Dad advocates for gender non-conforming kids

Phil_Crawford_1

With more people, especially those who are younger, ditching

traditional gender identities, advocates are working to change the

language and hope that in the process, more understanding will result.

Generally speaking, when a person is born, they are assigned a gender,

male or female, based on their anatomy. While the majority of people

accept the gender that was assigned to them at birth, some opt to change

their gender identity. Others don’t feel they can identify themselves with

either gender, and are known broadly as gender non-conforming.

Phil Crawford, 52, identifies as cis (a person whose experience of their

own gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth). He is the

father of Lux, a gender non-conforming person. Crawford was in San

Francisco last week to put the gender issue in the spotlight, making it a

subject for people to discuss, and advocating for the possibility of

changing the language around gender.

Crawford is a straight married man who often finds it hard to get used to

calling his own kid by the right pronouns, but he is making an effort to

speak correctly and he advocates for others to do the same.

In a meeting room at the Women’s Building in San Francisco on a sunny

Saturday afternoon, Bay Area Humanists welcomed Crawford to talk

about his experience as the father of a gender non-conforming person.

Among the small audience of about 10 there were gay, lesbian, and

straight identified people who listened carefully as Crawford spoke

about his own kid. Lux was not in attendance.

While many in the audience were understanding, there were people who

raised questions about today’s language and society. They pointed out

that making new rules would require making a new social contract that

would involve understanding the gender-neutral identity issue.

One man who said he was 59 years old said that he did not know how to

drop “he” and “she” from his vocabulary and worried about upsetting

someone by using the wrong pronoun.

Crawford acknowledged that pronoun use is one of the trickier issues

with gender non-conforming people.

 

 

Dad advocates for gender non-conforming kids

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