Boy or girl? For most people - and all of science - that is a simple issue of biology. Kathy Witterick and David Stocker disagree and say their baby's gender is no one's business - not even his. Or hers.
They're taking sexual politics to a whole new level and say their four-month-old baby "Storm" should be able to develop its own sexual identity without having to conform to social stereotypes or bow to predetermined expectations associated with gender.
Most kooky progressives want weird decisions made for other people's children but this echoes a recent trend in health, where the anti-vaccine movement for youth skews as hard to the left as abstinence does on the right.
Obviously the baby has a gender so why they feel the need to enforce ambiguity on a child is unclear - and they are no less clear with the public, writing in an email to the Daily Mail; "the whole world must know what is between the baby's legs is unhealthy, unsafe and voyeuristic. We know – and we're keeping it clean, safe, healthy and private (not secret!)".
They say it is about freedom and choice and if it confuses the entire world, well, maybe it's also a little about foisting off their worldview on the poor people who casually ask. They instead speak in mumbo-jumbo about societal constraints and call parents who make choices for their children 'obnoxious'.
Well, picking a name for him is heavy-handed in that light. Older son Jazz wears his hair long, in three braids - two at the front and one at the back - and recently bought a pink dress because that was his choice.
Jazz was not able to start attending school because his parents are worried how students will react to a boy who looks like a girl. That doesn't really feel like a choice he is making.
Not surprisingly, Witterick and Stocker grew up in what they term very liberal families, visiting revolutionaries in Mexico and spending time in Cuba learning about the Communist revolution. Now, Stocker is a teacher at a school where lessons are framed by social justice issues but Witterick - the wife - is a 1950s era stay-at-home mother, though she says she is practicing 'unschooling', which she calls home schooling driven by a child's curiosity rather than a schedule or tests.
Which sounds like they get to stay at home and play all day - how very Stepford Wife!
The older children have also been told to keep Storm's gender a secret - they can apparently choose to be cross-dressers if their parents buy them dresses, but apparently can't choose to talk about their youngest sibling. That's a lot of pressure and confusion for children.
