Would “Gender Neutrality” work in Thailand
The British parents of five-year-old Sasha Laxton, a boy brought up to be “gender neutral” have posted a youtube video in defense of their widely-criticized parenting method. The video stars Sasha claiming that gendered colors (pink, yellow, blue, and green) are “silly”, and when his mother asks him if boys and girls are different, he obediently answers “no”.
Sasha’s parents allegedly kept their son’s gender a secret until the age of 5, referring to him as “the infant”, in order to keep societal gender stereotypes from affecting their offspring.
Would gender-neutral childrearing methods be accepted in Thailand, known for its cultural acceptance of transgendered individuals? Probably not. Most Thai parents are in general rather concerned about the possibility of their sons becoming “katoeys” (the Thai word for male to female trangendered individuals), also known as ladyboys – surprisingly, Thailand has rather conservative social norms regarding sexual orientation. The ladyboys of Thailand, for that matter, with their impressive regimes of cosmetic surgeries, high heels, hair extensions, and even beauty pageants are anything but “gender neutral”, and likely would be highly insulted by being portrayed in such bland terms. Gender in Thailand is seen as being highly distinct rather than fluid.
Schools for Sex – Life is Stranger than Fiction.
Austrian citizens were recently shocked to learn that the highly-publicized founding of a “sex school” had only been a media stunt to draw attention to the country’s low birth rates. What the school’s founders seemed unaware of, however, is that on the other side of the world, Singapore has already attempted to use such methods to boost its own birth rates – and failed. The Singaporean government established a “Romancing Singapore” campaign all the way back in 2004, which ultimately failed to budge the country from being ranked the worlds LEAST “sexually active nation” in a poll taken by condom company Durex.
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