FSTDT Forums
Community => Religion and Philosophy => Topic started by: sandman on January 20, 2012, 10:41:09 pm
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Here's the link (http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/couple-finally-reveals-childs-gender-five-years-birth-180300388.html) to the story, but in a nutshell, it's some idiots in the UK who have kept the gender of their child a secret for five years because they wanted to allow "the infant" total freedom of self expression and self identification. Yeah, they're pretentious douche bags.
But what really struck me were these bits:
Sasha dresses in clothes he likes -- be it a hand-me-downs from his sister or his brother. The big no-no's are hyper-masculine outfits like skull-print shirts and cargo pants.
So.....the little boy is allowed to express and self-identify as he likes....unless that choice is masculine attire. So much for total freedom of choice, eh?
Also this bit:
Sasha's also not short on dolls, though Barbie is also off limits. "She's banned because she's horrible," Laxton says in the Cambridge interview.
Huh. So, he can choose his playthings as he likes regardless of the gender orientation of the toy.....unless it's a Barbie. Because she's "horrible." So much for not judging the gender choices of others, even if it's a toy.
Then there's this bit.
But the sandbox is just a precursor to the classroom. When Sasha turned five and headed to school, Laxton was forced to make her son's sex public. That meant Sasha would have to get used to being a boy in the eyes of his peers. Still, his mom is intervening. While the school requires different uniforms for boys and girls, Sasha wears a girl's blouse with his pants.
"I don't think I'd do it if I thought it was going to make him unhappy, but at the moment he's not really bothered either way. We haven't had any difficult scenarios yet."
Annnnnd...so much for allowing the kid to choose his own clothing. Now mom is making sure that he is dressed in a mixture of male and female outfits. It's obvious from her comment that SHE is choosing to make this sexual-political statement using her child as a tool. This has nothing to do with the poor kid and everything to do with his parent's agenda.
Oh, and forcing your 5 year old son to wear girls blouses to school? Yeah, that's probably not going to come back to bite him on the ass, is it? Way to set your kid up to be a pariah. I, personally, have no problem with someone wearing what they like. It doesn't matter to me in the slightest if some guy wants to wear a dress or a girl refuses to. That's their business. But this? This is a parent with an agenda using their child to make a "point." Yeah it would be awesome if no kid was ever judged by what they wear, but we all know we don't live in that world.
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Gender freedom
Yer doin' it wrong
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Are you trying to give him a Gender Identity Crisis?
... oh. Yes you are.
*facepalm*
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Nearly all the comments are agreeing about the stupidity of this, but it's disgusting to see how many of them are using this to slam gay people and gay parents.
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Actually I'm several "More" clicks down and I haven't found any gay-bashing yet. I did find this funny comment:
I raised my kid to be Species neutral. I tried to avoid all that species bias. When it was 5 I decided to tell it that it was Human. It however chose a different path and decided it was a Bald Eagle. Needless to say the first leap off of a high perch ended my experiment.
Sums up the stupidity of the situation...
EDIT: Oh, it's some of the replies. Not the main comments themselves. Still, that's actually not bad, considering it's the Internet.
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Actually I'm several "More" clicks down and I haven't found any gay-bashing yet. I did find this funny comment:
I raised my kid to be Species neutral. I tried to avoid all that species bias. When it was 5 I decided to tell it that it was Human. It however chose a different path and decided it was a Bald Eagle. Needless to say the first leap off of a high perch ended my experiment.
Sums up the stupidity of the situation...
EDIT: Oh, it's some of the replies. Not the main comments themselves. Still, that's actually not bad, considering it's the Internet.
Quite a few of them also seem hostile to actual transgenders in general, as they seem to take 'gender = sex' route.
Disgusting. I never thought a child raised by gay or lesbian parents wouldn't matter too much but after seeing this article, I am completely and utterly disgusted. Children are not some kind of experiment to conduct to reenforce some kind of whim on notions of sexuality. CPS should remove this child from these beasts immediately.
I'm sorry, and I really don't care about all the thumb's down I get from this comment, but this is exactly why gay people should not be allowed to have children. They DO guide them to grow up having a sexual preference and that is wrong!
remember a story a few days ago, gays are better at rasing kids then a man and a woman? well this is the sort of crap we can expect when a lib/freaks raise kids. enjoy your day, this boy wiill not have much fun from this point forward. and the parents wil blame society, and not take any of the blame for the havoc they put in this little boys life
That's the dumbest thing i have ever heard... see stories like this is exactly why i don't agree in same sex marriage or adoption. so annoying... that kid will be all messed up
this story is just another by-product of a same sex marriage. and proves how dangerous this could be to the moral fabric of our society.people need to stop making social and political statements with children...
So where's the outraged biases against straight parents when the father molests his daughter? Or when the family is rife with domestic abuse?
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So where's the outraged biases against straight parents when the father molests his daughter? Or when the family is rife with domestic abuse?
The simple answer would be "on an article discussing it". There's no love lost for those situations either. And while it's easy to focus on the negative, there's a shitload of comments that aren't fundie in nature on that page, so I wouldn't worry about it too badly. It's taking time, but I do think it's getting better.
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Yeah, this is ridiculous. If they were truly doing what they said, then nothing would be off limits clothing wise. If he wanted to have hyper masculine clothes, he could.
Two friends of mine, I'll call them B and D, have a son named Sam. Sam is an effeminate child. They don't force him into any specific role. For example, for two years straight, he went as a princess for halloween. This year, he went as a pirate. I think it's great that the child is free to develop as he will naturally.
These people are definitely pushing an agenda..Kinda fucked up, honestly.
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Sasha dresses in clothes he likes -- be it a hand-me-downs from his sister or his brother. The big no-no's are hyper-masculine outfits like skull-print shirts and cargo pants.
So.....the little boy is allowed to express and self-identify as he likes....unless that choice is masculine attire. So much for total freedom of choice, eh?
Looking at that sentence, I read "no-no's" as representing the child's preference, not the mother's.
Sasha's also not short on dolls, though Barbie is also off limits. "She's banned because she's horrible," Laxton says in the Cambridge interview.
Huh. So, he can choose his playthings as he likes regardless of the gender orientation of the toy.....unless it's a Barbie. Because she's "horrible." So much for not judging the gender choices of others, even if it's a toy.
There are, of course, legitimate reasons to not want your child to play with Barbie dolls, so it's not clear why that restriction deserves censure.
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Watch this space for "trans gender little boy beaten to death by local bully" news story.
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That kid's gonna have a shitload of issues growing up, I guarantee it.
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That's an understatement if i ever heard one shitload does not describe the crap he is gonna probably have to go through.
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Exactly. I would say this borders on child abuse except that they're already well past the border.
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Undecided:
There are heavy implications that the "no-no" comes from the parents, not the child. Elsewhere in the article the mother outright admits that she makes clothing choices for the kid, and based on the author's writing style, it would be more likely for them to have said that the only clothing the child "won't" wear is hyper-masculine things. Plus, you know, who the hell classifies cargo pants as "hyper masculine" attire unless they have some kind of weird agenda.
I pointed out the Barbie thing because these are parents who claim that they are allowing their child full freedom in gender identification and self expression, but they have banned Barbies because they don't like that particular flavor of gender expression or identification. I can't for the life of me think of any other reason that they would ban the doll for being "horrible." They don't say they banned it for being poorly made, or constructed in China, or any of a dozen non-gender/political reasons, but because Barbie is "horrible." That's a pretty harsh judgment on gender expression right there. Do they also think that women who choose, of their own volition, to dress or behave in the hyper-feminine mene a la Barbie are also "horrible?" It seems that these people do not so much decry restrictions on gender expression as they do acceptance of gender expression they personally do not like.
My criticism of these assholes has nothing to do with allowing their child to wear whatever the hell he likes without consideration of gender specifics. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation or gender expression. It never did. I am criticizing these assholes (and assholes they most certainly are) because:
A) They are so unbelievably pretentious that they kept the gender of their child a secret for half a decade.
B) They are fucking hypocrites for claiming to want total freedom of gender and self expression for their child while at the same time placing restrictions (no "hyper masculine" clothes, whatever the hell those are) and requirements (making him wear girl's blouses to school) on him.
C) Claiming they make no judgments on gender expression (while at the same time describing some specific forms of gender expression to be "horrible" and banned).
D) Using their five year old child to make some nebulous, highly manipulative "point" about their sexual-political agenda, utterly regardless of the insanely high potential for future difficulties for the child from gender identity confusion, bullying, and ridicule, to being held up as some kind of national symbol for his parent's pretentious fucking ideals.
I mean, come on. We live in the age of the internet. You don't think that this kind of publicity isn't going to come back and bite him in the ass repeatedly for as long as he is in school? I am familiar with UK schools. If you think that anti-LGBT style bullying is bad in US schools, you ain't seen nothing. There are areas of the UK where Doc Martin boots (and the people who wear them) are specifically knows as "Queer Stompers" in schools. I'm not saying that this kid is going to be gay, and I'm not saying there would be the slightest thing wrong with him if he were, but some asshole basher in secondary school is going to Google the name of the fey kid in the new class and the next day all of this shit will be spread over the school like crablice at the Kardashian's. You think the thugs are going to stop to find out of this kid is gay or not before they stomp his ass into cheese flavoured dog food?
You think that at some point Sasha isn't going to look at his asshole parents and think "Thanks so much for making my life a living fucking hell." I place the odds of that very, very high.
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Well this is doing gender freedom wronger than wrong.
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That's my point exactly, Shane!
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See, I can respect wanting your child to not be forced into a gender box. But this... this is guaranteeing them issues later. :(
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Undecided:
There are heavy implications that the "no-no" comes from the parents, not the child. Elsewhere in the article the mother outright admits that she makes clothing choices for the kid, and based on the author's writing style, it would be more likely for them to have said that the only clothing the child "won't" wear is hyper-masculine things. Plus, you know, who the hell classifies cargo pants as "hyper masculine" attire unless they have some kind of weird agenda.
I pointed out the Barbie thing because these are parents who claim that they are allowing their child full freedom in gender identification and self expression, but they have banned Barbies because they don't like that particular flavor of gender expression or identification. I can't for the life of me think of any other reason that they would ban the doll for being "horrible." They don't say they banned it for being poorly made, or constructed in China, or any of a dozen non-gender/political reasons, but because Barbie is "horrible." That's a pretty harsh judgment on gender expression right there. Do they also think that women who choose, of their own volition, to dress or behave in the hyper-feminine mene a la Barbie are also "horrible?" It seems that these people do not so much decry restrictions on gender expression as they do acceptance of gender expression they personally do not like.
My criticism of these assholes has nothing to do with allowing their child to wear whatever the hell he likes without consideration of gender specifics. It has nothing to do with sexual orientation or gender expression. It never did. I am criticizing these assholes (and assholes they most certainly are) because:
A) They are so unbelievably pretentious that they kept the gender of their child a secret for half a decade.
B) They are fucking hypocrites for claiming to want total freedom of gender and self expression for their child while at the same time placing restrictions (no "hyper masculine" clothes, whatever the hell those are) and requirements (making him wear girl's blouses to school) on him.
C) Claiming they make no judgments on gender expression (while at the same time describing some specific forms of gender expression to be "horrible" and banned).
D) Using their five year old child to make some nebulous, highly manipulative "point" about their sexual-political agenda, utterly regardless of the insanely high potential for future difficulties for the child from gender identity confusion, bullying, and ridicule, to being held up as some kind of national symbol for his parent's pretentious fucking ideals.
I mean, come on. We live in the age of the internet. You don't think that this kind of publicity isn't going to come back and bite him in the ass repeatedly for as long as he is in school? I am familiar with UK schools. If you think that anti-LGBT style bullying is bad in US schools, you ain't seen nothing. There are areas of the UK where Doc Martin boots (and the people who wear them) are specifically knows as "Queer Stompers" in schools. I'm not saying that this kid is going to be gay, and I'm not saying there would be the slightest thing wrong with him if he were, but some asshole basher in secondary school is going to Google the name of the fey kid in the new class and the next day all of this shit will be spread over the school like crablice at the Kardashian's. You think the thugs are going to stop to find out of this kid is gay or not before they stomp his ass into cheese flavoured dog food?
You think that at some point Sasha isn't going to look at his asshole parents and think "Thanks so much for making my life a living fucking hell." I place the odds of that very, very high.
Pretty much /thread, right here.
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See, I can respect wanting your child to not be forced into a gender box. But this... this is guaranteeing them issues later. :(
All they did was force the child into a different gender box.
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And to think if Celeste wasn't b& he would say that the parents had every right to dress their child whatever way they want.
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This whole experiment was stupid from the start. Nothing is wrong with allowing a boy to wear dresses or play with dolls if he wants, but this mother is fucked up.
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Let's all thank this woman for giving every heteronormative crusader in the western world a case to point to when criticizing cases like the Transgendered Girl Scout.
"See? There's no such thing as a transgendered kid, it's their parents forcing them into it to prove a point!"
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I always get pissed when people start lying or being assholes in the name of a cause. Like that guy who pretended to be a lesbian from Syria? It's just giving conservatives the fuel they need to "prove" that everyone who's pro-gender freedom is lying. Even worse, it can dissuade people on the fence from coming over to
the dark our side.
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If the people on the fence are that stupid, let them go. We don't want them.
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Nothing is wrong with allowing a boy to wear dresses or play with dolls if he wants, but this mother is fucked up.
That's the opposite of what the mother thinks.
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If the people on the fence are that stupid, let them go. We don't want them.
Because we want our side as small and impotent as possible?
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...okay, here's how you do that properly.
"Yes, Sasha is a boy and he likes what he likes. He wanted a pink glitter Ninja Turtle birthday party this year and he's really into Legos, My Little Pony, princess dresses, and baseball. Any of these are good gifts. What should you wear? Oh, anything goes--he'll be wearing camouflage cargos and a tiara."
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Yeah, if I have children, I'll let them wear whatever they want as long as it's weather-appropriate.
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Ten bucks says Sasha grows up to be straight and super masculine.
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My ten bucks says Sasha is in therapy by the time he's a teenager.
Or he should be. Something tells me his whackjob mama doesn't 'trust' modern medicine and takes him to some crackpot spiritualist who prescribes flax enemas and meditation while conveniently ignoring a flagrant case of gender identity disorder. Call it a hunch.
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My ten bucks says Sasha is in therapy by the time he's a teenager.
Or he should be. Something tells me his whackjob mama doesn't 'trust' modern medicine and takes him to some crackpot spiritualist who prescribes flax enemas and meditation while conveniently ignoring a flagrant case of gender identity disorder. Call it a hunch.
I suspect it may be true but I really hope it's not the case.
Also, that kid shouldn't be dressing up like that, because I might make fun of him! /cestle
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good thing Cestle is banned otherwise he'd have a field day with this
My ten bucks says Sasha ends up committing suicide. Possibly after shooting his crazy parents.
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good thing Cestle is banned otherwise he'd have a field day with this
My ten bucks says Sasha ends up committing suicide. Possibly after shooting his crazy parents.
It's okay, I'll fill the void.
I expect Sasha will face the same problems that many other transgender kids do - they'll feel increasingly confused as their parents try to force them into a mold that doesn't fit.
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And if he makes any friends at school--boys OR girls--who are into any of the 'forbidden' stuff, leading Sasha to want to participate and yearn for Barbie dolls or skull-print t-shirts or whatever, Mommie Dearest will have a fucking shitfit and probably try and pull him out of school because the evil mainstream children are a horrible bad influence on her Suupah Spaeshul Gyndyrre-Neutrylle Snoeflayke Chyuuld.
However you slice it this kid's life is gonna be pretty crappy if his mother remains this batfuck. Since he has older siblings, I wonder how they were brought up...? Are the rules for Sasha just going to be TOTALLY different from the rules the other two had to follow? I can't help but wonder.
EDIT: Aye, it's just as bad to force a cisgender child to be completely gender-neutral or to the other end of the spectrum than their natural inclination is as it is to force a transgender child to live according to their plumbing and not their feelings. Not a fun way to live however you're programmed.
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And if he makes any friends at school--boys OR girls--who are into any of the 'forbidden' stuff, leading Sasha to want to participate and yearn for Barbie dolls or skull-print t-shirts or whatever, Mommie Dearest will have a fucking shitfit and probably try and pull him out of school because the evil mainstream children are a horrible bad influence on her Suupah Spaeshul Gyndyrre-Neutrylle Snoeflayke Chyuuld.
However you slice it this kid's life is gonna be pretty crappy if his mother remains this batfuck. Since he has older siblings, I wonder how they were brought up...? Are the rules for Sasha just going to be TOTALLY different from the rules the other two had to follow? I can't help but wonder.
EDIT: Aye, it's just as bad to force a cisgender child to be completely gender-neutral or to the other end of the spectrum than their natural inclination is as it is to force a transgender child to live according to their plumbing and not their feelings. Not a fun way to live however you're programmed.
Any parent who does this is batfucked. If Sasha's the only one getting "special treatment," then he's probably going to grow up wondering why his siblings get so many more privileges than him. Not good for a kid's self-esteem.
His mom might also think he's an "indigo child" because it fits with the stereotype of a granola gal. Oh, wait, "Yndygoe Chylde."
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While psycolagy is not my field of expertise when i can safely assure that that kid is gonna have at least one disorder if not two when he gets older my money is on he gets a case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder due to having to follow the whole no cretin cloths and what not rule and goddess help if that kid in some off chance has Asperger's syndrome or autism.
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Off-topic, but Captian's posts always manages to make me wonder if I just had a mini-stroke.
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While psycolagy is not my field of expertise when i can safely assure that that kid is gonna have at least one disorder if not two when he gets older my money is on he gets a case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder due to having to follow the whole no cretin cloths and what not rule and goddess help if that kid in some off chance has Asperger's syndrome or autism.
It's like he's trying to speak to me, I just know it!
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oh bugger off i cant type good do you have to bring it up all the damn time?
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Oh, you were replying to Cait...I was beginning to wonder if my shitty memory had lead me to repeat myself again.
And repeat myself again.
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oh bugger off i cant type good do you have to bring it up all the damn time?
I don't. I think I might have done once. Anyway, there's a difference between poor spelling--which I tend to overlook because I can't correct everyone on the internet--and having no grasp of the English language. Your inability to spell OR employ capitals and punctuation make your posts frustratingly difficult to read and decipher. Getting a point across in a text-only environment like this one hinges on your ability to type in a way that others can read--just as talking in real life hinges on pronouncing words in a recognizable manner. You're totally free to type and talk however you like, but if you habitually do either incorrectly, you run the risk of nobody understanding what you're trying to say.
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And typing has no bearing on spelling. I type based on engrained word patterns, meaning I sometimes write the wrong word if the letters are close in my head: "actually" instead of "actual" or "beginning" instead of "begging." This is where you employ spellcheck and good judgement.
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And typing has no bearing on spelling. I type based on engrained word patterns, meaning I sometimes write the wrong word if the letters are close in my head: "actually" instead of "actual" or "beginning" instead of "begging." This is where you employ spellcheck and good judgement.
And if you don't, you end up with something like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NiCYPrAoB8
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I must admit that I, too, have great difficulty following Captain's posts because of the total lack of punctuation, capitalization, or sentence structure. So much difficulty that I rarely read them. Not criticizing, just pointing it out.
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I must admit that I, too, have great difficulty following Captain's posts because of the total lack of punctuation, capitalization, or sentence structure. So much difficulty that I rarely read them. Not criticizing, just pointing it out.
On the plus side, the more practice he gets, the more readily-decipherable he shall become. :)
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FSTDTers are so adorable when they're unrealistically optimistic.
*pats Captian's shoulder*
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Oh, you were replying to Cait...I was beginning to wonder if my shitty memory had lead me to repeat myself again.
And repeat myself again.
I'm sorry, could you repeat yourself?
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my money is on he gets a case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder due to having to follow the whole no cretin cloths and what not rule
Following rules does not cause OCD.