Is this a boy or a girl?

Answer: This is the world’s first gender neutral child

A COUPLE in the UK revealed last week that they have been raising a gender-neutral child for five years.

Beck Laxton and Keiran Cooper’s baby, known at home as The Infant, wears trousers or dresses, and plays with toy cars or dolls, as he/ she chooses.

Registered as Sasha, a unisex name, the sex of the child (pic above from The Sun) has been a secret for five years.

But now that Sasha is five and has to go into one or other changing room/ toilet, the parents have revealed that their child is physically a “he”. 

Why do I have a feeling that this is the second coming of Michael Jackson?

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IN OTHER NEWS:

A MAN WAS last week charged with trespassing—in his own jail cell. Martin Kambate, 44, was due to leave a lock-up in the US state of Arizona, according to a report sent in by an alert reader for my dumb criminals file.

The man refused to move, so cops charged him with trespass. His punishment was to be jailed—or, to be more precise, to be allowed to remain where he was.

Is this a “dumb criminal” tale or a “very clever criminal” tale?

***

WHATEVER, it reminds me of a case I covered about a guy from Mainland China who sneaked into Hong Kong, and discovered that he hated the place.

He was on a smuggler’s boat trying to get home when marine police caught him and jailed him.

A police officer lamented: “We don’t want him here, he doesn’t want to be here, but the law requires that we keep him here at taxpayers’ expense.”

***

ASIAN TAXPAYERS must be the most ill-used people in the world. An Indian government body last week issued an official circular announcing that taxpayers’ money would be used to buy a free iPad3 for every legislator, I hear from a reader named Ishaan. You see the problem? Yes: there’s no such thing as an iPad3.

The Times of India worked out that lawmakers in Karnataka noticed that some officials had been given iPad2s and so demanded iPad3s for themselves.

No one checked whether such a thing existed. I bet taxpayers were impressed.

THIS IS WHY ASIA NEEDS REAL DEMOCRACY.

***

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE NEWS OF RECENT DAYS:

MY NEIGHBOR’S Japanese car has this thing which goes beep beep beep beep if it gets too near a wall.

Why didn’t they have one of those on the Costa Concordia cruise ship?

***

THE GOVERNMENT of China issued a statement saying that its campaign to eradicate “excessive entertainment” on TV had been successful.

Having watched bits of Chinese TV over the decades, questions spring to mind.

When did this campaign start? Was it when TV first came to China, perhaps? Or earlier, when it was just a twinkle in John Logie Baird’s eye?
***

RIGHT-WING politician Newt Gingrich said last week that if he was elected US President, he would send a manned spaceship to Mars.

Everyone who would like to see Mr. Gingrich sent to Mars, please raise your hands.

***

INCIDENTALLY, I’m glad Rick Perry dropped out of the race mentioned above.

Speaking on behalf of the entire human race (as I like to do), I offer this comment: Should the world’s top job be given to a trigger-happy Texan who has trouble communicating?

Nope. Been there, done that. Once was enough.

***

THANKS TO readers who sent me this pic from CNN, which shows that London has moved from the south of England up to the bit that sticks on the right, East Anglia.

***

THANKS EVEN MORE FOR the comments and emails on the piracy issue, discussed in the previous post.

It seems to me that there is a huge groundswell of opinion on the internet saying that robbing the creators of intellectual property is OK, and people will provide long, convoluted, self-serving justifications.

But if you actually talk to the same people face to face on the subject, they all say the opposite!

Funny old world.

***

 

Technorati Tags: gender-neutral,Beck Laxton,Sasha,New Gingrich,Chinese TV,Costa Concordia,dumb criminals,Rick Perry,piracy

Comments

[Jason]

I haven't been able to decide whether this gender-neutral thing will ultimately be emotionally stunting or liberating for the kid. I guess time will tell. Either way, I really don't think its fair to the kid for the parents to try their little social engineering experiment on him.

[Steely-eyed Crime Fighter]

Internet piracy is illegal. However I do get very annoyed over the years buying PS and PC games and DVD movies during my travels overseas, often at airports, only to come home to HK and find the region code means I cannot play them on my machines here. This was to stop parallel imports or something but does not keep the global traveller in mind. Accordingly I have very little sympathy for the marketers of these products.

[Ram]

To me, that kid looks like Justin Beiber 2!!!

[grandpa]

Uncle
This story about he guy in jail is funny, not so much about the guys' attitude, but about the governments' attitude.
It reminds me of this story about this guy, stranded 8 years in the international zone of Paris ( where else?) airport.
A funny movie was made about it:
the terminal

A funny movie for elevators and airplane fans alike

[sej]

Gender neutral... I think that's been done before: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrej_Pejic

"Nope. Been there, done that. Once was enough"

Errr... twice wasn't it? Couldn't it in fact have been "Third time lucky?"

[Dul]

I think the whole gender neutral upbringing is only odd when it comes to boys...
As a girl i wore more shorts than dresses and got both dolls and cars as gifts (didn't really like either of them. Was a picture book girl)

But not telling the kid if he/she is a boy or a girl? That's plain mean!!

[natrah]

now we know how to make another justin bieber...gosh, 2012 is the end

[natrah]

wonder what he will think when he looked back at his childhood pictures 30 years later...

[Jeff]

Hi there, What is becoming of our world? Are we humans hell bent on just doing things differently? Why do we feel we have to constantly push the boundry's? Is it Gender Neutral Children, or just children with no say in the matter whatsoever! We wonder why are children are growing up with huge psycological problems, and why a great number of them revolt against their parents when they get a chance to have a say.
With thanks Jeff.

[Jason]

Am I being overly cynical, or did that kids parents smoke a lot of pot?

[Lift Lurker]

We need a name for children raise like this: boyrl?

[Chamin]

News from Sri Lanka: A Sri Lankan worker on Costa Concordia returned to his home country after surviving the accident. He had lost all his belongings, so the Sri Lankan embassy in Italy arranged the emergency travel documents and paid hid airfare.

The immigration officers fined him about US$100, for not possessing a passport. "Claim it from your shipping company!", they reportedly told him.

[Pol]

This post is pretty nice