“Is the way we treat boys and girls in childhood the real reason we still haven’t achieved true equality between men and women in adult life?” That question was posed by BBC’s new show titled, No More Boys and Girls: Can Our Kids Go Gender Free?
In two hour-long programs, Dr Javid Abdelmoneim takes over a year 3 classroom and removes all differences in the way boys and girls are treated. The goal is to see if, after a term of gender-neutral treatment, he can “even out the gaps in their achievements.”
The British public broadcaster also released video of an “experiment,” in which they swapped the clothing of baby boys and girls. Volunteers, unaware the babies were cross-dressing, were then brought in to play with the children. Horror of horrors, the volunteers were exposed assuming gender by trying to make the babies play with toys seemingly appropriate according to their apparent gender.
Meanwhile, the number of children being referred to gender identity clinics has quadrupled in five years, according to The Telegraph.
In 2012-13 a total of 20 children, between the ages of 3 and 7, were referred to the Gender Identity Development Services (GIDS), a facility for transgender children. In 2016 that number rose to 84. Referrals for children under the age of 10 also increased from 35 in 2012-13 to 165 in 2016.
Overall, there was a staggering total of 2,016 referrals for children aged between 3 and 18. That’s over six times more than the 314 referrals five years earlier.
WATCH:
Are you sure you don’t gender-stereotype children?#NoMoreBoysAndGirls pic.twitter.com/iThZ2P6REW
— BBC (@BBC) July 28, 2018
'And could stripping away the pink and blue - and the other more subtle ways that boys and girls are shaped to be different - be the way to raise kids with abilities and attitudes that are the same regardless of their gender?'