SAN FRANSISCO, California –
A new trend rising among young parents is to not acknowledge their new baby’s gender based on their genitalia, saying that referring to a young child as “he” or “she” could be considered ableist and transphobic.
“Our new baby has female genitalia, but we do not say ‘she’ when referring to it,” said mother Amanda Barnes, 21. “We don’t know if Baby Pat will choose to be a woman or man as it gets older, and we are definitely not forcing any stereotypes onto our child. That is disgusting.”
Many new parents say that they have decided to not provide gender information even to their own relatives, instead asking that their children be referred to as “babyself.”
“I have two children, a 3-year-old and a newborn baby, and we refer to them as ‘toddlerself’ and ‘babyself,’ because no one is putting labels on my children, not even me,” said Leslie Jones, 26, of Los Angeles. “When they are old enough to choose what gender they want to be, then that’s when we’ll start using proper pronouns. For now, they’re just baby and toddler.”
When asked why she did not name her children, Jones says that would be going “too far.”
“If I chose the wrong name, based on their genitalia and not their chosen gender, what would that make me look like as a parent? As a human being?” said Jones. “That’s disgusting, and no parents should be naming their children. You can’t choose gender, and you shouldn’t choose names, either.”