Grimes Explains Why She Won’t Share Her Baby’s Gender

Singer and musician Grimes has explained why she won't announce the gender of her baby.

The cult Canadian artist, whose real name is Claire Boucher, revealed in January that she is expecting her first child. She dropped her fifth album, Miss Anthropocene, on Friday.

During a YouTube live stream to promote the album, Grimes told fans that she won't be sharing her baby's gender because "I feel like their privacy should be protected".

"I don't think they can consent to being famous or being in public," added Grimes, who is dating tech entrepreneurElon Musk. "And I don't want to gender them in case that's not how they feel in their life. I don't know; I just feel like it doesn't need to be known."

She re-iterated her point of view on Twitter, telling a fan that her baby "may decide their fate and identity".

Grimes's stance is similar to that of British singer Paloma Faith, who gave birth to her first child in December 2016. "I won't say whether I have a boy or a girl for privacy reasons. I want my child to go to normal schools and integrate with kids from different backgrounds as a human being, not as a child of a celebrity," she said in 2018.

Faith has also said that she dresses her child in gender-neutral clothes and gives them toys traditionally considered "for boys" and "for girls".

She added: "I’m not in denial of gender but I have absolutely no problem if my child grows up not feeling an affinity with the gender they were born with. It’s important to me they’re given all the opportunities to be the person they want to be."