Does "Gender Neutral" even exist?

When I was pregnant with Greta, we chose not to find out the sex of our baby before she was born. We specifically purchased "gender neutral" clothing and requested the same. We purchased a brown car seat with pretty blue accents and the baby's nursery was decked out in a woodland theme.

We don't regret any of those choices. Since her birth, we have been gifted or lent many "girl" items which we've been happy to receive, and we've even purchased a few ourselves. But by and large, we're very happy that the majority of our baby clothing, decor, and gear is considered gender neutral. We hope to have a second kid someday and it feels so wasteful to not be able to reuse as much as possible. Especially since they'd probably share a room. 

In practice, however, "gender neutral" doesn't seem to be a real thing. People just assume she's a boy. When out for a walk, Greta gets lots of attention, and nearly everyone who talks to her or about her, refers to her as a boy. They do this repeatedly -- it's not just that the "he" slipped out initially, but then they ask to make sure. This really surprised me, as I don't consider many of her "boy" items to be terribly boyish -- especially not the ones where this assumption has come up.  A grey onesie with a giraffe on it? A pair of multi-colored overalls? A yellow hoodie with bunny ears? A cute little monster sleeper? A plain white onesie? Are these things really that manly? 

I find myself sometimes wondering whether I should buy some hairbows to dress her in -- just to make it a little clearer. But then I remember that it's not that I want people to identify her as a girl, it's just that I don't want them to assume she's a boy. 

I think it's perfectly acceptable to say, "How cute! Is your baby a boy or a girl?" I understand that some people might feel awkward about asking, so in that case the reasonable alternative, in my mind, is for someone to say, "How cute! What's your baby's name?" and let the name do the explaining (although in the case of Greta, it sometimes still doesn't read as a girl name to people who aren't familiar with it, as Ben found one time). In most cases, asking the baby's name will get you all the info you need to continue with appropriate pronouns and avoid awkward phrasing, and if it doesn't, you can either coo a bit more and then move along in the conversation (or on your way, in the case of stopping someone in the street), or ask, "I've never heard that name -- is it a boy name or a girl name?" 

But for some reason, few people do this. They tend to just immediately jump to, "What a cute little guy! How old is he?" 

Is it just that parents of girls dress them so girly that even when a baby is dressed in just a plain white onesie, the assumption is that the baby is a boy? Does a lack of clear "girl" indicators mean that a child must be a boy? Do people subconsciously default to boy rather than girl because they think it would be more offensive to mistake a boy for a girl? 

As you may remember, we were in a car accident at the beginning of July which necessitated a new car seat. When trying to purchase a replacement from Amazon on short notice, the only two colors available in a jiffy were black and "Violet Spring" (a pink and purple combo). My first instinct was the black, as it was gender neutral like our old brown one. But it looked SO hot. And the Violet Spring was beautiful. Just also kinda girly. 

It went against our "Gender Neutral for Big Baby Gear that Could Be Saved for a Second Child" goals, but we decided to go for the Violet Spring anyway. Who knew if we'd even have a son down the road, or even a second child at all? And maybe some cool new super-safe carseat would have come out by then and we would be tempted to buy a different one anyway. And it would certainly make it clear that our current child was a girl and maybe we'd buy a replacement seat cover if we had a boy later on (their blue color is GORGEOUS and would have been my first choice if it had been available on short notice). Or maybe we'd just deal with a little gender confusion in the first year of life. We're already dealing with it with Greta . . . 

So we bought the Violet Spring and it arrived and it was beautiful and we're very happy. 

And people still think she's a boy. 

Yes, that's right, on multiple occasions while she has been sitting in the pink and purple seat, someone has referred to her with a male pronoun. 

Greta in her car seat, looking so manly. 

Seriously? Well at least we don't have to worry if we have a boy. He will totally rock this car seat.