Biological differences are not a societal construct. If they were then prove it, have a woman impregnate somebody or have a man without medical help get pregnant and carry a baby. Sheesh, these people need to stop ruining their kids life and find something else to do with their time.

No, as a matter of fact, gender is not strictly a "social construct." Partly, sure, but not strictly. There are hormonal differences between men and women that can and do cause behavioral differences.

But even if it were purely social, making your child an unwitting/unwilling part of what basically amounts to a social experiment, is pretty messed up. Don't use a baby to prove a point.

Biological sex and social gender aren't the same thing.

For starters, not everyone is born biologically male or female – there are thousands born intersex (where the genitals are neither fully male nor fully female). In most cases intersex children are assigned a gender at birth arbitrarily then put on powerful hormones during childhood to turn them male or female; Very often they're sent the wrong way and (if they're lucky) go through expensive and painful surgery and hormone therapy to correct the doctors' mistake. Since legal gender is assigned at birth, this then gives them all the same problems faced by other trans people, especially if they were born in a country or state that does not allow changes to legal gender.

Also, not all trans people are transmen or transwomen. Genderqueers have an altogether separate gender identity, and actually have a much longer cultural history than the rest of the LGBT community if you include Two Spirits, Hijras and other third-gender groups. So again, the person's social gender is distinct from their physiological gender.

Plus there are the hundreds of thousands of transmen and transwomen who cannot afford sex reassignment or live in countries where it isn't possible to have it, so their biological gender and social gender are completely different.

@tavdy79: You took the words out of my mouth. Every single one of them.

Remember, people. Sex and gender are not the same thing.

What exactly are they refusing to acknowledge the gender on? A form? A medical form? A school form? What?

In this case, I do feel sex/gender are the same word. I doubt whomever is asking this random Swedish couple what "gender" their kid is, is looking to do so in order to put social constraints on the kid. IT'S TWO! And since when has Sweden been so conservative when ti comes to labeling kids? Last I checked, there were no blonde haired blue eyed cops running around Sweden with a stamp looking to mark babies male or female in terms of gender identity. So no, I don't think this has to do with "social constraints". I would wager it probably has to do with a medical form, school form, etc that is asking the kid's sex.

Often times, certain forms refer to "sex" as "gender" to tame the word down a bit. Embarrassing, but true. So in this case, if the child has a biological sex – which I'm assuming it does, otherwise I think that'd be a big part of the story, non? – then I think it's detrimental to the kid to refuse to identify the sex of the child on such forms.

I feel for those with gender situations, and yes, I absolutely believe 100 percent females can be born in male bodies and vice versa…but at the heart of a lot of issues is, biologically, are you male or female, especially at this young age.

You're not going to go to a gynocologyst if you're biologically a male, penis and all, regardless of whether you identify as a female in terms of gender and thoughts. You're not going to go to a doctor regarding your prostate if you're biologically a female, regardless of whether you are a man on the inside. And I would hope, regardless of whether a two year old identifies "typically" of their sex in terms of gender norms, the parents won't ignore the fact that their kid is, at the moment, biologically a boy or a girl. Unhealthy to say the least. Your child has a yeast infection in her vagina – you going to NOT acknowledge she has a vagina because she MIGHT at some point identify as a boy in terms of gender? C'mon!

This kid needs to just be whoever it is and biologically be defined for the moment, until it's old enough to ever decide if and when it feels like going through a sex change. End of story.

Male and Female is NOT gender. It is sex. They are two completely different things. Unless this child is intersexual then I don't see the issue here. Gender is about identity. Sex is about organs. The form is asking what the organs are not what the identity is.

i think what the parents are getting at has more to do with how male and female children are treated differently before the onset of puberty. that part has to do with social constructs. i don't think it's smart for parents or teachers to impose ideas on young people before they decide what they want for themselves (eg marriage, domesticity, power tools, etc). although not revealing the sex of a child doesn't seem the only way around that.