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It's a boy! Parents reveal 'genderless' child's sex - after keeping it secret for five years

After five years of raising their child as an "it" a couple have finally revealed – it's a boy!"

Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper were so determined to bring up young Sasha as neither a boy nor a girl that they kept his sex secret – even from family and friends.

But when he started primary school the boy's gender started to become, er, obvious, and so the mum and dad have decided to reveal all (so to speak).

Beck, 46, and partner Kieran, 44, decided on a "gender-neutral" approach to parenting in the hope it would let his "real" personality shine through.

They referred to him as "the infant" and allowed him to play only with "gender-neutral toys" in their television-free home in Sawston, Cambridgeshire.

Beck, a web editor, told the Daily Mail: "I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping.

"Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes?

"It's like horoscopes. What could be stupider than thinking there are 12 types of personality that depend on when you were born? It's so idiotic.

"Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person they become.

"I start to get cross with it if it skews their potential. It's not just a harmless bit of silliness, like horoscopes, it's actually harmful.

"My mother's very sporty and my dad was very emotional. We'd watch The Wizard of Oz and always start crying, whereas my mum would think we were really soppy.

"So it's always seemed obvious to me that stereotypes didn't fit the people I knows.



The couple made their decision as soon as Beck fell pregnant.

I think finding out the sex at the scan is awful. I'd ban it. It's like opening your presents before Christmas.


"I worry that people start making all these presumptions about what the child's going to be like.

"I was a bit curious after the birth of Sasha, but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't making any assumptions myself. So we just sat there, a bit zonked, just gazing at Sash, and at each other.

"When we didn't reveal his sex to the family there were a couple of people who assumed it was a boy, because that's the default: something's male unless you say it isn't."

Over the past five years the couple have become skilled at evading the question and have simply referred to their son as "the infant".

"In the mother and baby group I was the last person to introduce myself and I said 'I'm Beck, and this is Sasha'," said Beck.

"And of course somebody said straight away: 'So is it a boy or a girl?' I said, 'I'm not going to tell you.

I discovered later that I'd been described as 'that loony woman who doesn't know whether her baby is a boy or a girl'.


"And I could never persuade anyone in the group to come round for coffee. They just thought I was mental.

"I don't think I'd do it if I thought it was going to make him unhappy, but at the moment he's not really bothered either way. We haven't had any difficult scenarios yet.

"Nobody's ever mentioned it and I would hope that if they actually said something to Sasha, he'd be confident enough to make a good response."

Sasha has worn both girls' and boys' clothes for the past five years. He has chosen to wear a blouse from the girls' uniform list to school. He wears a blouse with ruched-sleeves and a scalloped collar to school from the girls' uniform list, and has been banned from sporting combat trousers. He is also encouraged to wear flowery tops at weekends.

"I just want him to fulfil his potential, and I wouldn't push him in any direction," said Beck.

"As long as he has good relationships and good friends, then nothing else matters does it?

"All I want to do is make people think a bit."

She is using her son ' to make people think a bit?' Is her son an experiment then in human relations. I do not agree at all.

personally i think its a bit sick

i think it was shocking

I have read some comments where people have said that this may make the boy 'gender confused' which I think I agree with.

Sue

Very mis-guided I would say.

I'm all for children being allowed to play with toys which some might say were for the 'opposite' gender to themselves, but surely whether you are a boy or girl is part of who you are and one's sense of identity.


.... The infant...., sounds so impersonal
Surely it must be better to proudly call him Son.

Can't imagine what it must have been like for grandparents either.
Were they kept at a distance so that they never found out the truth ?

Gwyn

An 'identity crisis' in the making. I don't like the fact that we are all 'labelled' in some way but being male or female is a fundamental fact of life. Let the poor lad be a little boy not an 'it' for heaven's sake.

S x

I was going to post about this, but couldn't find the right words .

and I still can't lol.

Aside from the issue of whether it's the right or wrong way to parent. I find it very odd that this was publicised in the newspapers to begin with.

They're obviously making a statement to the country at the expense of their son, I'm not sure whether I agree with that!

A CHILD ;LEARNS ALL VITAL SKILLS IN THE FIRST FIVE YEARS
INCLUDING SOCIAL AND COMUNICATION,EVRY THING ELSE IS
PLAIN KNOWLEDGE.
HE HAS TO LEARN NOW TO BE A BOY,WHEN AT THE AGE HE SHOULD OF NATURFALY DONE IT,
I THINK THERE IS GOING TO BE
ONE CONFUSED MIXED UP KID

if they had raised him in a kennel, would he have believed he was a dog?


Bob

the little boys meant to be gender will make him what he is to be,,,,it doesnt matter if he was dressed in frills from day one his genetic make up wont make it feel right for him if its not right......

but to deny that little man the freedom to be what his life is about they should face a charge of wilfull neglect to a minor.

and to refer to him thier son as IT is nothing less than a disgusting insult.and hope in the future he doesnt look back on his early years and walks out their lives for good...

I agree with all of these comments,especially those made by Sue Maid and DIZZI. It's sad that there are parents like that in the world,pushing their own ridiculous opinions onto their children.I wonder if that little boy will have adjustment problems in the future,as he learns how to be a little boy, then a male.I feel very sorry for him,growing up with parents like that. :-(

The article didn't say anything about Sasha not knowing if he was a boy or a girl.
So presumably he did know.
He just didn't have restrictions put on his choices.

Not letting other people know, and thereby not influencing the way they treat Sasha should not have a detrimental effect on him.

I still get annoyed when I see toys in catalogues labelled as "girls toys" or "boys toys" instead of just toys.


Tess

Wierd, odd.
There was nothing in this world to stop that mother buying blue t shirts and pink t shirts and giving the child choices, likewise toys- many parents wrrite a list of what their young child would like for christmas/birthday to help relatives. Toy ironing board AND a tonka truck could have been on that list without going as far as they have.

Its almost as though she wanted to develop his femine side ( nothing wrong in that) but has taken it to an extreme.

To me, its more about her pre-concieved ideas than anyone elses. 100's of little girls wear blue, 100 of little boys wear pink ( I love men to wear pink, its very flattering on a grey haired man) . If boy wants to choose a flowery top, so be it as long as its HIS choice not his parents.

I really do wonder what ''gender-neutral toys" are! Sounds like they have denied his the pleasures of normal growing up,

''gender-neutral toys"? what are they?

TOYS WHAT A NUTTER SHE IS
MY DAUGHTER PLAYED WITH CARS ,MY SON
WITH DOLLS
THEY DIONT KNOW THE DIFFERENCE AT THAT AGE
AND MY DAUGHTER IS NEARLY 43 AND SON 40

AND THE SAME WITH GRANDKIDS
THEY PLAY WITH WHAT EVER THEY WANT

ITS THE PARENTS DICTATING TO THE CHILD
MAKING HIM NON SEXUAL

IM JUST COOKING ON MY NON GENDER OVEN
GETTING MILK FROM MY NON GENDER FRIDGE

She's already said that none of the others mothers would go round her house for coffee as she was the odd woman who didn't know what sex her child is...so thus far socially she's done him no favours at all whatsoever.

Let's just hope it's not done him any lasting damage now he's starting school.

Personally I think the woman is an attention seeking moron to stigmatise her child like that.

But there you go x

MUFFY
BY GOING PUBLIC NOW THE POOR LITTLE BOY WILL BEWATCHED BY EVERYONE
JUST WAITING FOR HIM TO MAKE A MISTAKE
NORMAL LIFE FOR HIM
I REALLY DOUGHT IT

Children can be very hurtful to other children who don't fit the criteria of 'normal'. He may well get away with wearing girl's blouses in his current school but certainly not at senior level. The remarks he might encounter don't bear thinking about so he will HAVE to conform by then for his own sanity.

As for toys, all children will explore playing with toys not marketed for their gender, no need to buy 'non gender toys'.

I imagine their house to be a 'fun free zone' but I hope I am wrong. I found the photos quite disturbing TBH.

Sue x