Gabriella DePinho
IHA NEWS EDITOR

John (formerly Shiloh) Jolie-Pitt prefers to wear suits and pants as opposed to dresses and skirts. Photo Credit: Advocate.com

(Editor’s note: We at Accents have chosen to use ‘they/them/their’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’ when referring to John as gender-neutral pronouns in order to respect John’s decision, whatever gender they may end up being.)

Born as Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, the eight-year-old child of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie wishes to be called John and wants to be a boy.

According to a 2010 interview with Vanity Fair, John Jolie-Pitt has been exploring their identity since the age of three, and in a 2008 interview, Brad Pitt said that his child wanted to be called John.

The Jolie-Pitt family is fully supportive of its child’s decision to be called John and by letting them act like a boy. Jolie and Pitt let them cut their hair and wear boy’s clothing, and John even attended the Unbroken premier dressed in a suit and tie, just like their father and brothers.

As Jolie-Pitt’s desire to be referred to as John has been going on for a while, it isn’t new news, but what has brought this into the light again was a remark made by model and actress, Amber Rose in a (now deleted) Instagram post. Amber Rose posted a close up of John Jolie-Pitt at the premier of Unbroken with the caption, “How gorgeous is John Jolie Pitt?! Born into the perfect family for him. #TransKids #LoveurKidsNoMatterWhat #Support,”

Rose has received a lot of backlash for this comment as no one in the Jolie-Pitt family has stated that John identifies as transgender (when one identifies as the opposite sex he/she was assigned at birth), and this is a major assumption for someone to make.

She then took down the post and has not commented on her post since. It is important for the public to understand this and that there are other gender identities other than cisgender (when one identifies as the gender assigned to him/her at birth) and transgender, as gender is often viewed as a spectrum.

John Jolie-Pitt is the only one who can decide for themself whether they identify as cisgender, transgender or any of the other gender identities. As John is only a child, they have their whole life ahead to determine this, and this simply might just be a phase that John is going through.

For now, John has a fully supportive family, and the public should be fully supportive, too.