds me of the case of david reimer somehow…what if they pick the wrong gender?…I totally understand the parents. I understand that “normally” people would try to make the person a boy or girl early, to make it as authetic as possible, but if you’ve heard bout gender identity, this absolutely seems the right choice.
We all have some of both gender traits in us. And behavior expectations of both sexes are pretty broad in today’s society. Since the overwhelmingly majority of people do embrace their own gender, I’m for raising the child a boy or girl according to societal expectations and customs. Since the odds are the child will embrace his gender according to societal expectations, bringing him up as a non-boy or non-girl might do him/her serious psychological and emotional harm, and for what? For the teeniest tiniest chance that he might not embrace being a boy or girl?
@opticalnoise - Thank you.
<3 I will have to find and read that one.
I know!! It is so weird how doctors call people with penises and testicles “males” and people with vaginas “females”. The world is such a weird place. Catagorizing people based on their physical characteristics.
I don’t share my hair color with people because I don’t want to be pigeon-holed.
@CecilliaMarie - i think it would be more confusing for ze to grow up labeled as one gender and want to be/feel they are another. no one is saying that when they physically/biologically develop to continue saying “ze/zir” but to let ze make the choice zimself.