The decision by Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt to let their 8-year-old daughter go by the name of John and wear boys' clothes could trigger gender issues down the road, parenting expert Cherie Corso says.

 

"This child needs guidance. Maybe she sees her parents playing different roles and is dressed up and she's playing at a role, but as far as changing her name to John, it's ridiculous," Corso said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.

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"Parents need to guide and protect their children, and Brad and Angelina should not be considered trailblazing for parenthood at all. They live in the happy forest of Hollywood, let's say."

The superstar couple supports their blonde, blue-eyed daughter Shiloh's desire to be called John and wear masculine outfits.

Shiloh recently raised eyebrows as she attended the premiere of her mother's holiday blockbuster, the PG-13 movie "Unbroken," attired in a suit and sporting a boyish haircut.
Corso said that could be harmful.

"I’m all for diversity, but Angelina is running her crew like she's running a movie set. Okay, we need someone transgender, can we pull someone in?" Corso told host Steve Malzberg.

"It's very dangerous what she's doing. I really, truly, as a mom and a parenting expert, my heart goes out to this little girl."

Corso said Jolie's own gender history might play a part.

"Sometimes you have to look back at the parent's relationship with their own mother and father — and I know that Angelina in the news has been bisexual," she said.

"She has been seen French-kissing her brother on the red carpet. I mean, you're not dealing with the traditional mother like myself, so this does cause social and gender confusion."

Yet Shiloh's role-playing may be completely innocent, Corso says.

"She does have two brothers, and maybe she just wants to be one of the guys and maybe she sees the privileges that they're getting and she just might be one of the guys," Corso said.

"But again, I have to stress that this child needs to explore her own identity . . . in a private way."

In a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair, Jolie said of Shiloh's tomboy style: “She likes tracksuits, she likes [regular] suits. So, it’s a suit with a tie and a jacket and slacks, or a tracksuit. She likes to dress like a boy.

"She wants to be a boy, so, we had to cut her hair. She likes to wear boys’ everything. She thinks she’s one of the brothers.”

In a 2010 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Pitt explained: "She only wants to be called John. John or Peter. So, it's a Peter Pan thing. So, we've got to call her John. 'Shi, do you want . . .' — 'John. I'm John.' And then I'll say, 'John, would you like some orange juice?' And she goes, 'No!' "

Jolie, who has been married three times, is well known for her own gender bending on and off the screen.

She played a bisexual fashion model in the 1998 HBO movie "Gia." She was once hot and heavy with model Jenny Shimizu, saying in a 1997 interview with Girlfriends magazine: "I fell in love with her the first second I saw her."

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