Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have now entered into a partnership with a group that apparently wishes for people to understand boyhood as “fluid” and eradicate the idea that “boys will be boys.”
The couple’s Archewell organization and Archetypes podcast have partnered with the Global Boyhood Initiative (GBI), which is a group that reportedly “promotes gender equity by fostering positive masculinity in boys and men.”
A report written by GBI called “The State of UK Boys” suggests that the nuclear family can be gender “factories” that inject “gender roles and identities” into young people, and that parents can apparently “gender” their children before they are born, according to the Daily Mail.
The GBI report reads: “Parents may begin gendering their children even before birth based on the identification of external genitalia in scans, including through elaborate 'gender reveal' parties and a stream of purchases along gender lines.”
“While the family is a place of nurturing and support for many children, it can also be where gender and sexuality are regulated and policed.”
The report continues: “For example, Roche’s interviews (2020) document trans children from 7 years old expressing a sure sense of knowing their gender identity, overcoming initial hesitations or resistance from family and school, and highlighting the significance of parental support.”
The organization has also made it its objective to dismantle the notion that “boys will be boys,” adding that this idea often reinforces and permits aggressive behavior from young boys.
Archewell noted: “Labeling someone pigeonholes them, and then ripples out to influence norms in communities, workplaces, and society — including equal treatment of genders.”
“To confront this issue, Archewell has partnered with The Global Boyhood Initiative on a guide for promoting gender equity by fostering positive masculinity in boys and men.”
These ideas about gender have extended beyond abstraction, with schools in London implementing the organization’s perceptions about “gender norms,” according to the report.
GBI also suggested that schools are often the place for “the process of (re)producting gender identities, masculinity cultures and heteronormativity and of sustaining gendered violence.”
Children, aged 7 to 11, will reportedly be educated about “gender norms” and how these norms affect their daily lives.
Consequently, these children will be encouraged to “explore equitable, inclusive and nonviolent attitudes and behaviors in a safe and comfortable space,” according to the report.
Children will also be taught to “internalize these new gender attitudes and norms by applying them in their relationships and lives.”
