Still, sometimes I do dress her like this

Coincidentally, my alma mater’s colors are ALSO blue and white. And no pink onesies either! Although there is a pair of pink socks. But check it out, and if you order before the Husky Women win the national championship, you’ll look prescient!

http://www.huskywear.com/ADIDAS_All_Over_UCONN_Huskies_Infant_Onesie_p/adidasalloveronesie.htm

I don’t really care if somebody I don’t even know uses the wrong pronoun, but I would use the correct one or his name in the course of the conversation, and people only picked up on it half the time.

Professional sports teams have ‘fashion’ apparel which is generally just the usual logo but in different, non-standard colours. Why wouldn’t a college try and get in on some of that?

Two options:

1) “How cute! Are they a little girl or a little boy?” (If you specifically want to know their sex, and it’s not coming clear from name or other details. Certainly this is a vital piece of info if you’re about to change their diapers and want to be prepared to avoid a fountain of pee!)

2) “How cute! How old are they/what’s their name/etc.?” (If sexing the infant is not an immediate priority).

(Singular they/their/etc. has a long history in English – Shakespeare, Bible translations, Jane Austen, Dickens, etc, although it was labeled as incorrect in the early 19thC by writers who apparently mistook English for Latin.)

A very interesting post about Gender and Baby Boys’ Clothes from Rachel’s Tavern:

“. . . I’ve also see baby boy clothes with policemen, construction worker, mechanic, pilot, and soldier themes. Activity themes involve clothes the promote going on safaris, hunting, fishing, eating, playing sports, and one outfit my little guys have promotes making robots … What strikes me about baby boys clothes is how much they promote activity and paid labor force work. Even as infants, we start to socialize baby boys into occupations. You rarely find occupation themed clothes for girls. Little girls clothes often have flowers, frills, and some animals (i.e. butterflies), but they don’t have occupational themes. They also rarely have activity themes outside of shopping or cheerleading. . . ”

For folks who feel all this is just overthinking an obvious duck, why is “what sex are they” such a major and thorny question that people will both endlessly ask and parents will be, apparently, too tired to answer – compared to, say, how old are they, which can also be pretty tough to tell, and seemingly a lot more immediately relevant, or their name, which is basically unguessable?

Also: We were just at Babies R Us today getting new clothes for our little one – 2 months old, and finally as big as an average newborn, yay! There was, as usual, an almost literal handful of nongendered baby clothes, with everything else clearly marked as little boy or little girl. I mean, think how hard designers have to be working to not turn out a few more gender neutral clothes, how many colors and subjects and phrases and combinations they have to painstakingly avoid! Why?