Discussion: Forcing your child to be a certain gender

Jessie Mulay

What do you guys think about parents forcing their children to be a certain gender? Now I don't mean while they are still inside your body where you get an operation to make them a certain gender. That is possible now. Same with choosing the date you want to give birth, but thats a different story!

I'm talking about parents who raise their children to be a different gender. For example they wanted to have a girl, but instead they had a boy so they force them to wear girl clothes, make their hair long,

cut off their testicles

, etc. There is more to it.

What do you think about this?

DevonDreams

wesleywalrus

Completely wrong and ignorant, however being transgender is different. Parents should not make decisions about their children who CANNOT make decisions on their own yet. If the child feels like they were born in the wrong body, they have the right to change that, however parents cannot just change the sex of their baby just because of their ignorance.

Hobbes

People are not born as blank canvases which gender norms can just be painted onto at the hands of the parents/carers. Men and women, or boys and girls, are biologically different and their brains work differently. People aren't born gender neutral, so while you can argue that raising a boy as a boy can be harmful because "what if they want to be a girl" or whatever, cases in which people feel as though their biological sex and gender are quite rare. To say that all children should be raised as whatever gender their parents want is just absurd and unrealistic.

Take the case of David Reimer. His penis was destroyed during circumcision and his parents tried to raise him as a girl, but by the age of nine, he was rejecting the stereotypically "girly" things and preferred playing with his twin brother's toys etc. Gender norms are not harmful to every single ****ing child. Period.

Bey_Rihstan

It's kinda the Parent's decision until the child has a mind of their own tbh. I mean the kid can't really do anything about it.

Kingfisher

the entire premise of this thread is a ****ing mess and i don't know how to answer tbh

A Little Unruly

I don't really get the question. It's obviously wrong and abusive (unless the child asks to be raised the opposite gender).

NX127

Isn't that seen as child abuse by law?

AvrilLaQueen

that is so wrong. Just like a transgender person wouldn't like to dress as the gender they were born with, same with this one! A boy wants to be a boy and girl wants to be a girl. Those parents should suffer consequences, same as those who abuse their transgender children.

Nate

That's disgusting. Changing or forcing a child's gender based on your wishes is awful and bad parenting. Obviously, that also applies to children who feel they're not the gender they've been assigned at birth. Forcing a child into a gender is wrong, period.