LGBT Talks in School

[GerbilHeaven]

I've posted this here because I'm aware that many MN'ers are fed-up of the Trans threads popping up everywhere, and frankly, I need someone to put some sense into the way I feel. I've NC - I've been on MN a few years. I am not goading nor trolling.

DD(11) returned from school earlier and announced that they'd had a group of people into an hour long assembly to discuss anti-bullying. She then announced that the biggest thing they spoke about was "Trans- something" (DD's words - please remember she's 11) and that they'd told her that men can have vaginas. One of the speakers said that they were now a man despite being born as a woman and that she encouraged the children to encourage trans and not discourage trans. I asked DD what she'd learnt and she said that she'd found the whole event to be less on anti-bullying and more on "Trans". The speaker also told them that they (the children) should now educate their parents and teachers and challenge anything that they said.

I have to admit I'm a bit baffled and pissed off about the whole thing. I don't consider Year 7 to be ready for anything like this and considering that they send home sex-ed permission slips, I'm wondering where the hell they didn't warn parents about this in advance. I would have like the chance to discuss this issue with my daughter before she's met with a large powerpoint proclaiming that Men also have vaginas.

I'm not expressing myself correctly here, and there's no doubt I'd cause an almighty shit storm if I posted this elsewhere, but I truly, truly don't feel comfortable with this aspect of education.

[VestalVirgin]

This sounds like brainwashing.

Or rather, it is brainwashing. They tell her something fundamentally untrue and tell her to attempt to brainwash you, too.

Apart from the trans-brainwashing, I also find it really abusive to tell children to "educate" adults.

This is either setting the children up to fail - imagine telling the children of religious fundamentalists to educate their parents on gay marriage! You need not be a genius to figure out how this would severely harm children! - or a very deliberate plan to use the methods of dictators. Children being brainwashed at school and then being used as tools to expose the parents' nonconformity with government policy was something that happened under Hitler and in the DDR - where the "education" actually did work because the children were backed by the power of the government.

I hope this is not a part of the discussion prescribed by the school, but rather some badly worded thing one person said in response to a child asking what to tell their parents. But I am not very optimistic.

Do you know what you will do now?

[VincentVL]

It is brainwashing. I have no idea how or why this is being allowed, but if this was my kids I would be kicking up an enormous and educational stink.

[simbobs]

I too have concerns about this sort of thing being normalised in schools. My DC are as matter of fact about it as they are about hairstyle choices, but it isn't exactly in that category, is it? Obviously I would be more bothered if I thought it had made them think this way about themselves. It should come under the banner of respect for others, but I think what you described is way over the top.

[Amandahugandkisses]

They told year 7s men can have vaginas?!
This is insane.

[VincentVL]

These orgs are misrepresenting what they are and what they do. They are activist organisations trying to make movement on public policy and perception by sneakily targetting kids before they are aware or able enough to argue. This is very deliberate, a decade ago trans activists were having public discussions on blogs talking about the need to alter public perception away from late transitioning AGPs and how they could use kids to do it. That is exactly what they are doing now, do schools routinely let in other types of lobbyists and activists like this? It is insane how blatantly unethical this shit is, every school and every local authority that allows it should be investigated.

If you look into the guidelines produced by some LAs for schools on this topic, you find inevitably that both the guidelines and research that informs them has been carried out by these dodgy Gender-related orgs, usually with only a handful of kids interviewed, and even then they often are not actually kids but are youngish adults who have given useful anecdotes. Before promiting this stuff and making internal changes schools are supposed to consider the impact on all stakeholder groups but they never do consider the impact on girls, and often there are direct contradictions in the guidelines schools have chosen to listen to. For example orgs promoting girls into sport and orgs promoting inclusion of girls from alternative/minority backgrounds e.g. Muslim or traveller all have research and guidelines around girl only space for changing, toilets and sports. The trans stuff just overrules all of that without even mentioning it then everyone becomes like 'but a person who self identifies as a girl is a girl for the purposes of all guidelines and policies regarding girls' - none of them take the time to consider that a) part of a girls identification with being a girl is that it only includes females not males of any kind and b) just cos a male self identifies as a girl doesnt mean than anyone around them also ids them that way, there may be males who girls seem fine with (there were one or two pre-out gay guys in my school who girls seemed mostly v comfortable treating as one of the group) but some males who id as girls/women set off out predator rdars a mile off - why are we telling girls not just tp ignore that but also that they should suck it up with a smile or be isolated from other girls themselves? Cos the gender orgs guidelines always suggest that if a girl isnt happy sharing toilets/change space/sports teams with a male id'ing as a girl then SHE should be removed from the team/space. Wtf?????

I realise I have posted no links but you can google e.g. brighton council or cornwall council transgender schools and find all the relevant documents. Note there is usually a lack of evidence and research informing these docs beyond anecdotes from a tiny number of LGBT youths feom a single org which have been interpreted by that org in order to compile the docs and ask yourselves, who exactly has decided that these orgs are 'experts' to believe all this stuff and why? - because these gender orgs self identified as experts?? How the fuck is this happening with what seems like no scrutiny at all??

Sorry for messy long post, angry and on phone.

[IAmAmy]

We've had one although not for Year 7s, it was organised by the Feminist Society. There is also a school near mine which has an LGBT Society. The talk at ours pretty much covered the "T" and nothing else. I'm very uncomfortable with all this, all the more with Year 7s being told such things.

[GerbilHeaven]

Am trying to find out from what organisation they were but it was too late to call.

[GerbilHeaven]

I wish I could express myself as well as you all. I want to write a letter to the Head, perhaps the Governers too.

[SpeakNoWords]

I think I might object to the narrow focus on trans issues, and ask when they will cover the LGB side of things. I might also ask why they were telling the students biologically untrue statements. Did your daughter mention any kind of "lady brain" comments? That would royally piss me off and I would ask them to explain on what basis they were stating that.

[Amandahugandkisses]

You should! I would be furious there was no preemptive warning of it for parents.

[FreshwaterSelkie]

I'm really shocked by that.

We wouldn't let religious organisations use school time or facilities to lecture young children on how we all have a soul. To me this is no different - it's a belief, an ideology (that of "gender identity") being given unwarranted legitimacy. Saying "a man can have a vagina" is a belief statement, not a fact. But when an adult says it to a child, how is the child to know that??

Everything that needed to be said could have been said without once ever saying men can have vaginas. They could have said - we all need to be polite and try to respect other people's beliefs when they differ from our own. They could have said - some people choose to present themselves to the world as the opposite gender, and we should never use that as a reason to bully them.

I increasingly see this kind of thing as religious indoctrination - getting children to believe is crucial, just as with religion. And for that reason, it absolutely does not belong in schools, any more than the overt promotion of religion does.

I'd be writing some very firm letters in your case, OP.

[TheFallenMadonna]

We had an outside visitor from an LGBT information organisation speaking at a PSHE day we ran at my previous school , who essentially ran through a PowerPoint saying, "see these me, they look straight don't they? They're not. See these men who look gay? They're not." The rest of the session was all on trans, including the words (verbatim) "Sex isn't important, it's just what's between your legs. It's gender that's real." Real? I was not impressed, either as a Science or Psychology teacher...

[QueenLaBeefah]

There is something very sinister about all of this almost like it is some coordinated, covert operation. Who is funding all of this?

[WilliamHerschel]

I think the first things I would want to know from the school are what info were the kids given and from which organisation.

Next I'd ask why it is my dd suddenly thinks that men can have vaginas, and whether they feel this is an appropriate thing for her age group to have been told.

[WilliamHerschel]

Just to add...

I'd also want to know if any of the trans teaching clashed with any measures the school have in place against gender stereotyping. There are nut guidelines on this - the stereotyping. And what policies the school had on transgender students. Would there be any chance of the girls having to share single sex facilities with a male bodied person.

[OlennasWimple]

I would also ask to be sent a copy of the powerpoint presentation (and would follow this all through the complaints process)

[CoteDAzur]

OP - I also have an 11-year-old DD. I would treat this as any other incorrect information given to her for whatever reason. Get a biology book. Tell her about DNA, chromosomes, what makes a male or a female mammal. Let her figure out by herself why that presentation was wrong.

Just like when (years ago) some dimwit told her that stars are our dearly departed, shining forever in the sky I got hold of a kid-friendly astronomy book and taught her what stars really are and how they come to be.

Just like the few times over the years when she has been taught of one religion or another as fact.

I would also meet the head of the school and let him know what I think about them indoctrinating my child in scientifically incorrect nonsense and telling her she must now educate (EDUCATE!) us, her parents.

[marvelousdcomics]

This happens at dd(14)'s school. Every. Single. Week. She is the only child who sees through it, and is subjected to nasty, misogynistic and homophobic bullying because of it. She is being withdrawn from school. There are 6 trans students. 5 ftm's and 1 mtf. It is so ridiculous and biology lessons are virtually non existent now. DD was almost physically attacked today when she stated chromosomes in biology I really feel for her, and all of LGB - their rights are being overridden

[ageingrunner]

marvellous
Is this in the U.K.?

[ageingrunner]

Wtf? How could any child taught like that expect to pass any science exams? 😳

[GerbilHeaven]

marvellous - oh dear god. wtf is going on?

[BratFarrarsPony]

it sounds an awful lot like brainwashing - just wtf is going on?