Gender-neutral clothing is no longer a brand-new phenomenon. Still, it’s not yet entirely commonplace among parents. Award-winning singer Celine Dion and mother of three boys, including twins, is hoping to change that. This week, Dion announced she was partnering with a gender-neutral clothing brand, hoping to bolster the company and the idea that children can choose their gender.
In a bizarre new ad, Dion offers her support not just for neutral clothes but gender as a choice, an option, or a journey toward discovering self.
I’ve always loved nununu and what they represent. Partnering with them to encourage a dialogue of equality and possibility makes so much sense. – Céline xx…https://t.co/wYoqnDhIIE#celinununu @celinununu pic.twitter.com/HWeO54h4NT
— Celine Dion (@celinedion) November 13, 2018
In the ad, Dion breaks into a hospital and blows confetti on newborn children, which somehow changes the children from wearing pink and blue outfits to black and white clothing. Security personnel then arrest her for the act. The online site is quoted as saying, “Inspire your children to be free and find their own individuality through clothes.”
In an interview with CNN, Dion describes how she came to believe gender truly was neutral and even a choice children should make. While at a theme park with her boys, Dion says, “I thought they were going to go for the big superheroes. They were looking at princesses. And they all wanted to be Minnie Mouse. And then I said, ‘But what about Mickey?’ … I end up saying to myself, ‘You know what, it’s OK.’ You know why it’s OK? Because they’re talking, they’re finding themselves.”
As a parent, Dion says she tries not to adhere to gender stereotypes in raising the twins, 8, and her 17-year-old son. While this is, of course, Dion’s right, her vocal partnership with the neutral clothing line, pushing these ideas to the public, seems confusing and alarming. In advocating that children can simply talk through gender and find themselves, biology is not just a nuisance but ignored altogether.
Can children find their own eye color or personality? Of course not. Some things are innate and gender happens to be one of those things.
Gender neutrality is not entirely a new concept, but pushing this idea on children, whose ideas are moldable and whose minds are often naive, seems especially cruel. Before puberty, children are hardly aware of sexuality in the way that an adult is. Of course gender and sex are different, but they interplay. Allowing a child to explore gender that will lead to perhaps a different expression of sex than they were born with promotes fluidity that can lead to confusion, frustration, and depression.
It’s irresponsible for adults to act like children can choose gender like they choose what toppings they want on a pizza — with just as few consequences.
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota.
