A risky social experiment

Dr. Harold Koplewicz: Bringing Up Baby Without Gender: A Risky Social Experiment?
A Toronto couple are attempting to raise their children free from initial gender identity. They are keeping Storm's gender a secret from most people. And, their 5 year old boy, Jazz, wears his hair in pigtails and sometimes wears a dress and is schooled at home because he fears (and rightly so) that he will be teased by other children. So, the parents will keep their gender-confused children at home, cutting them off from the vital education of socializing with peers.

I think most of us agree that it is not good for parents to force their children to be who they don't want to be. That is one extreme. The issue here is that the parents are going to the other extreme and creating a vacuum. They are removing the kids from any gender reference points they would have if they were going to school/socializing with their peers (they are removing the kids from an environment that would help the kids make an informed decision - kids, we want you to make up your own minds, but
we are going to put you in a bubble so you won't be able to research via experience, environment and society to make an informed decision), AND they are making the kids think about their gender MORE than normal by trying to hide the gender from everyone (thus making everyone, including the kids, focus on their gender).

It might turn out okay in the end, it might not. But the potential for this to cause the kids undue stress and lasting difficulties in life is definitely there.

This story has pretty much gone viral - starting out as an interview piece in the Toronto Star, and now spreading around the globe. Here is a cartoon about it from The Torontoist.
Here is the latest commentary on it from Dr. Harold Koplewicz at the Huffington Post.

Excerpts:

Being secretive about a child's gender seems rather antithetical to
this necessary process of developing an identity. Witterick and Stocker
seem to be raising their three children in a kind of bubble by creating
an expectation-free zone, which may be great for experimentation but
doesn't help them develop the strength and confidence to be comfortable
in the world inhabited by other children and adults.

Indeed, their oldest boy, Jazz, who at 5 is often mistaken for a girl

because of his penchant for wearing his hair in braids and sometimes
donning a dress, apparently elected not to start school last year,
though he is eligible, for fear of being teased. "People -- children and
adults -- would immediately react with Jazz over his gender," Witterick
tells Poisson. "That's mostly why he doesn't want to go to school."

I can't help thinking of the more sensible approach another mom I know took when her young son asked her, "If I wear this pink thing to school, will people make fun of me?" Her answer: "Yup. I don't know why, but yes." This is the truth. He needed that information to decide what he wanted to do. Learning to get along with other kids is one of the tasks of growing up. Keeping them in the nest indefinitely, with what Witterick and Stocker call their home "unschooling," isn't going to help them learn to connect with other kids and navigate social universes. Teaching them that they are only safe -- understood, accepted -- at home is not a very character-building message....

The pioneering (if not welcome) research of Judith Rich Harris suggests
that peers are far more influential in socialization than parents are.
What parents can do is guide their children towards peers they think
will do a good job helping their kids craft their own identity -- which
does not appear to be happening yet in this household.
...

UPDATES
Here is the video of the interview on NBC's Today show with the reporter Jayme Poisson, and with Dr. Harold Koplewicz (see above) of The Child Mind institute.
Some interesting points from it:

Poisson: [the older boys] "they have been encouraged to be creative with their gender."
To me, this would imply that there is direction here from the parents in this regard - direction to the children to figure out gender on their own.

Dr. Koplewicz: "what we don't want to do is confuse a child and keep secrets. I think one of the worst parts of this story though, is that the 2 year old and 5 year old have to hold onto this secret."
...
"The thing that is disturbing to me here is, that while they seem like well-meaning people, it's misguided. Because, frankly, you can't deny, you know, a child's sexuality or gender, and what we want to do as parents is be more than just passive, we also want to offer some guidance."

And, finally, what my friend Angel said about this issue:
I think they are sowing the opposite of what they want to reap. Their eldest son is more gender conscious not less, because he has to address the issue every time he meets someone.