Listen, raising a child without announcing to the world whether it’s a boy or a girl will always be controversial. I mean, sure, it will save you money and time on a gender-reveal party, but one of the first questions parents will hear on the occasion of their fresh, new bundle of joy is “boy or girl?”
For some parents, it’s a bit early to answer that question. Or at least, it’s not important.
And since announcing “boy or girl” has been done for so long, folks are going to have a hard time understanding why that is. But for parents like Ari Dennis, it’s worth holding off all the same.
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Ari Dennis’s 1-year-old, named Sparrow, has a big decision coming up in a few years, because Sparrow is a “theyby” — a child being raised gender-neutral.
Ari, who also goes by they/them pronouns, says that “We did not assign a sex at birth, which means when they were born, they had genitals, we know what they are, we just chose to acknowledge that those genitals don’t indicate anything about gender,” according to WTSP .
Sparrow’s birth certificate even says “sex unknown.”
Sparrow has an older sibling, Hazel, who wasn’t raised as a “theyby.”
Now 7, Ari says Hazel discovered gender at about age 4, and now identifies as a “demigirl,” someone who is partly a girl.
However, Hazel also goes by they/them pronouns, something her classmates at school do have a little trouble with.
“I’m sure they’ll get into the habit at some time, but they do call me she/her more than they/them,” she told NBC .
However, “They’re not mean to me about it at all,” she added.
The “theyby” movement is by no means popular, but it’s growing.
Ari can be assured of some helpful support while bringing up Sparrow and Hazel, at least.
There’s a closed Facebook groups for like-minded parents called ” Parenting Theybies ” with about 350 members.
Parents who don’t want to impose roles on their kids are the ones particularly interested, it seems.
“There’s nothing wrong with pink. There’s nothing wrong with blue. There’s something wrong with forcing kids into roles,” Ari told WTSP.
Ari also has a response to those who worry about the child’s future.
“There’s no way this can go wrong. People will be like, ‘Oh the child will be confused!’ No. If gender is really something in you, then no one’s going to change that.”
And it goes beyond just pink and blue, to what sort of language gets used around the kids.
Ari is careful to use both traditionally masculine and feminine adjectives with Sparrow, for example. “I just call my baby ‘beautiful’ and ‘pretty’ and ‘handsome’ and ‘strong,’ back and forth, I’ll use both, and I’ll compliment different manifestations of personality traits,” they told NBC.
Gender-neutral parenting isn’t exactly new.
Back in 2011, the practice made headlines when a Toronto couple announced they were raising their child, Storm , gender-neutral.
Storm’s parents endured harsh criticism over their choice, but five years later, Storm was happy, healthy, and “confidently says her preferred pronoun is ‘she.'”
However, gender-neutral parenting IS a relatively new practice in scientific terms.
It just hasn’t been around long enough for any long-term studies to examine what affect, if any, gender-neutral parenting has on kids.
Mind you, that doesn’t mean that research into childhood gender norms hasn’t been done at all.
There’s plenty of research on how various influences play into how children develop their genders, and experts say there are some advantages to raising kids without gender.
For one, it’s a way for parents to show kids that they’re loved and accepted no matter what.
And, according to Dr. John Steever, assistant professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center in New York, that’s a big deal for transgender kids, who face higher rates of depression and suicide attempts.
Sure, that doesn’t represent a large population, statistically.
Just 0.6% of adult Americans identify as transgender, according to a UCLA report — but for confused kids, that sort of parental support could be life-saving.
And for Ari, the benefits of raising kids without gender outweigh everything else.
“In my opinion, assigning your child a gender and giving them gender-coded lessons their whole life is much more coercive than what we do,” they said. Sparrow will get to decide their gender later in life, just like Hazel.
