Kensington Palace denies Meghan Markle and Prince Harry will raise royal baby as ‘gender fluid’

'This story is totally false'

Olivia Petter
Saturday 02 March 2019 12:35 GMT
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Meghan Markle addresses crowd in New Zealand on 125th anniversary of women's suffrage in the country

Kensington Palace has refuted reports that the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will be raising their child as gender fluid.

The denial comes two days after Vanity Fair reported that Meghan Markle had told close friends she wanted to “avoid gender stereotypes” and approach parenting from a gender-neutral perspective.

In an online article published on Thursday, the magazine quoted an anonymous source as saying, “Meghan has been talking to some of her friends about the birth and how she and Harry plan to raise their baby. Her exact word was fluid.

“She said they plan to raise their child with a fluid approach to gender and they won’t be imposing any stereotypes.”

But the palace has described the claim as “totally false” in a statement released on Saturday.

The couple are expecting their first child in Spring.

Hollywood actor Kate Hudson shone a light on the concept of gender-neutral parenting in January after she told AOL that she would take a “genderless” approach to raising her daughter, Rani Rose.

But the 39-year-old later posted a statement on Instagram saying that her words had been taken out of context.

“Recently someone asked me something along the lines of, if having and raising a girl is different from boys. My response was simple. Not really. This whole clickbait tactic of saying I’m raising my daughter to be ‘genderless’ is silly and frankly doesn’t even make sense.”

The mother-of-three went on to explain that her saying “genderless approach” was “a way of refocusing the conversation in a direction that could exist outside of the female stereotype".

“It just felt a little antiquated to me," she added. "Not all girls want to be princesses, some want to be king. And that’s fine by me.”

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