"Genderless" Baby Raises Controversy

Gender equality is a hot-button issue with parents, with debates cropping up on GI Joes vs. Barbies and Pink vs. Blue for the nursery, for both little boys and girls. But while not pushing your child toward a colour or a toy is one thing, is it really possible to raise a so-called “genderless” child? Parents of four-month-old Storm Stocker are going to try to find out.

When their baby was born on New Year’s Day, parents Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, sent out an email stating, “We 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."

Disgusted by the amount of “choices” parents make for their children, the family, which includes 2-year-old Kio and 5-year-old Jazz (both boys), have sworn themselves to secrecy when it comes to revealing Storm’s sex and have decided to let their child draw his (or her) own conclusions.

The idea came from a 1978 book on raising children called “X: A Fabulous Child’s Story”, by Lois Gould, as well as the belief that parents shouldn’t “force” a specific gender stereotype on a child. While experts do believe that it can be beneficial to allow children the freedom to explore themselves outside of the stereotypes, many feel that Witterick and Stocker’s experiment is wrong.

“To raise a child not as a boy or a girl is creating, in some sense, a freak,” Massachusetts General Hospital’s Director of Training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Dr. Eugene Beresin said. “It sets them up for not knowing who they are.”

He also notes that the experiment could set the child up for bullying.

Many people seem to agree with Dr. Beresin, as the Witterick-Stocker home has received numerous phone calls after their story was released in the media. For now, the couple seems to have shied away from the debate, saying simply, “Thank you for your interest. We are really swamped with calls right now and our first priority is the needs of our family.”

For now, the debate will have to continue in the public forum – let us know what you think on the subject of raising genderless children in the comments!