Summary: the latest trend in "enlightened" parenting seems to be raising a child in a genderless environment and allowing the child to dictate his gender.

This question comes from Quora, the bastion of "progressive" thinking:

Parenting: Should I try to raise my child genderless?

This would involve basically not telling anyone else whether they are a boy or girl, but rather just explaining to the child what their genitals are and what genders are and leaving it up to them when/if/how they want to identify. (Similar to Remember Storm? We check in on the baby being raised gender-neutral | Toronto Star)

Now, had this been posted here, the reaction would have been predictable - instant facepalm followed by a collective "WTF are you thinking you idiot?" bitch-slapping.

Sadly, due to the nature of the intellectual "open-minded" posters at Quora, this person is actually receiving encouragement. Here's the top answer:

I think it's a great idea, and my wife and I have been raising our twins (currently 7.5 months old) this way. We generally refer to it as "Gender Neutral Parenting", as this tends to raise fewer hackles and more accurately describes our actions. So far we have received only positive or neutral responses from people, which was pleasantly surprising given the vitriolic responses described in the Storm story. Then again, we live in a fairly progressive part of the US and haven't had any newspaper articles written about us, so maybe not so surprising.

The question contained a link to an article in the Toronto Star about parents who are raising their kids as gender neutral. The result?

Her eldest son, Jazz, now almost 8, always gravitated to dresses, the colour pink and opted for long hair often fixed into braids. Jazz’s questions about gender were, in part, what inspired the couple’s controversial decision about Storm.

Recently, Jazz requested to go by the pronoun “she.”

“And for now we honour that,” says Witterick.

As for Storm, “sometimes Storm says ‘I’m a girl,’ and sometimes Storm says ‘I’m a boy,’” says Witterick, emphasizing the point that, contrary to what one might think, the topic of gender doesn’t actually take up a lot of air time in her family.

Note that they are homeschooling their kids to further reinforce this gender-neutral upbringing. Something tells me that if Jazz were going to school, the other kids might have a few things to say about his gender-neutrality. I'm not a fan of bullying but early socializing has the benefit of giving you a gentler preview of what is to come later in life - a benefit Jazz is not getting at home.

Well, at least the mother is getting to write a chapter in a book called Chasing Rainbows: Exploring Gender Fluid Parenting Practices:

Plus, she really liked the idea of the book, which is rooted in feminism, and its editors, two university professors who were inspired to put together the collection because of the interest and debate that sprung from the Star’s 2011 story.

“I know I have celebrity status and if that helps get the book out there ... but it’s not like my chapter is the best one!”

This is what feminism looks like - declaring that gender is a social construct and denying the biological reality, and then using this flawed theory to confuse children about their gender during their formative years.

It's hard enough to be a man in the modern world with the lies and mixed messages we receive every day. Raising a boy as a gender-fluid individual until adulthood is akin to making them play Monopoly with no money - the disadvantage in life will almost be insurmountable.

EDIT: Interesting reading from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environment_and_sexual_orientation#Childhood_gender_nonconformity

Peter Bearman showed that males with a female twin are twice as likely to report same-sex attractions, unless there was an older brother. He says that his findings support the hypothesis that less gendered socialization in early childhood and preadolescence shapes subsequent same-sex romantic preferences. He suggests that parents of opposite-sex twins are more likely to give them unisex treatment, but that an older brother establishes gendersocializing mechanisms for the younger brother to follow.

Lessons Learned: if the feminists get their way, we're looking at a future where men and women have a blurred gender identity due to being raised "genderless" by enlightened parents.