'Genderless' Child Ignites Firestorm in Canada

Fox ^ | May 24, 2011 | Joshua Rhett Miller

[NYer]

A Toronto couple raising their 4-month-old without identifying the child as a boy or a girl have created a media firestorm in Canada, where some have likened the scenario to a "bizarre lab experiment" that seeks to undo thousands of years of social evolution.

Kathy Witterick, 38, and David Stocker, 39, are raising their third child, Storm, to be free of societal norms regarding gender. Is Storm male or female? The parents won't say, so no one knows except Storm's older brothers, Jazz and Kio, as well as a close family friend and two midwives who helped deliver the baby, according to the Toronto Star.

Since publishing a story about the couple on Saturday, the newspaper has received a "rush of responses" from readers, including some who believe the Toronto couple is acting "very selfish" and "very inconsiderate" in their attempt to undo evolution. Others, meanwhile, told the newspaper that "breaking social norms" is not synonymous with bad parenting.

Attempts to reach Witterick and Stocker -- who reportedly works as a teacher at City View Alternative, a small middle school in Toronto -- were unsuccessful on Tuesday. In a follow-up Toronto Star story on Monday, the couple told the newspaper that they have decided not to conduct any additional interviews.

"We don't want them to feel like exotic bugs, and when consulted, they said no thanks to more media attention," Witterick wrote the newspaper in an email.

Clinton Anderson, director of the American Psychological Association's Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Concerns Office, told FoxNews.com that while the organization supports gender nondiscrimination, there is no research available regarding potential harms or benefits to raising a so-called genderless child.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “The older siblings will clue the child in on its gender...” <<

.
You mean sex?

Nothing that is alive can have a gender.

Gender is for inanimate nouns and pronouns.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “I pity the poor teachers” <<

.
Its mostly teachers that push this crap.

[Spudx7]

My 10 year old has decided he wants to be a psychiatrist...if he can land Storm as a patient he could be off to a great start.

[vpintheak]

BS! This is pure child abuse if I have ever seen it. These parents are expiramenting on their child for their own selfish reasons! These kids need to be taken away from the adults, because they sure as crap aren’t parents!

[JimWayne]

This is no experiment. After a few years, the parents will declare their kid to be of the opposite sex and force the kid to undergo a surgery. All their kids should be given away to foster care and the parents should be arrested.

[This Just In]

haroldeveryman,

These links involve cases I quickly searched for on the HSLDA website. There are much more, if you care to search.

Michigan Father Arrested for Homeschooling

http://www.hslda.org/docs/news/hslda/200302/200302070.asp?PrinterFriendly=True

State v. Mr. and Mrs. C
Blind mother fights for right to home school

http://nche.hslda.org/legal/state/al/20010324StatevC/default.asp

Parents Arrested for Failing to Register Their Homeschool

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/ny/201001050.asp

Cover Story
The Story of the Cressy family in New York

By Lee Ann Bisulca

Arrested for Homeschooling

http://www.hslda.org/courtreport/V27N2/V27N201.asp

State v. S
Father illegally arrested for homeschooling

http://www.hslda.org/Legal/state/mi/2002StateVsS/default.asp

[haroldeveryman]

Thank you for the reply. Very interesting. After seeing the disgusting spectacle in Wisconsin presented by our public education establishment, maybe it should come as no surprise that home-schoolers would be subjected to legal harassment. Our public school officials ought to take a good look in the mirror (and then at their student’s reading and math scores) before they accuse home schoolers of “child endangerment”.

[This Just In]

We have educated our children here at home for many years. Our family has been threatened by the school superintendent. He had stated that the school planned to, “go after homeschoolers”. The superintendent did not state any legal authority concerning his intent, but the action was to intimidate home educators in the area.

This plan worked for at least one family. They did not know their rights, and had no legal representation. They immediately enrolled their children in the public school.

When we were notified of the superintendents decision, we informed a school board member that if the sup wished to threaten us, they could do so through our attorneys. The superintendent wisely withdrew this “brilliant” plan.

There are countless cases involving law abiding citizens whom are harassed, have their children taken from the family, and/or falsely arrested simply because they home educate their children. Naturally, the general public are not aware of these constitutional violations.

[MrB]

BS! This is pure child abuse if I have ever seen it. These parents are expiramenting on their child for their own selfish reasons! These kids need to be taken away from the adults, because they sure as crap aren’t parents!

Tell me how this argument couldn't be used with regard to Christian homeschoolers.

[metmom]

Tell me how this argument couldn't be used with regard to Christian homeschoolers.

It has been and the result has been kids yanked from their homes simply for failure to toe the public school party line.

[MrB]

Though I agree with you that this is child abuse and wrong in so many ways,

we’ve allowed our culture to go “post-modern”, which is simply a rejection of traditional values.

Without those traditional values as a baseline, someone could use the same argument to yank the kids from Christian parents who won’t teach them that “gay is OK”.

The fix for all this is simply, yet will be nearly impossible to implement. We need to INSIST that traditional American/Christian values be the baseline for our society once more, as the country was founded.

Then, we can say the kids need to be yanked from these freaks because they’re obviously messing them up.

[vpintheak]

2000 plus years of human history.

[MrB]

Read my post above your last.
We’re in a post-modernist society, and “tradition” is not just a non-argument, but society now sees that argument as a negative.

[vpintheak]

I agree. But if we give up that argument, then what do we have? Nothing!
They will continue to change the goal posts until they get what they want anyway.

[MrB]

What do we do? We fight to restore the traditional values as the basis of societal judgement of acceptable and unacceptable.

Otherwise, we’re popping decoys over the castle while the enemy is undermining our foundations.

[vpintheak]

Yep. Pray and fight for it.

[christianhomeschoolmommaof3]

It always amazes me that “conservatives” want children to be taken away from parents. God gave those children to the parents to raise and the parents will answer to God for how they raised them. The government needs to stay out of it unless the children are in imminent physical danger.