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While even just 20 years ago, people often thought parenting a girl meant princess dresses and raising a boy meant race cars, more and more parents now are distancing themselves and their children from the traditional gender binary of "boy" or "girl," and raising kids in a more gender-neutral way.
As more children grow up gender-neutral, or transgender, parents may find themselves needing to help their children understand a friend’s gender expression. (Though it’s just as likely kids will have to help their parents understand.)
The difference between sex and gender
Sex is assigned at birth and based on genitalia. Gender identity is, per Merriam-Webster, a person’s internal sense of being male, female, or nonbinary (some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female). Neither that nor and gender expression have anything to do with sex.
What it means to be gender-neutral
A growing number of parents are raising their children as genderless — shielding the child from the sex designated on a birth certificate until they are old enough to decide their gender for themselves. Some children may know their assigned sex but still are raised in a gender-neutral environment, where things like a child’s room or clothing are not reflective of societal stereotypes related to gender.
It’s also important to note that sex and gender have nothing to do with sexual orientation but in helping your child understand a gender-neutral peer, you are also setting them up to be an ally to their LGBTQ peers.
How to talk to your children about gender neutrality
Whether you’re raising your children in a gender-neutral environment or not, kids are more and more likely to make friends with children who are gender-neutral, and may use the pronoun “they” — or, perhaps, “she/her” prounouns despite outwardly male characteristics (or vice versa).
Often parents must start by taking into account any ingrained biases they might have around gender. If your child says, “Boys don’t do that” or “girls don’t like that,” ask why they’d believe that instead of reinforcing a stereotype.
Also, look for teachable moments in your lives.
“There are a handful of trans women and nonbinary people working out of The Wing, and some present more masculine, which confused my older daughter the first time she saw them,” Brooklyn-based mother of two Micol Ostow — author of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Slay Like a Girl — told Mom.com.
The key to helping your child understand gender neutrality is to start early. “We are only just becoming aware of how plastic and moldable our brains are, and how they can be changed by experiences, also by attitudes such as stereotypes,” Gina Rippon, professor emeritus of cognitive neuroimaging at Aston University UK, told Forbes. The brain is at its most receptive and malleable until about age 7, Rippon said, so by not asserting some things are "for boys" and some "for girls," you leave your child more receptive to views unshaped by stereotypes.
Mostly, parents should keep communication with their children open. Many of our ideas of what gender means come from our own upbringings and experiences.
“I think a lot just had to do with not missing opportunities to say things differently, like 'if and when you have a partner and have children’ as opposed to ‘when you get married to a man and have babies,’” Ostow said.
