Labels will not liberate babies still in nappies
TO CANADA this week, where a world first has taken place. An eightmonth-old baby named Searyl has been issued with a health card that does not specify the child’s sex.
Let us set aside the fact this blameless infant has been burdened with the moniker Searyl (pronounced… cereal?) and focus on what this might mean for their future. The request for the non-specification came from the child’s parent Kori Doty, a non-binary transgender parent who identifies as neither male nor female (surprise!), and in practical terms means the child’s health card reads ‘U’ where normally it would read ‘M’ or ‘F’.
‘I’m raising Searyl in such a way that until they have the sense of self and command of vocabulary to tell me who they are, I’m recognising them as a baby,’ said Kori.
‘When I was born, doctors looked at my genitals and made assumptions about who I would be, and those assignments followed me and followed my identification throughout my life.’
There is little doubt that gender fluidity and the visibility of transgender people has gained much ground in recent years thanks to increased awareness and acceptance. For those who have spent a lifetime feeling persecuted and misunderstood, that can only be a good thing.
But I have niggles about this particular case. First of all, gender is not sex. Acknowledging a child’s sex does not mean – particularly in today’s more liberal-leaning world – that a gender is forced upon them. A child’s biological sex has a relationship with their health, and to deny that is at best foolish, at worst dangerous.
But my greatest concern is this: Searyl’s parent says they are doing this because of their own experience as a ‘non-binary transgender parent’. It is a supreme irony that a person who claims that society has made assumptions about them is now making enormous assumptions about their own child.
The numbers of transgender people are tiny. In the UK it is estimated to be around 0.1 per cent of the population. In the US, it is 0.3 per cent. The figures are similar in Canada. Similar numbers of people are affected by Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome (it’s a heart disorder. I had to look it up too).
In 2011 another Canadian baby named Storm Stocker-Witterick made the headlines after parents Kathy Witterick and David Stocker decided not to publicly reveal the child’s sex until Storm was old enough to choose their own gender identity. Instead they educated their three children on gender identity, home schooling them and teaching them about ‘gender maps’.
FIVE years on Storm, aged five, has chosen to identify as a ‘she’. Her older sibling Jazz, ten, identifies as a transgender girl and began her transition three days before she turned seven after spending a year grappling with the decision. Kio, seven, identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronoun ‘they’.
What are the odds? Can it be sheer coincidence that in a family where both parents have made gender such an all-consuming focus, their children have identified in such ways?
For those who are transgender these are liberating times. But for babies in nappies it would seem some parents are intent on labelling them, in a way society would never dream of doing.