What are you having?: The Lived Experiences of Gender Creative Parenting

Abstract

From birth onward, children are sorted and guided based on binary gender/sex expectations. The vast landscape of gender socialization research indicates that most children, transgender and cisgender alike, are socialized in ways that uphold the gender/sex binary, inhibiting their gender health. A movement known as gender creative parenting aims to disrupt the harms done through binary gender/sex socialization by refraining from assigning their child a gender/sex at birth. Through semi-structured interviews, this narrative inquiry explores the personal, practical, and social knowledge of eight gender creative parents navigating the tension of honouring their child’s authentic sense of gender within a world where the gender/sex binary is ubiquitous. Three overarching and interrelated themes fundamental to the gender creative parenting experience are explored: (1) perspectives (2) practices (3) supports and barriers. This research stands to advance both counselling and transdisciplinary conversations around how best to promote children’s gender health.