Couple hiding baby’s gender to protect child from ‘unconscious bias’

A UK couple says they’re not revealing their child’s gender to friends and family to protect the child from “unconscious bias.”

Hobbit Humphrey, 38, and Jake England-Johns, 35, said they’re raising their 17-month-old, Anoush, as gender-neutral by dressing their offspring in both girl’s and boy’s clothes, BBC One reported.

“So much of gender bias is unconscious,” Humphrey told the outlet. “When I got pregnant, we then were having a discussion about how we were going to mitigate the unconscious bias. And we figured that the only way we could do that was just not to tell people.”

The couple vowed not to disclose the child’s gender to even the closest family members. One of the child’s grandparents only learned the baby’s gender at 11 months old when changing the diaper.

“We are quite good now at holding space for people’s discomfort in us saying, ‘Actually, we don’t tell anyone, we’re not telling anyone for now.’ We’re just letting Anoush be a baby,” England-Johns told the outlet.