安能辨我是雄雌：5岁中性小孩性别终揭露

His fairy wings, pink tutu and ballet pumps suggest this little boy has raided the dressing up box. But if five-year-old Sasha wanted to wear this every day, his parents would have no problem at all.
这个小家伙身穿粉色芭蕾短裙和舞鞋，背着一对精灵翅膀，看来着实费心打扮了一番。小男孩叫萨沙，今年5岁。如果萨沙每天都这么穿，他的父母也不会有任何异议。

In fact, as they are bringing him up to be ‘gender neutral’, they would see it simply as their son expressing himself. Not that they usually refer to him as ‘him’.
其实，萨沙的父母刻意要把他培养成一个“中性人”，希望他能无拘无束地展现自我，而不只是一个纯粹的“男孩”。

From the moment Sasha was born, Beck Laxton and Kieran Cooper have been at pains not to lumber their son with the stereotyping they fear that gender brings.
从萨沙出生时起，妈妈比可·拉克斯顿和爸爸基蓝·库珀就一直担心固有的社会性别偏见会阻碍儿子的全面成长。

So they simply called him ‘the infant’ and kept his gender a secret from all but a few close friends and relatives. As he grew older, he was encouraged to play with dolls as much as Lego, slept in a neutral yellow room and was allowed to wear both boys’ and girls’ clothes.
所以，他们只叫他“小孩”，除了极少数亲朋好友，没人知道萨沙的性别。萨沙长大一点后，就睡在淡黄色房间里，玩乐高娃娃，既可以穿男孩衣服，也可以穿女孩衣服。

But now that he is five and at school Miss Laxton, 46, and Mr. Cooper, 44, believe it will be almost impossible to keep it up.
但现在5岁的萨沙该上学了。于是，46岁的拉克斯顿和44岁的库珀感到再也瞒不住他的性别了。

Last year parents in Canada who refused to say whether their child was a boy or girl stirred up outrage and accusations they were turning their child into a freak.
去年，加拿大有对夫妇因拒绝确认小孩的性别而成为众矢之的，人们指责他俩把孩子养成了一个怪物。

Sasha’s parents, who have faced their own share of raised eyebrows, are thought to be among the first British parents to speak about this far-from-traditional method of raising a child. They are keen to highlight the issue publicly and get other parents talking about it.
萨沙的父母现在也受到了同样的指责。在英国，他们是较早敢于反对用传统方法培养小孩的夫妇。自然，他们也愿意将这个问题公诸于世，和其他父母一起探讨。

‘I wanted to avoid all that stereotyping,’ Miss Laxton explained yesterday. ‘Stereotypes seem fundamentally stupid. Why would you want to slot people into boxes? Gender affects what children wear and what they can play with, and that shapes the kind of person they become. I start to get cross with it if it skews their potential.’
昨天，妈妈拉克斯顿表示：“老一套的方法很蠢，我不想那样抚养小孩。为什么一定要按社会模式培养孩子呢？性别会影响小孩在穿着和玩伴上的选择，进而决定他以后会成为一个什么样的人。这种模式可能会扼杀小孩的潜能——这一点让我很不爽。”