Hobbit Humphrey and Jake England-Johns have revealed that they’re not revealing the gender of their baby.

They are so protective over Anoush’s gender that they did not even tell the 17-month-old’s grandparents. It was only when one of them changed the child’s nappy that they discovered what gender they are.

The parents, circus performers and members of Extinction Rebellion living on a houseboat near Bath, use gender-neutral pronouns ‘they’ and ‘them’ and dress Anoush in both boy’s and girl’s clothes.

Hobbit and Jake said that they took the decision not to reveal their baby’s identity because they don’t want people treating them differently.

Instead Anoush, whose name was changed to Charlie for BBC One’s Inside Out last night, will be able to chose their own gender and pronouns when they’re older.

Hobbit said: ‘So much of gender bias is unconscious. 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.

‘To use the they/them pronoun for as long as we can, and create this little bubble for our baby to be who they are.

‘Eventually they will get told by somebody that pink is only for girls and blue is only for boys, and you can’t play with that because you are a particular sex.

‘That’s still a thing that happens these days. We’re just trying to protect Anoush from that.’

Jake said: ‘Gender neutral refers to us trying to behave neutrally towards the child, rather than trying to make them neutral.

‘We’re not trying to make them be anything. We just want them to be themselves.’

Hobbit’s mum Camille, 64, said: ‘It was a struggle, but as with any learning over time it became embedded and they became “they’.’

Jake added: ‘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.

‘Anoush is the most lovely little human. They’re into everything, they’re really active — just a delight.’

Hobbit said: ‘It was tricky at first when not only were we new parents, but also new parents who had the problem of people getting upset about our baby being gender neutral.

‘But in the end it has proven to be a really beautiful thing and we’ve had a lot of important conversations from it.

‘It has had the effect we wanted, of letting our baby develop its own interests regardless of gender. So, for example, while they love having a doll’s tea party every morning, they also are really fascinated by motorbikes and machinery.

‘Eventually once our baby is old enough, they can obviously decide for themselves what gender they want to be, but for now we just want them to be able to grow up in their own little bubble.’

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