[relaxing music]
- [Father] I think on our
first date we talked about,
"Do you want kids?"
- [Mother] A lot of people,
their initial reaction is,
"Oh this is so different,
it must be wrong."
- [Father] "What if I'm
not being the right dad?
"Or not being the right mom?"
Or "What if what I'm doing
is really damaging them?"
and some people can get really
like, personally offended
like, "how dare you do this?".
[relaxing music]
[heart beat]
[laughing]
- I was very excited looking
around our tiny apartment
like, where are we gonna put a baby?
- [Mother] Keep trying.
- [Father] Baby crepe, un-crepe the baby.
- Whatcha eatin' Grey?
I was so excited to parent,
I've wanted to be a parent
since I was 16 years old.
It's one of the most challenging
and also one of the most rewarding things
I've ever done in my life.
[baby cooing]
[relaxing music]
What do you think, Kiddo?
There you go.
- [Father] [grunt] gotta get the booty in.
The question of, is this
a boy is this a girl,
as long as that's still an unknown,
people act much more neutrally.
So, if we're raising
Grey in a gender neutral
slash gender creative way,
Grey can be who they want to be
without the strictures that society
puts on so many kids so early on.
- [Mother] See all the birds?
Look there's another one!
- From the minute someone
finds out a child's sex,
the tone of your voice,
the way that you speak,
the way that you handle a child, changes
in little ways that most people go,
"oh it's not a big deal",
but it can be because it builds up.
- These unconscious biases
that we hold around gender,
they absolutely frame the paths
that our children think
that they can go down.
- The ones that are born with penises
get much more rougher handled
and peoples voices get lower and,
"oh you're a tough guy, buddy"
and "hi princess", higher
voices, softer tone.
We really wanted to minimize that
as much as humanly possible,
because without those expectations
kids are free to be
whoever they want to be.
We really wanted everyone to treat Grey
thee way you would any other child,
regardless of gender.
I was born and raised in rural Wyoming.
I always knew I was different,
I couldn't put my finger on what it was.
I think my mom wanted a very
feminine, girly girl daughter.
I wore a lot of pink dresses.
I knew pretty immediately,
something about this isn't right,
but I just didn't know who
was safe, what was safe.
On the inside I felt alone and isolated,
and at times afraid,
and when things really became overwhelming
and seemingly unapproachable,
I would turn to suicidal thoughts.
But luckily, I had family and
friends who were there for me.
I remember eating dinner, I
remember looking at them going,
"when am I gonna grow my penis?"
Both my parents were just kind of frozen
and then they had to be like,
"oh, you don't grow one."
- [Older Man] The amazing Tiffany.
- "How do you know that you're queer?",
like everybody questions it.
- [Older Man] All right just talk to me.
- [Mother] It's so silly, 'cause
if you flip it, you're like
"how did you know you were straight?",
why would you ever ask that,
it's just like the assumption
that you're straight,
and so I struggled a lot with that.
I think about all of
the people that I know
who are trans or non-binary
who's experiences growing up
were traumatic, and I think knowing that,
I want to be a parent who hopefully
is creating space for
my child to trust me,
because I'm showing that I trust them.
[crowd cheering]
You ready?
Sorry, excuse us.
- [Spectator] How old is she?
- They are 15 months old.
We actually use they/them pronouns
for Grey
- Oh!
- until they tell us who they are
that's why you were like "who? What?"
- Oh, wow.
All right so...
- They.
- They, awesome.
Well enjoy the pride parade.
- Did you say thank you? Thank you!
[upbeat music]
We are pulling apart this idea of sex,
which is related to genitals,
and gender which is related
to how you move in the world.
So what you wear,
how you share your
identity with other people,
all of those things are related to gender,
whereas sex is really biology,
genitals, that's about it.
- I mean we're lucky, we have...
We're in the best, we're probably
in one of the best places
we could be in, being in Brooklyn,
to find some really good inclusive schools
that are gonna respect what we're doin'.
- Like regardless, people
are gonna gender our kid.
I know we're gonna have a conversation
as they get a little bit older
about like, what their genitals
are expected to mean at some
point and that will be related
to why people will gender
you in a certain way.
'Cause you don't want them to feel
all that stigma and shame that you've...
You're already feeling
and filtering for them,
but then the hard part is is
they're engaging in the world.
- And this could just
be me but it feels like
a lot of people are quick to, they're like
"oh yeah you're gonna mess up your kids",
and it's like, well...
- [Group Member] So are you.
[group chuckles]
- I mean, every parent
has learned something
from the parents before them.
I mean, when we were kids
I don't remember wearing a seatbelt.
Like ever.
[group chuckles]
- Grey's gonna grow up
and probably experience
some shame and stigma around
the way that we raised them,
and that's okay,
and we're gonna have to have
conversations about that.
And also talk about why we
made the decisions we made.
- [Older Woman] Who's the baby?
How old is he?
Or her?
How old are they?
- They're 20 months.
- [Older Woman] 20? You have two of them?
- No, so we use the singular they.
Like if we-- you know if
you don't know if someone
uses he or she, you say they.
- I don't think, I don't think
you have to prepare them,
I think they already
are prepared at birth.
They ju-- this happens naturally.
'Cause I think what you're doing
is you're changing the pattern of life.
Where I just allowed the child--
I mean I have so many
people, little girls that
I thought were so feminine,
but they turned out to be very masculine.
- That's basically what
we're doing in a different way
- and that's what you're doing
you're doing it in a..
- everything is an option
and they'll decide
- well you're doing it, I
didn't do it and let it become.
- [Mother] They talked a more earlier.
- Yeah, I think you're pretty snoozy, kid.
[jazz music]
- The cameras.
Hey.
Gender creative parenting is only this
like tiny facet of what
we're doing as parents.
We're making hundreds of
decisions every single day.
- [Father] What books
do you read your child,
or what toys do you let them play with?
Did you do bottles, did you do formula,
did you breastfeed, did you do both,
did you do this, did you do that?
- Grey, come pick.
- [Father] For me the hardest thing
is sometimes other parents
being really critical
- What do you wanna wear?
- We're not saying
everyone has to do this,
we're not saying that
this is for everyone,
but for us, this is one of
those things of risk mitigation
is what we're trying to accomplish.
As long as they're happy,
that's really all that matters to us.
- [Woman] Oh look who's up.
- [Mother] You're in your birthday outfit!
- Our families are really supportive
and they try really hard,
and sometimes they make mistakes.
At our daycare, they're trying.
It's in our file that we
use they/them pronouns.
- Really the goal here is,
it's not about me trying
to force anything on Grey,
it's actually the exact opposite.
And we don't know their gender yet,
and when they tell us, they'll tell us.
And it might change over
time and that's okay too.
♪ Happy birthday too you ♪
♪ Happy birthday dear, Gray ♪
♪ Happy birthday too you♪
[group laughing and cheering]
[jazz music]
