Episode 17 - Gender Creative Parenting

And what how'd you decide? I guess you and Tory decide that it was right for your family and for your kid?

to find here. So I picked it up, I took it home, I started reading it, I couldn't put it down, I think I read it, I probably stayed up until like two or 3am that night and finished it. And I the next day, I looked at Tori and I said you have to read this. I feel like I need to read it again, I need to know more. And I spent the next probably several days to a week exploring everything out there. And all I knew was what Kyle

had. So on their website, all of the resources, I was like searching hashtags, or under Creative parenting on every social media. And Tory kept saying, I can't read that, because I know I'm gonna want to do it. And that seems really hard. So it took a little bit to convince them to get there. But just like with me, as soon as they picked it up, couldn't put it down. And when they finished, it just looked at me and said, Okay, you are right. This is

what we need to do. And we had just started family planning at that point, which for us just looked like figuring out how we were going to have a baby where we wanted to have a baby, we had met with an attorney and all that. And we knew we couldn't live where we were living if we wanted to be queer parents, and also gentle, creative parents. So we packed up and moved back to the hometown I grew up in and had the baby and went from there. That's my long winded answer to your short question.

But yeah,

little bit more. I read it within the last year as well, actually. So it's still fresh for you. It's still fresh for me. Yeah, I had read. I had read a lot of stuff on Kyle's site before I read the book. Yeah, um, so my, my story, my intro to gender creative parenting, we knew that we like, we knew that we didn't want to follow the typical binary gendered parenting, like, before, before

we had a kid. Um, but I definitely did not have the term of gender creative parenting, we decided, when my Well we decided during the pregnancy that we were not going to find out the assumed sex of our child. So we kind of bought ourselves, you know, a bit of time anyway. And that helped us not receive gendered gifts before the birth and all of that, because no one

knew. And, but when our kid was born, we did announce their assigned sex or sorry, his assigned sex, and, and so we, it was interesting, because even though we had actually like, talk to our friends and family, even though we didn't have the term gender creative parenting, we had, let them know, like, we don't want a lot of super gendered stuff, you know, like, buy whatever color buy whatever thing you know, but it was pretty evident, like, really quickly, I was feeling pretty

overwhelmed with the amount of gendered stuff that we got, I mean, just like, the hyper gendered stuff that we got. And I felt like even more than, like, the stuff, it was also kind of like this. It's like social cues, or, you know, kind of the different pressure in all different ways, whether it was overt or subtle, that was this very kind of, you know, you are going to lead your kid down this path, right. And, and, and I really had an issue with that

kind of right away. So our kid was only a few months old, when I started talking, my wife and I started talking about it in detail. And we started talking about it with a couple of close friends. And, for me, what it really kept revolving around was, I kept coming to this question of, like, why should I really assume that my child is sis, like, like, really? Honestly, why? Why should I do that? Why do people do that, and what I really felt was at the bottom of it was ultimately

like, transphobia. Um, and, and beyond just transphobia, like, the, the push of cisgender as normal. And so I, like, at some point was Googling, you know, and came across gender creative parenting, and it was really, I was like, wow, this is a thing. Like, I'm not the first person who's, you know, like, thought of this and, and, of course, like, some of the things that we do that I'm sure you know, we'll get into in just a little bit. Like, some of them a lot of

parents do. They just don't really want to play that hyper gender game or whatnot with your

kids. But, but to me, it was also like, you know, just with my, like, my own gender identity, like I really felt that I I wanted to give my kid a clean slate, I wanted my kid to be a kid, before being a gender, I really wanted to just give him the chance to show me who he was and let me support him without me coming at him with all these notions of you know, what he should wear and how he should be spoken to and all this other stuff and to me it was that was

just super important. So So I found comm liars a site and book and found some other you know, people online doing similar things and, and was able to have some really supportive friends mostly to help us you know, kind of guide guide that way so yeah, so that's, that's my story with it. And I'm curious. Um, Rylie, have you ever heard of gender creative parenting before?

some of that. Not. And it's like, kind of weird to think back on it because it's like, well, you know, like, early, early on, I was in like a soccer league, and that was all separated by gender. But then they were like, Okay, so let's find something else. And they, like, put me in a bowling league. And so this was very much, hey, you're bowling with everybody, there is no boys, girls, it's everybody just

pulling against each other. And then like, when I got into high school, and I was starting to explore my sexuality, and I was presenting very Butch, for lack of better words. They were very supportive. And just were like, okay, like, here we go, like,

we're just rolling with this. So like, you know, just kind of thinking back on just like some of those key highlight points like that even, you know, just like, weirdly enough, even though like I said, it was a pretty conservative household, they were pretty, pretty doing good with the gender creative parenting in a way.

anti trans stuff to a lot. And it was like, and again, it was like, overt and subtle. And so it was like kind of this DICOM it was kind of like both, you know, it was a little bit more, like, almost radical feminist side, although I wouldn't quite put it put it in that category, but like, kind of a little bit

more, more towards that. But, but no, that's, I mean, it's not surprising because again, like, you know, it a lot of these aspects of gender creative parenting a lot of parents do, and I think part of it is kind of, kind of normalizing that a little bit is, is kind of is a powerful thing. So well, let's

get into the details. I have a little list where we're gonna go through of some aspects of gender creative parenting, that I have noticed, are kind of through lines through people that I know personally, or people that I've seen online like Harvey Centauri and, and even, you know, from comme Myers, his book, but so we're just going to kind of take a few minutes on each of these topics.

And, and I'm just curious Iris on, you know, your perspective and, and I'll kind of give mine and Rylie you can chime in to and we'll just kind of click through it here. So the first one is clothing. And I would say you know, it's like, all the children was must wear gray. Right? Or, or only black? No, that's my formal occasions now.

No, I'm so really I think one of the biggest things with gender creative parenting is a big three line is that, like, call it like clothing is clothing, like a shirt is a shirt addresses a dress. And you know, basically like, let your kid wear what they want to wear.

And, and kind of just for me, the only thing that I have tried to do up to this point, because my kid hasn't really been super interested in clothes, like not like super into clothes yet is that I haven't I've chosen to not have him wear very gendered clothing and in either direction, like, but it's still like, a lot of colors, a lot of designs, like whatever he wants, like, yes, we have a few dresses. He doesn't really seem to be very interested in them. But like that's we have them you

know, so like, that's cool. But Iris, what's your take on? What's your take on clothing?

mean? We from the start were very much like even while I was pregnant if people like posted on a group like I have a box of clothes I'm giving away A, we were like, oh, that's ours, we'll take it. And in our like circle of family and friends, we've all just kind of like recycled our children's clothing around each other. And it's interesting because in that group, there are people who have approached their parenting very gendered. And there are people who kind of ride the middle, and

then there was me. So it's been interesting approaching that, because then of course, everyone says, like, let your kids pick out their clothes. And it's not really something you can do until maybe, you know, they're six months and can be like, grab it. But you know, they're not really intentionally choosing, it's just something pretty in front of them. So it is interesting, because dresses were hard for us. And I don't, I didn't think they were going to be until we realized it had been

months. And we had never put a dress on them. And we kind of broke that down a little bit between each other and had to talk about why that was tough for us and why we were avoiding it. And thinking back on like childhood photos of both Torian die, when we are kind of uncomfortable looking back at ones where we're in dresses, or just clothing in general that didn't fit who we were, but we're kind of forced into. So I started to think through. You

know, that was hard for me. But at the same time, if I'm letting that in the way of my parenting, I'm not even giving them a chance to maybe have a photo of them and address when they were a baby to look back on and say I love that. You know what I mean? So that was probably our toughest hurdle. As far as clothing those, I think that sometimes it's hard. When you I don't know if maybe you can relate with this chest. But do you ever feel like sometimes you know, the crowd, you're going to

be around. So internally, you're kind of like, if I just dress them this way, a little bit. Like, maybe the you know, the pronouns, that person is going to find your child is going to be different. But that was always you know, something in the early like maybe the first three ish months that we found ourselves doing a lot too, which was weird, because we went into it thinking clothing, this clothing, and this is our baby

and whatever. And I should also add, I should add this earlier, but we have been very intentional with strictly using they them pronouns. At this point, we did not share the biological sex, if you want to call it that. I know there's a lot of discourse in this community as well, which is maybe a topic for another time about what terms to use there. But we didn't share the biological text of our child with anyone off the bat. And still, to this point, it's

caretakers and doctors. So it's been interesting as well, just to see, especially regarding the clothing they're wearing, what people let slip, you could say or what they just decide for that day, her the opposite they're wearing, which is so weird. Um, yeah, I don't know if you can relate with that at all, just but that was a weird one for us just kind of navigating how our own feelings came into play and how we were dressing them and, and baby clothes are so cute, like, you just want to

put everything off. So we definitely have fun with it. Yeah, that's kind of where where we were at with that. And now, definitely, you know, as they're getting older, we can see a little bit of their flavor, very active kid. So something like a dress gets in the way a lot of time and they get frustrated if they if their foot gets caught in the skirt. And so we lean toward like a tight bike short, because at the same time, the more balloony shorts also get in the way or a t shirt falls over

there. Like and things like that. So a lot of the times now we just dress for comfort, and where are we going to go? Are we going to open gym? Are you going to be crawling around? Are you gonna be standing and walking and running? And that's kind of how we approach it now, whereas I think when they were younger, we were very much like, they must have every color of the rainbow in every style. And we have to put them in all of this stuff. And now we've just started to let them kind of lead

the way with that. So yeah,

totally get that. I think that's also like a, like a first parent thing of kind of just, you know, this is my, like, my, like, I only have one kid too. So it's like that and that kind of like, we're gonna do it this way, you know, and then you get to the reality of it. And it's like, actually, whatever is clean today is yes. So, so yeah, I can absolutely relate to that. And

definitely notice, too. Yeah, I mean, with different outfits and how, how our kid was, you know, is assumed to be just a certain gender, you know, kind of just based on that. I mean, that's a lot of social cues is clothing and, and a lot of kids clothes are actually like, really gendered. So especially even like, it's kind of amazing with the like, with the baby clothes, and you're like, it's a baby, you know,

from my older brother. So it was kind of this interesting, like, like, going through and figuring out, okay, you know, Ken, can Rylie wear this? Or is this not going to be one of those things? That is like really appropriate. But then like, at the same time, they were like, you know, what, if he wants to wear this Lord of the Rings shirt, he's given the word, the Lord of the Rings. So, you know, like, there was this things like that, where it was

like, okay, cool. You know, it wasn't even like an intentional like, Hey, I love Lord of the Rings. It was just like, hey, again, if it was clean I think another multiple kids.

that way. And I remember always being really jealous of that. But another thing I wanted to call out is, it's been interesting too, as we have past clothes on. If we like, post a bin of, you know, we're like a three to six month clothing. Just come pick up at this location. You know, the first thing people comment is, is it boys or girls? And I'm like, You're asking the wrong person?

Because I got nothing for Yeah, like, if you're asking me if they're blue, or they're pink, you're gonna they're yellow and green and and blue and pink and polka dots and all these things. And if you're asking me if they say daddy's little girl, you're not going to find that in there. But especially at that age, they're onesies and shorts and shirts, and there's nothing different about them at that point. So that's just another interesting thing is always like, boys or girls stuff. And

I'm like, it's close. Free.

cool with that. And that's, you know, but it's, I think, especially for people who have spent time questioning it, it's like, Well, again, like, why, like, Why do we always have to, you know, why do we always have to be looking at it from this perspective? Which calm liars mentioned a lot. You in, in their books. So. So the next the next topic is toys also have no gender? I think I am, my kid is a little bit older. He is kind of getting close to four, like three and a half, four somewhere

in there. But it's definitely, you know, baby toys. Sometimes you get that for sure. But I mean, babies don't even hardly have toys for the first six months, you know, except for like, the keys and stuff like, right? Oh, you know, but especially as kids start to get a little bit older, and especially the way that the stores are separated, the different aisles, you know, like the pink aisle, and the blue aisle, and all of those different things are our perspective is toys do not have

gender. And again, we've at this point, kind of taken the same approach of we're following our kids lead on what he's interested in, but a lot of the toys that we have our you know, we do, we do have like, both some things that would be considered girl toys and boy toys, but I really don't, I don't like to have anything that, you know, like says that or, or, you know, just really screams that so much in whatever way like, my kid has a couple of dolls, but they're not like, I

mean, they're not like Barbie dolls, but they're not like that, like super feminine dolls. You know, they're just, they're just like dolls. They're like the more fabric II kind of dolls. And he's actually a couple of different ones that have like, excuse me different color skin tones, but it's just not in that hyper feminine way. Um, what about you, Tori, have you gotten into that at all yet? Or

it was like 1011 months old. We were just walking through a target and we were like, You know what, let's just take a stroll through the the toy aisle and see if they gravitate toward anything. And we came up to like three Sesame Street stuffies dolls, whatever you want to call it. And it was like Elmo and Cookie Monster and Abby. And I don't know if your kid watches Sesame Street, or if you do screentime or anything like that. But we watch a lot of

Sesame Street, apples. And Abby is a little fairy that always like waves the wand and says like zipties something or whatever with the wand. And like Troyer totally gravitated to picking out the Abbey. And I think you know, just from that connection, like oh, the one that's fine. Like, they always laugh when she does the little zippity thing. And it was so cool for that to watch that kind of unfold to see like, oh, I recognize what that is. And

that's the one I want. And, you know, it's something that really baffles me when parents who parent in a very gendered way, kind of miss out on that sometimes if they're always choosing what they think is right for their child, and I 100% respect every parenting style and how people approach raising their children because it's hard, and we're all just

doing the best we can. But I I try to talk on that a lot when I talk about gender creative gender open, everything parenting is the fact that you get to watch your child think about things in a way that I don't think we would have seen had we not been parenting this way. So it's so silly that to have that moment with a toy. But it was really special for us to realize that they picked that out. They did that that's the

one they wanted. And you know, it gets thrown on the floor of our car now, but you know, they're with the keys.

with life. So for me, like, you know, it was just kind of like this aspect of yeah, just wanting to be your older siblings in a way sometimes and things like that, and just wanting to be the other kids in the court. And just so like, for me, I was just always trying to play like kickball or baseball and you know, accidentally breaking a car window in the

process. And, you know, just hide and seek and just being outside with all the other kids, and so never really felt gendered in any sort of way, when we were doing those sorts of things anyway. But even you know, even when it came down to it, like, I still like like house and things like that with, like, the other girls and whatnot, when it was just all the kids all the time and all

that. But you know, like, my parents weren't actively encouraging one way or another though, with a lot of the toys. Like they, you know, obviously very much encouraged, like the music and my my aspects of like, Hey, I wanted a drum set, I wanted a keyboard, I wanted my flute I wanted, you know, to play all the instruments. So like, they they did, you know, encourage that. And you know, there is no gender to music. So like, that was always a very nice thing for them to

encourage. Especially because I did have such a strong tie to it, especially throughout middle school in high school, where I was like, in high school, I went to a Visual Performing Arts Academy for playing music. So like, it was one of those things where it was like really nice to be encouraged to do those things that didn't have any sort of gender tied to it even.

thought for most people. But yeah, I mean, I feel like, it's been really freeing for me, and I, you know, I will speak for my wife, she's not here, but like, it seems it has been really freeing for us to be able to, to just to just follow our kids interests more and not and not have to even have the thought of like, well, is this a boy thing? Or is this a girl thing? And is

this okay? Or, you know, and again, that's going to shift as as time goes on and, and socialization starts to change, and our kid goes to school and all of that. But, yeah, that, that, that makes sense. I mean, it's like, yeah, music, not gendered. Just music, you know, just like a lot of like, outside stuff, you know, it's like, if it's, you know, that's like, not just not gendered, you know, I mean, sports, I would say, in general, especially like little kids sports, not gender.

Unfortunately, they do start to gender kids sports, like really early as far as separating them a lot of times. And I think that that's, that's really unnecessary course, sports is a whole nother conversation of sports. But, but but like, I just I don't see why that I don't see why that is needed at especially. I don't see why that's needed. In a lot of cases, but or in pretty much all cases, but that's not this discussion, but but definitely

not for like little kids. So our next aspect that we're going to cover here is books. One thing that we have really focused on with our agenda creative parenting is just reading diverse books. Some of that means like reading books that are actually about gender diversity, or you know, reading books that are that talk a little bit about gender identity on whatever is an age appropriate level, whether it's a story or or more of kind of a

conversation around that. And in fact, I actually have a actually have a recommendation I meant to bring it down but I didn't So I'll just read out the title to it. The one our favorite one that we have gone through with our kid a lot, and we'll definitely continue to is called being you a first conversation about gender. And it's Yeah, Iris, you're familiar. Yeah,

correctly. But that's a really great book, it's been a great way to just have even if we're just looking at a couple pages of it at a time have kind of short conversations with our kid about gender and an age appropriate way. But we also use, you know, different, have found different fiction books, as well that are just a little more gender diverse. And another thing that that we do a lot that I have found really fun is that we sometimes just switch up

pronouns and books. And and so I do this, especially if it's a book that's really heavy and one pronoun direction, like, Okay, I know, I just was like praising this other book, but I will call this one other book out, there's this book called goodnight, goodnight construction site. And it's like 10 or 12 different construction vehicles, right? And like, all of them, are he?

And it's just like, why, like, Why do all of the different like, you have all these different examples of, you know, the excavator, the bulldozer, the crane, you know, like, why do they all need to be he'd like, like, at least throw in a

sheet. Like, I know that a lot of authors, you know, may not be to the point yet that they're comfortable with, they although like, I'm definitely looking out for that more, but we switch it ourselves, especially if it's a book like that, where it's not a human character, you know, it's a bulldozer you know, it can be a she, it can be a it can be a he it can be whatever. We don't typically switch gender for books that are already gendered

characters. You know, like, if we're reading Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin is a he that's just like how we approach it. Yeah. You find, yeah, the ones that where there's, you know, if it's anthropomorphize already, then like, you can kind of do what you want. And we've just done that, just so that our kid is hearing different pronouns. And we're not presenting these books that are really pointing in one direction. So you have any thoughts on that? Iris?

workshop. And, you know, they were like, we use Neo pronouns and all this stuff. And we found ourselves doing it all the time for every character in every book. And then we realized we were never really using she and he kind of lost ourselves there. So it's funny to kind of hear someone speak about swinging a little too far in one direction. But I think another thing too, is bugs, the characters that are bugs. We are always changing

those up. Because something to Tory lasts me for this and would tell me that I'm overthinking it. But there is a book by Eric Carle, and it's the grouchy Ladybug and the lady bug. Yeah. And the ladybugs the heat. No. Is that it? Yeah, the ladybugs the key. And I have this whole like crisis over is the ladybug a boy. Because he's grouchy. And men are GRE and tough because Ladybug fights everyone in the

book. You know, right. Everyone who's not a parent listening to this, who has no clue what that book is, is like, what are you all on? You know, we're like, is the label good dude, because he's tough and fighting and grumpy. Or was Eric Carle like, hey, this ladybug. That Ladybug can be a key and really changed it up on us. You know? Those are one of the instances where I'm like, I'm overthinking this. I just need to read the book. But yeah, and we try a lot to get Books for all families, all

family types. And our we're very lucky because our favorite bookstore has an entire section that keeps growing every time I go that is just for queer families and we've got like a pronoun book from there. And just and these are board books like these are for little kids. And I love that that is starting to be published more and that we live in an area where we can find that really easily and have

access to it. And I love those my first conversations books, because the even the kids and the families and the grown ups in those books are they're so intentional with the way that they look as well. So, you know, you can see some of them have this visible disabilities, some of them have, you know, patches on their skin, or you know, things like that. So, some of those authors follow us on Instagram, I love them so much.

And especially my first conversation about gender I give that book to adults, because I think everybody should be reading. So yeah,

variation. A lot of skin tone variation, a lot of ability variation in like in the book, in the just in the illustrations, and it's a really great, and also kind of snapshots of families and different things. So yeah, probably like that book too. And, yeah, sounds like that bookstore is so cool. They Oh, I love that probably be surprised. I'll look for it next time. Yeah, totally, totally. Um, let's see the I kind of I had next on the list teaching about gender identity and diversity.

But we I think we kind of just covered that a little bit. You know, beyond that, at this point, we're really using those books more. And then also just examples of examples of people in our kids life to teach about gender diversity. I mean, the main one is definitely like me. My wife is sis so like, I am obviously big representation point of someone who is not sis, but we also have other friends who are non binary and trans and, and fluid and all of that.

And so, so yeah, that's obviously just important to with representation and awareness. Beyond that, you know, just because of the age of our kid, we haven't really gone into much like more conversation than that. That'll all come in due time when he's ready to talk about that more. But I'm, and I'm curious if you if you guys have I mean, if you've got that book. I mean, other than that, I know your kid is 13 months, but you have any other thoughts on like, teaching gender identity and diversity?

dad. And Tori was like, okay, like, let's, let's just talk about it. You're for fun. And, you know, it was so cool to hear what went through his mind with that. And why did he think Tory was a dad was it because I was pregnant? And I'm the mom and Tory was not and Satori is the dad or, you know, so we kind of got to very lightly touch on how dads can also be pregnant. And some families don't get pregnant at all and some you know and

things like that. At, and it was so funny that I mean, I just, you know, just looking out the window like Tulsa, I really thought you were a dad. You know, and then it ended up being such a sweet conversation. So, you know, I think those things will also come in time. But we we like you also tried to just expose them to different people and different experiences like they've been to a drag show already, and drag storytime and things like that. And, um, yeah, I'm with you on all of that.

up or 21. And up, but it's definitely not they don't, you know, just I think some of the performers have just decided with the current climate that they're just not, they just don't want to even go start to, you know, touch that topic with kids. And so they've just kind of stopped doing the all ages events for now, which is really unfortunate, but I was really glad that, that he got to see it. Last pride, and that was really cool. And he loved it.

So, so yeah. So I guess the other piece with all of this is, and we kind of touched on this earlier, I think all of us kind of touched on this earlier, but just the awareness of gender coaching. That again, is you know, sometimes it's superduper overt, you know, with what a pretty little girl or, you know, like, hey, tough guy, or, you

know, whatever. Or even, you know, comments on AI, it seems like, it's a lot of times, girls or kids perceived as girls are, you know, it's a lot about their appearance, it's a lot about how they look, you know, and with boys or kids who appear as boys or somebody who gender is a kid, as a boy, it's more about, you know, what he's doing and things

like that. And then also, and also, again, obviously, with, like, with clothing and toys, and what's, you know, considered appropriate, but it's this journey of gender creative parenting, for me, it's just been interesting, just all the things that I notice that I may not have, you know, I don't like just haven't thought about as much before, even even smaller things of, of, you know, even hearing other conversations that

people have. And again, I also don't, I'm very much agree with you, Iris that like Parenting is hard. And any of this is like, in no way a critique of any way that anybody else wants to parent. Like, go for it. I do not judge this is just how I'm doing it, you know, but, but yeah, it's just been really interesting to notice. All of the different, really strong, and also really subtle ways.

That especially like really young kids are kind of pushed in these directions of the binary of, you know, of boy and girl. And, and what, you know, what we have done is just tried to I mean, a lot of times if we're with a stranger or something, you know, we're at a park and a stranger makes a comment, like, a lot of times I will just move on with my day. It is not it's like I don't I don't want to get into it with anybody it doesn't, you know, we just move along. And sometimes my kid will say

something about it. And sometimes he won't be says something about it, we'll talk about it. If not, then we just let it go. But, but it's definitely been an interesting thing to to kind of notice that is it is just like, constantly happening.

Like I really can I swear on this. I was about the fair. Yes. Yeah, like I shit you not. We sat there making bonnets. We sowed bonnets. We were inside sewing away with our fragile little hands and making soap. I remember that too. We made soap one time, which was probably cool, you know, soap school, but the boys were outside. And they were in woodworking class or getting to play soccer or run around and like they got PE and we shook a mason jar full of

heavy cream. So, like right there that was so big for me when I knew that we wanted to have kids even prior to do creative parenting and having words for it. I was like, That is a big no no for us is these behavior expectations. And people start that so young, even with like, boys, they took so much longer to learn how to walk or girls potty train so fast. And I'm like, where are you getting that from? Is what I would like to know? Where

where's the data? I want to talk about this a little more, because, um, you know, a year ago, you told me because my stomach was shaped a certain way that I was going to give birth to a female baby. And you know, now that they're older you swear, by the way that they learned how to crawl that they're a male baby, and then tomorrow, you're gonna tell me it's a female again? And then let? Can't you just let it be?

Can't you just let my kid learn to walk at their own pace, learn to use the potty, at their own pace? Do these things on their own schedule? Besides? I don't know, other than telling them? Like, I feel like sometimes parents almost give up on certain things too. Like, Oh, boys take so long to potty train. I'm not even, we're not even going to deal with that. Or, you know, the girls, they grow up to hate their moms. They

just do. And you just wait for that, you know, things like why are we setting our kids up for that? Like, why are we having that perspective, even from such a young age? Or, you know, boys are so energetic thing. I'm like trying to pull all these little things and right by it is it's so bizarre to me. Like where, where did we decide where and when did we decide that things were going to be this way. And I know we could dive into the patriarchy and how these things

truly came into play. But that is probably the biggest thing that blows me away is how people approach behavioral expectations and milestone expectations. In these children who are so young, there's so little, and we put that on them already. We put that burden on them at such a

young age. And I I really appreciate that gender open parenting deconstructs that not only for them, but for me as well in how I how I parent, and you know, things that I would never have thought about until like, maybe you can agree that do you feel like when you committed to this that all of a sudden you noticed every gender nuance? And I don't know what that I would have thought about those little things. Even me identifying with the trans non

binary umbrella. I still don't think I would have caught on to these things with kids. And, you know, sports is a big thing. Why do we split them up in sports at three years old? They're running around a track? Why are we

true. And I think there's a lot to be said, I mean, you you said this, but I just want to highlight like the the difference in the approach for the parent to your relationship to your kid, you know, if you're just if you're able to just take that and put it aside and just focus on your kid as an individual, instead of your preconceived notions of what they need to act like because of their gender. And what you think society is expecting because of

their gender. It just really, really, I don't want to say changes the relationship it does, but it really like opens up the relationship. I feel like it just allows it to be whatever it is organically outside of that which is really, really a trip. Rylie, do you have any any thoughts on that?

at my local library. And so I actively was every Sunday pulling the books that were put on hold for the like, get to sent all over the city to like from our library, and I helped other libraries to doing the same thing. So like I actively was in the shelves every Sunday. And so like these books didn't exist a decade ago, like more than a decade goes. So it's just wild to me, like how much has come in the last decade?

of books came out. And then that conservative backlash kind of went along with what was behind those books coming out, which is more kind of more acceptance of gender variance in society and kind of this different societal conversation, you know, and then it was like the, you know, the fists came down to try to try to clinch that up. So yeah, that's

interesting, too. Because when you look at some of the band lists, it's like, yeah, I mean, of course, you look at big list of banned books, there's like a lot of stuff that's a lot older, but especially like gender, you know, gender variant books, or gender diverse books, a lot of them are like really recent. So that is, that's really true. That's really true. So another aspect of gender creative parenting, that's super important for for my family is

body autonomy. And obviously, like, and again, this is something that is certainly not not only with gender creative parenting, and I'll just like pause here and say, like a gender creative parenting is not the only parenting style that I do. You know, I think, yeah, a lot of our parenting is kind of in the Montessori method, although we're not we're certainly not strict Montessori, but, but I mean, that whole idea

is child LED. So a lot of people actually think of gender creative or gender open parenting as kind of following in that, in that, that kind of theory, or that kind of theme. But I mean, we also do, we do intuitive eating, and we do kind of losing some other ones. Right now we're doing

autonomy comes in, as well. But basically, the idea for that is that our kid knows the name of his anatomical body parts, you know, all of them, including his genitals, and we do not use nicknames for that. And then all around, we just have a lot of different kinds of practices around consent. Sometimes that was like, I even really tried to do it as a kid. I mean, with a with a baby or picking up a baby so much, I don't feel like I did

it every time. But I definitely did it as soon as he became a toddler, and that was, you know, he's moved around more and stuff that if I needed to find needed to pick him up, I would actually say that, you know, I would say, Hey, I'm like, I'm gonna pick you up. Now. Part of that is like, you know, with that respectful parenting is like, if you're trying to leave the park and a kid doesn't want to leave the park, you know, you give them a chance to get up and

leave the park on their own. And if they can't, then you say, Okay, I see you're having a hard

time moving. Now I'm going to pick you up and move you, you know, but, but basically just communicating before that, and even when, you know, even if it's like getting dressed or in the bath, or you know, going potty or whatever, actually, like, let him know, like, Hey, we're gonna put on your shirt now, you know, like, okay, we're, you know, like, I'm going to tell you off now, like, things like that, and also giving him a chance to, like, I can't say say no, because it's

like, you know, you got to take a bath, right? But, but like, if if he is basically telling me like, you know, he doesn't want to be picked up. If I can avoid it, I will avoid it. You know, like, I mean, if it's really time to leave the park, and I've given him a chance to walk out on his own, then I'm probably going to chuck them over my shoulder and go, but at least like I'm at least telling him like I I hear you, but like, we gotta go now, but just really trying to build in more consent

around body boundaries. And a big thing with that for us is we've been really big on not having to show displays of affection with people, and they including ours, you know, but not know when, when we're saying hello and goodbye to people, even if you know if it's friends, even if it's family, even if it's me, even if I'm like, I'm gonna go to work now. Do you want a hug? If he says no, I'm like, Okay, I'll wave. See you later, have a good day, you know, or sometimes I don't

even offer the hug. I'm just like, hey, do you want a fist bump? You know, do you want to high five or whatever. And, and that feels really awesome in that way. Because I know that when my kid wants that, wants to connect with me, like wants a hug, like he really wants it, you know, because I've given him that space to like to say no, and I've given him that space to like, ask for it himself. And so it feels really good to me that, that I'm like, you know, I know that that's not being pushed on

him. Sometimes it can be a little tricky with, you know, a certain people or like certain family that might expect that or just be used to that from their own patterns, but not something that you work through. So anyway, what Iris, do you have any thoughts on that?

as they get older. And I think it's a really beautiful thing, what you are doing what I am doing, what truly a lot of parents in our generation are now doing is we're just, I'm coming at it from this perspective of they don't owe me anything, they don't owe me what people perceive as, you know, good behavior, quote, unquote, they don't owe me a certain gender, they don't owe me a hug, they don't owe me going to college, they don't owe me spending time with me, you know,

and I'm kind of coming at it all from that perspective, which I think ties in so much to this conscious parenting, I love that. And even gender open parenting in the way that we approach that is, like we are, we are giving this to you and take what you want from it. And this is, this is how we want to approach it with you. And I really just really appreciate that when I can hear that from another parent of an older child and know that you're fighting

the good fight. And I think that our kids will have such a different experience than we did. And a lot of our generation did. So I am, I'm on it with you, like in the same approach to things, everything is very much child lead. And, you know, there are things that like we talked and I talked about how when they're older, maybe even now, like in this season of toddlerhood that we're getting into is there are times when they'll be allowed to make a

decision for themselves. There will be times when we all will need to discuss the decision. And there will be times when we as your parents just have to make that decision for you. And we'll talk about it and we'll talk you through it and give you our reasoning it's not going to be a because we said so situation. But I really think that gender creative parenting is a part of all of that is a part of this respectful parenting movement in general.

Because like I said, it's all child lead in the way that we're approaching this. So wouldn't that also, you know, bring in this crazy idea of not assigning a gender to our child and letting them show us the way with who they are and what they want to do and, and all that so yeah, 100% agree with you on all of that and especially when it comes to talking about our bodies and our body parts I think that is Safety First of all being aware of the correct language for every body part.

And I also think that gives them a little bit more control autonomy over themselves to know this is my body. These are the parts that I get to share with other people if I want to high five them, you know or if I want to hug them, but I also don't have to do any of that either. And I can say no if someone is trying to I don't know take me to the potty and I would rather my mom take me The potty, you

know, things like that. It's just all about giving our children the tools to figure that out and be able to make those decisions. And I think it's the same thing with gender. And the way that we're approaching this with them is we are just handing them the tools, and they're gonna put it together and figure it out. So yeah,

actually. And so like, just the expectation of like, what's coming for us kids, after, you know what they've had to go through with all that. And just like what they're expecting, from even the grandchildren and the other children, and how they are, because my parents, not amongst all of the other castes, they had going on with my grandmother's, they also were caregivers to one of my cousins and my niece as well. So like

they don't full house. And so like, even amongst dealing with the elderly grandmothers, and having two children that are of elementary school age, in the house at the same time, and having to parent that while also dealing with, you know, the

grandmothers and all that. So like, it's just really interesting, just to see how they've been even almost getting like a second chance at parenting again, with my cousin and my niece, and just how they've been, you know, interacting with that and how they've been going about it, especially because my niece was born during my senior year of high school when I began my

social transition. So like how my parents have been dealing with all that regarding her, and then when my cousin came into the picture, for them having custody of him, and just how they've gone about trying to continue being, I guess, not as structured with the gender roles, I guess, as much so even though like, you know, they, they fall in a little bit into it, because of going into public school and just how children

are. So you know, just the expectations that public school kids especially have when they're interacting with each other. But you know, just like seeing how that they go through the world, and with all the aspects of even with the sort of gender creative parenting that I got to sort of experience growing up and seeing them get to go through, and a different sort of aspect now, it's just kind of interesting to see how it all kind of plays out. You know?

perspective. Because, like, parents are 100%, like learning all the way. Yeah. And, and so that's and, you know, also like, as culture has shifted, and everything, and as their relationships have shifted, and like, they have a trans son, and that's, you know, gotta have shifted some ideas of their own ideas of gender and like that. So, yeah, that's interesting, just to, to note that, that you see that shift,

And I love to affirm that with people because it is so much more than pronouns, which a lot of people just are like, what is this they then thing and I'm like, it's it's that but it's also not. It's also so much more beyond that and everything we've

discussed tonight so far. And I always am trying to affirm that in people like you are probably doing this, even if you don't realize it or if you think that you were doing that in the stories that you're retelling about how you raise your kids like yes, you We're doing it awesome, you know, and it, it doesn't have to be this, like, you know, you get one chance and you do it or you don't like, I think that, you know, my I use my sister is a great example of

this. Because she raised my nephew with gender pronouns and things like that. But he also is fully aware that he gets to pick out all his clothes. At any given time, if you wanted to talk a little bit more about gender pronouns, he knows he can. And he understands that, you know, he doesn't have to be rough and tumble, he's allowed to cry, you know, things like that. And she would never have labeled herself as a gender creative parent. But yet, she

has been one. And so I think that's really neat that you share that Rylie in your parents having this like, second go about it, and how, you know, their thoughts and perspectives have changed. So, but I hear that a lot with parents who have raised children who are now older, they get to kind of look back and say, I think I kind of did that. And am I allowed to pat myself on the back for that? And I'm like, Yes, hell yes, you are. Please do.

for sure. And it's, and I think that there is so much more to gender, creative parenting van pronouns. And I was talking to a friend of mine who just recently had a kid and was talking to her about about this, and, and kind of mentioning like, hey, like, because something she was interested in, and the pronouns were kind of, she was like, oh, that's, you know, that's a lot. And I was like, Yeah, well, you know, you don't, you don't have to do it, like, you know, like,

just do what feels right. You don't have to do any of this. But yeah, like, hey, like, you know, take from this, what, what fits for you. But that is a really good segue into the next little aspect, which is pronouns. So, so my story of this is like, so when, because we, we had not planned on, we didn't have the term for gender creative parenting before. And in certain ways, I kind of wished that we did, but we

didn't. And so when our kid was born, we did you know, we announced his assigned sex and, and for several months, people were using those pronouns, and then, and then we decided to do gender creative parenting, or really looked into it. And when, when we took the time to look into it, and had a big conversation about it, it was, for us, it was going to be a shift because we were shifting to they them pronouns for our kid. And that was really

important to us. And it you know, we thought about it and talked about it and read about it for a while before we decided to do it. But to me, it was really important for the way that we wanted to do it for that kind of that kind of clean slate for our kid. And so we did that, and I think our kid was it, he must have been a little under a little under one, or maybe like nine months old, or something like that, when we started using

they them pronouns. And, and, and, like, on occasion, we would, you know, kind of read a couple pages from that book that, you know, the first conversation about gender, especially as he's already get a little bit older, not at nine months, so much. Especially as he started to get a little bit

older. And, and, you know, we talked about it a little bit here, and we didn't talk about it all the time, or bring it up every day or anything like that, but we did, you know, talk about it some and talk about pronouns and just let him know, like, we are, you know, we've, we are using they them pronouns for you until you tell us otherwise. And it two and a half. One day our kid was like, um, he, and we were like, Oh, cool. Okay, right on and then like, you know, we were

too. And, and it was really interesting to me because, again, it kind of this whole process for me has been digging into a lot of my own internalized transphobia through kind of deciding to do gender creative parenting at all. And I mean, I had all these thoughts, like, you know, like, Oh, he's too young. And, you know, he doesn't know what he's saying. And like, I don't know, what his what he's thinking. But I don't think it's as much about gender identity, at the moment, as it

is about the word. You know, that like, he just he identifies with that word. Particularly for my kid, I have been very careful to refer to him as a kid or child. I don't refer to him as a boy, or girl, I don't refer to him as my son or my daughter. I just haven't done that yet. It's not that I'm not willing to do that. Like when he tells me which one of those feels right to him. That's cool. We'll go with that. But I just like to me, I don't want to just be

like, okay, he chose he. So we have a boy and we're gonna go this way. Now. You know, that's like, the whole point about gender creative parenting is like, that's not what you do, you know,

direction he wants to go in. It has been interesting, that I think generally people like, the binary pronouns, like as they do for adults, you know, they feel much more comfortable with a binary marry pronoun, then with they, um, and so, you know, they, they, that has been interesting to see how those conversations, whether it's with strangers, or even with people we know, you know, even just saying, okay, like, our kid is using these pronouns now and like, and, and that shift or

that, you know, using those binary pronouns seem to definitely be easier. And it's, but it's just interesting, because I just think that a lot of people are just so attached to pronouns. And, and I don't mean, I mean, I think it's great for people to be attached to their own pronouns. Like, that's fine, but I think generally, like, you know, the amount of attachment that people have to other people's pronouns is just, yes. Wild, you know, like, it is

just frickin wild to me. So, so, yeah, I mean, even with me, like I use they them pronouns, and I'm, I'm like, I'm one of them, you know, so it's, and I've, like, I've seen that online, or they're one of them and like, okay, but But yeah, that's, that's a trip and it's just it's just interesting to me again, how that like, you know, we still do all that gender creative parenting, but we're following our kids lead. And so we've been using he for over a

year now. Iris is, is your kid is Troyer, like, speaking yet saying words or

spoken words here and there. But like so I'm a coder, my parents are deaf. And so for me, it was really important that we signed with them. And it's interesting because and this is something that gosh, there's people I want to connect you with to come on a podcast and talk about things I'll be sending you some names, because this isn't necessarily something that me as a hearing

person can really speak to. But the way that in any language in general, most languages at least have words have gender to them. So like Spanish is a big example. In ASL when you're using like, so just a very like, you know, brief way to explain this as like, if you were to say A girl, mom, grandma, all of those signs are done on your chin. If you're gonna say, Boy, dad, brother, Grandpa that's all

on your forehead. So there has been this new wave of the Deaf and queer community coming up with how do we approach gender neutral signs. And so we've just been following the the lead of the Deaf queer community and picking up what they're using. And so it'll be interesting how that's going to translate to with Troyer. But there is a Deaf couple raising their own little COTA, who could talk so much more about that with you all, if you ever were interested in

that. But yeah, so I, I, too, is so crazy to me that your kid was able to articulate that for himself. And I think that is such an incredible show of just how early these things really do. Click for kids. Like he's obviously connected with that word. And like you said, maybe he doesn't fully, you know? I mean it to okay, at two, are you understanding the patriarchy? I

don't know if you are. But obviously, you know, enough to be like, Okay, this is, this is what I want you to call me, I don't know that I necessarily identify with everything about what being a boy in society is. But this is what I want you to call me for now. And I think that's really cool that you had that experience at such a young

age. And I can't wait to see if that happens for us, like when that's going to happen and when that conversation will be had and I brought up Bobby Niccolo earlier and their child has like switched names a couple of times, which I also think is a really cool aspect of this and how they've let them do that. And yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to when that day comes, and you know, how we're gonna approach it. Like, you all kind of took a couple of days to see

if it was going to stick. Maybe try different things on I feel like maybe as they as they get older, what do you want us? Do you want to try being called this? Do you want to, you know, things like that. We'll play with that a little. I think that's one of the most exciting parts of parenting, like we are, is that you have so much freedom in how you want to approach everything in anything. So yeah,

it. I agree with you, I don't know, if it's like, you know, I don't think they're getting all the structured, the structure, gender stuff that, you know, we do as adults obviously, are, but definitely picking things up. And it's, I've been kind of wondering, too, because we are not presenting these really binary roles at home, you know, that, you know, I mean, honestly, like you, you hear of some trans kids identifying as

trans really early. A lot of times when I hear those stories, and and I don't have any, like, specific example right now, but like, a lot of times when I hear those stories, it sounds like those kids are brought up in a very binary house, you know, binary, like teaching house, and then they're like, you keep putting me in dresses, but I don't identify with that, you know, and they and they switch. And so I think it's, it's, it's going to be interesting. And to us, it's just always going to be

an open conversation. But yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see, you know, if it's if, if a kid is not put into one of those boxes right away, what's their different approach to their own gender, just being able to be more fluid from being welcomed to be more fluid from the jump, if that's how they feel. So that's, that's interesting. And also, I'm just gonna mention, I do not know a lot of ASL, but we did we learned ASL. When our kid was a baby, my wife is like, super into a lot of different

languages. But like, she knew a tiny bit of ASL and started learning quite a bit more took a couple classes and stuff. And so we don't I, I don't I honestly am not proficient enough that I feel like I could really have a have a big conversation with somebody, but I do. It's interesting, because we use those signs that we have learned all the time. I still signed to, I sometimes sign to our kid and he'll talk back to me, which is interesting, because I'm like, Oh, you can tell what I'm

saying. You know, yeah, but I mean, I I find it like that's been really nice. I actually, like, yeah, that's been a really nice addition to like, our parenting as well. And especially before our kid was speaking more, you know, now his language is more developed. But that was really important. And certainly if he's

overstimulated, I will sign. If I you know, if I know that if I know the sign, I will sign because a lot of times that will really help him focus more, rather than because a lot of times it's like sound overstimulation for my particular kid. And, but, yeah, well, let's see, I know, we're kind of running, we've, I think we've gone past our hour here, but I want to just hit on a couple more things. If that's

cool. So we've already talked quite a bit about, like child led gender exploration, and just really focusing on allowing your kid to be whoever they are, and supporting them when you know whether the identity is fixed or shifts over time. I am certainly not against any, like, if my kid ends up being really, really, I don't want to say like really, sis or really trans. But I mean,

I guess that's fine. Like, if my kid ends up being really, really masculine or really feminine, like, I'm not, our approach to it, too, is like, we're not trying to even push gender fluidity. I mean, early on, I want to like, show that to our kid, to kind of give him those options, you know, but if it turns out that like, you know, he really wants to be a girly girl, like, that's fine. And if he turns out that he really wants to be a masculine boy,

like, that's fine. And so it's just really like, it's also not like this idea of gender creative parenting is not also like, totally gender neutral. And I think a lot of people get tripped up by the pronouns, because they think it's like, you know, you're raising your child gender neutral. And it's like, well, no, we're using gender neutral pronouns, because we really want our kid to show us who they are. And then we're going to just support whatever that is. So you have any

thoughts on that? Everything you've said, I agree with you, Rylie, what about you?

expecting that response. So like, getting that response was like, the best case scenario. Getting that response, though, also was, like I said, not the response I was expecting. So like, that was really not like, I could have expected any sort of response. But like, I guess, like, it's still even to this day, a little mind blowing. I mean, that was the response that I got, even though like, it's fully been 11 and a half years.

But like, it's still just like, the idea that like, for a former military conservative woman, like, that was her response, like, just I love you no matter what, like, you know, I could not have expected that.

that's just so awesome. It always is so heartwarming for me to hear of parents who are, you know, supportive of kids just being who they are. And, yeah, it's just like, I think that's, I think that's the best way to parent obviously. Well, I've got, I really got just one more kind of point and then we can wrap up the end. You'd mentioned this earlier, Iris, but there is also a bit of a three line with gender creative parenting that the kids anatomy is, is not anyone's business or not very

many people's business. I mean, I do think that we're going to have to rethink that approach as our kid gets to be school age. Just as far as, you know, just being like, you know, just being responsible adults and being, like, honest and well, yeah, you know, with the school or, you know, with parents of friends and things like that. But I definitely, you know, at this at this age at this point, it's just interesting. And Kyle Myers

touched on this a lot. And in their book of like, like, why do people really need to know, it's just, you know, it's just really not anyone's business and really, doesn't need to be part of what any, certainly any stranger, or, you know, really, almost anyone interacting with your kid needs to know. And, and to me, it's interesting, because it's really just a point of privacy for my kid. Yeah. Because I again, like really don't want him to be pushed in any direction. And so just not.

And again, it's like, a little different, because we're using gender pronouns. So everybody's gonna make their assumption based on that, but Right, but just to not just to not reinforce, you know, boy and son, and all of that, like, that's another reason that I'm choosing my own language carefully. For myself, because of because of that, and just really wanting to not influence other people's approach to my kid, you know, and just really try to have them approach my kid

as as my kid. So you guys have any other thoughts on that? I know I received mentioned earlier. But