Gender Neutrality Essay

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Asante Baker
ENG 1113
L Haraway
25 April 2014

Gender Neutrality
Parents are deciding to raise their children in what is called a “gender neutral” environment and are claiming that their children have the freedom to choice what gender they prefer to be for themselves, but the parents are making a huge impact in their children’s life by not making such an important choice for their children. In “Raising Sasha” and Footloose and Gender Free” the parents raise their children into a gender free environment. Gender free is where the parents allow their children to make their own gender choices in life. The purpose of the gender free experiment was to allow their children to discover for themselves what gender they really preferred regardless if they were born male or female. The families allowed their children to experiment with different types of toys, clothing, and even painted their rooms in bright colors to express the gender neutrality.
There are flaws found within the choice of gender neutrality. When parents choice to raise the children as gender neutral they are very much still imposing a choice on their children even they think they are giving their children freedom. The parents not making a choice for their children can easily have a major impact on their lives. The children can begin to think that things are not ok with the way they are currently and can try become someone else. Choosing gender neutrality can also result in the ridicule of these children. Boy dressing in girl’s clothing or girls dressing in boy’s clothing can cause these children to be labeled as social outcast and cause other children their age to easily want to stay away from them. The children can be bullied by other children and maybe even attacked bec...

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...d by the parents of the world today. Juliet wrote, “You can’t make a child “gender neutral.” There is no such thing! Genders aren’t stereotypes! There basic FACT.”(qtd. In Villava). These parents saying they are raising gender neutral children is not possible at all. There truly is no such thing in the world. You can’t not just change a child’s gender because they feel like it. Gender is determined by a parent’s genetics. A female is born when she receives two XX chromosomes and a male is born when he receives a XY chromosomes and the SRY gene. That can’t be decided by any parents it I a choice that is made before a child is even born into this world. Gender neutrality just doesn’t truly exist in the world. Cole wrote, “Suggesting that a child should choose their own gender is very harmful to their childhood and it develops a very harmful lifestyle”(qtd in Villava).

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