Why raise a child gender neutral?

Beyond Today

BBC

News

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2019

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

Parents Jake and Hobbit have taken the unusual decision to keep the sex of their baby secret. They say "gender bias is unconscious" and that this is the only way to mitigate against it, not even telling the child’s grandmother their sex until they were 11 months old. When Beth Mcleod covered their story for the BBC’s Inside Out West programme the couple received a huge backlash. We look into why they decided to go public, and what it is about both gender and parenting that provokes such a strong reaction. Presenter: Tina Daheley Producer: Duncan Barber Mixed by Nicolas Raufast Editor: John Shields

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.6	Hello, I'm Tina Dehealey.
0:08.0	Welcome to Beyond Today from BBC Radio 4,
0:10.8	where we ask one big question about one big story every weekday.
0:17.0	Today we're asking, why raise a child gender neutral.
0:27.0	What no one's asking is like who decided that it was going to be man and woman who the hell can anybody
0:36.2	tell me that and if they can like why would anyone want to limit that it's so joyful that's
0:42.0	that's Tom Rasmussen.
0:44.0	A couple of weeks ago, we spoke to them about Sam Smith's decision to identify as non-binary,
0:50.2	and use the pronouns they and them.
0:53.3	In a Twitter post Sam credited Tom
0:55.5	who's also non-binary as a mentor.
0:58.4	Why are we obsessed with limiting the number of things people can be?
1:01.6	I think being non-binary is evidence that
1:03.3	there's more than we've been offered. The Sam Smith story hit a nerve, both for people
1:08.8	looking for non-binary role models and for those who are mystified by the idea of non-binary identity.
1:16.7	At the age of 27 it was Sam's own decision to use they and them, but what happens when you're only 17 months old and your parents are making the decision for you?
1:28.6	When BBC journalist Beth McCloud made a film with a couple from Somerset who decided to keep the sex of their baby secret,
1:35.8	the story became front-page news.
1:38.6	They didn't even tell the child's grandmother until Anush was 11 months old.
1:43.0	The parents say gender bias is unconscious and this is the only way they can mitigate against it.
1:50.0	We're not doing something that we think is dangerous. We're just doing something that is a
	...

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