According to this very interesting article, there's a couple in Sweden who are raising their child without specific gender identification. They dress "Pop" in clothes belonging (supposedly) to both sexes, and they refer to "Pop" (not the child's real name) with Pop's name rather than gender-specific pronouns.
Perhaps more interesting than the practice, which to my mind is certainly not more disturbing than the way some ultra-conservative parents raise their children (to hate homosexual people, for one, and occasionally to hate themselves for BEING homosexual), are the comments on the article. As a recent queer theorist (at least I'm taking a "queer studies" class), I'm particularly interested in the input from "Bisonex," the male-identified intersex person who was raised "incorrectly" as a girl.
One wonders when reading queer theory how many people out there really ARE intersex -- not that the number of people affected is a valid question when you're dealing with human rights, but that it commands its own theorizing of "sex" and "gender," and a retheorizing of heteronormativity as a result of intersex people's existence and rights to remain intersex (rather than having gender assigned). So it's interesting to hear from someone who fits into that category and by doing so, destroys (or calls into question) all the rest of them.
Let me know what you think of Pop, Pop's parents' choice, and the comments that follow. I'll be interested to hear it.
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