An Experiment Is Conducted

“I have a gender studies degree.”

So boasts Ms Kyl Myers in the pages of Time magazine. I’ll give you a moment to experience the inevitable hushed awe.

Having, as she does, a degree in gender studies, Ms Myers is vexed by many things. Such as being asked, kindly, while pregnant, whether she was expecting a boy or a girl. This, we’re informed, is not “a simple question with a simple answer.”

My partner Brent and I had found out our child’s sex chromosomes in the early stages of my pregnancy, and we had seen their genitals during the anatomy scan. But we didn’t think that information told us anything about our kid’s gender. 

No, of course. No clues there. No information at all, in fact. Just random noise.

The only things we really knew about our baby is that they were human, breech and going to be named Zoomer.

Being enlightened and conscientious parents, Ms Myers and her partner Brent have chosen for their child the name Zoomer. Readers may wonder whether that detail tells us something too. Other fruits of this “gender-creative parenting” include pointedly not “assigning” a gender to their child – though experiments of this kind tend to be inflicted on boys – and instead insisting on “the gender-neutral pronouns they, them and their.” A contrivance whose modishness we’ve touched on before. 

We were committed to raising our child without the expectations or restrictions of the gender binary.

And as trans activists keep telling us, continually interacting with people who aren’t sure what gender you are – in this case, thanks to mommy’s niche fixations – is in no way stressful or aggravating, and could never, ever result in demoralisation and psychological problems. And pretending that your son or daughter isn’t actually a boy or girl will, somehow, in ways never quite specified, “eliminate gender-based oppression, disparities and violence.” It’s “preventative care,” we’re told.

People have asked me to prove that gender-creative parenting will have positive outcomes. I double-dog dare someone to prove that hypergendered childhood is a roaring success.

Readers will note the convenient assumption that the alternative to ignoring or erasing a key part of your child’s identity, and doing it all in public while waiting for applause, as if you really want your child to grow up in some way anomalous and interesting, is a “hypergendered childhood.” There being nothing in between, apparently. The positive outcomes to date of “gender-creative parenting” are, alas, somewhat vague. We are, however, offered a few tempting glimpses of utopia under construction:  

Because Zoomer has been raised with a focus on inclusivity, they have an instinct to make everyone feel welcome. When a character on a kids’ show says, “Hello, boys and girls!” Zoomer adds, “And nonbinary pals!”

Other things that vex Ms Myers include the realisation that school sports tend to be organised by gender, presumably on grounds of looming differences in physical capabilities:

I left that track meet in tears after I found out that despite assurances to the contrary, the two- and three-year-old girls would run in different heats than the boys. “I not running?” Zoomer asked as we drove away. I felt terrible for leaving. Zoomer just wanted to run. But I also would have felt terrible if I had stayed… I refused to have our family participate. 

And being as she is so woke, so enlightened and conscientious, mommy’s feelings come first.

Update:

Needless to say, Ms Myers’ website and Twitter feed are an endless churn of unconvincing smiles and rather desperate leftist signalling. We learn, for instance, that “Knowing the sex of a baby… does not tell us anything about the child’s… attitudes toward climate change.” We also learn that Ms Myers’ “environment” – by which I assume she means her home, social circle, academic workplace, and the leftist lifestyle-hustling circuit – is, “like yours, a patriarchy.” She just knows this, you see, by some paranormal means, and no evidence is forthcoming. Indeed, it seems there’s no expectation that evidence might be appropriate, for this and many other things. Our author’s male partner, Brent, whose views aren’t deemed worthy of sharing, presumably agrees. If he knows what’s good for him.  

“We want to blow stereotypes out of the water,” says she.