Charities targeting SEND children with gender identity

[FemaleAndLearning]

This charity hosts some excellent training courses, but I've just seen they are running this "How to effectively support transgender and non-binary young people: for parents and professionals". You can see who is running the course by clicking on the link. Not surprisingly the slides will not be available afterwards nor will it be recorded. This is what it will cover:

-Understanding gender and gender diversity
-LGBTQIA+ terminology awareness
-Challenges faced by trans young people
-Transition pathways including healthcare
-Changing names, systems and forms
-Legal responsibilities
-Managing single-sex spaces
-Improving equity, equality and diversity; policies, guidance, recommended resources

No mention of autism or other disabilities. Obviously this will be a one sided affirmative approach and it makes me so angry that SENd children are being targeted.

I've had to leave parents of autistic children groups on Facebook because everytime I suggest alternative support groups for parents like Transgender Trend, Bayswater Support, PITT, my posts get deleted for transphobia!

I'm too angry to go on the course but have sent the link to Transgender Trend because this targeting of already vulnerable children (young people?) needs to be looked at. I am also going to write to Sunshine Support (the hosting charity) to suggest they show both sides of the discussion and have an event run by a watchful waiting organisation.

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-to-effectively-support-transgender-non-binary-young-people-tickets-353930243887?aff=odeccpebemailcampaigns&utm_source=eventbrite&utm_medium=ebcampaigns&utm_campaign=8444309&mipa=ABIdvVt03MxPrxU4AMcthlIALaOCMrB3baCjQhNM5jyVDw1grWsPTUCcfetsq1OyU2t1_ICzf995JPLf0irr6VPqbSu3TSCGh5HTS00NIfpRTEbKKhbDFsMpUDL1WfOZ3jOAa91nEFGEkPN-5IAimgRq4fmn06LRKdtEyiZj0DHyLH99XHDwF6xmkiBqNIfWFW-hpUju2_4POxZo_Lrsm-PZOJ89ccVY7JGZi2KYLSszceL-XcWU2cYHY3py7snvW6XpdQ_jkw19xTD5BDDbQZE3hM6L9ILQog

Sunshine support posted this yesterday and promoted the webinar . I stopped following them on FB.

It's everywhere. I work in SEN and have seen the autistic trauma-informed trans-identifying child so any times now. I refer to safeguarding just to get a shrug, 'well that's how they identify, it's up to them.' I've shared articles and resources like detransitioner stories and the Cass Interim Review. It just gets ignored. I keep going but it just amazes me how safeguarding is such a vital part of education until it comes to this issue.

Yes it is the key that unlocks all the doors.

There seems to be a lot of this ideology around the parents of small and vulnerable children atm, what with Stonewall tweeting about nurseries and GirlGuiding with their 'Rainbow'.

That's awful. I note that slides are available for all their other courses.

I'm in a lot of Facebook groups where people seem to think trans people are more likely to be autistic rather than autistic kids using trans as a way to make sense of a world they don't fit.

Speak up, get banned. Profoundly depressing.

I'd send them a link to Jo Bartosch's article and the Cass Review anf tell them you will no longer be giving them £30 for their seminars as they don't understand safeguarding.

This article: www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/03/mermaids-leading-children-up-the-trans-path/

Oh god no. I'm on a Facebook break due to a ban so have not seen them share that. I will definitely be writing to them. They are promoting a harmful ideology to parents and professionals there is no questioning just affirmation. It is dangerous. Prof Tony Attwood stated recently (Interview in the Australian but can't find the link) that transitioning does not fix autism. Some parents seem to lap up that they have autistic children who are also identifying as trans without any debate or questioning.

We shouldn't be surprised - Stonewall have been explicit that primary schools are their current target, children in care and isolated from their families were one of the first groups of vulnerable children to be targeted by individuals and groups selling gender ideology. So of course SEND children will be high on the radar of these groups.

All I can hope is that parents and others concerned about the welfare of these children make copious notes, not just of what is said but also the names and details of those promoting it - in the hope that as the lawsuits come crashing in years down the line once these children have reached adulthood, these people are held to account for how they gaslit children in to believing they could change sex via dangerous medication and surgery. Depressingly this seems to be all that those concerned with safeguarding children can do.

The webinar is on 4 Aug. I wrote on Wednesday to Sunshine Support but they have not responded yet. After yesterday's news about the Tavistock I want to write a follow up and say Mermaids are oro fast track which is in conflict with Dr Cass and ask them to consider rescheduling the webinar with Mermaids until next summer when the new centres are set up and have their new procedures in place, which will not include a fast track to puberty blockers.

Has anyone had any feedback from Sunshine Support.

I'm going to ask Mumsnet HQ to change title to include Mermaids so we get more traffic on this.

I'm so mad they are targeting SEND children.

Re: Attwood's piece, is it this? (Available on the usual sites.)

Brisbane-based clinician Tony Attwood, much in demand as an authority on Asperger’s, is also plugged in to the international debate about the overlap with gender dysphoria.
He recalls a patient he met as a preschool boy: “He has now become a she in her early 20s and she is the happiest I’ve ever known her.”
In his experience, the shift to trans identity is more likely to turn out well if there has been “a slow, thoughtful process” leading up to it. At other times, he says, the wish to transition is new, driven by an impulsive “one-track mind” — a feature of autism — and a confrontational “for me or against me” attitude to parents, whose support is vital with or without transition.
“Often they’re wanting to accelerate the process, whereas parents and sometimes professionals are really seeking that the person puts the brakes on a bit and thinks about it.”
And sometimes nobody knows the kid is autistic, with girls especially good at “masking” the condition.
“They have the ability to act, and this can camouflage and delay their diagnosis until another issue comes up, like an eating disorder or depression or gender dysphoria, and you see behind the mask,” Attwood says.
“So this is why there needs to be a lot of what I call psychological archaeol­ogy.
“I am not denying the transition, I am looking at the psychological processes that led to that decision, and to affirm that and look at developing the sense of self, irrespective of gender, because we know there’s a fragmented sense of self in autism.”

www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/gender-identity-caught-up-on-the-autism-spectrum/news-story/7ca7c7c1a6a0def85cd9e49785ec2d4e

Thank you, that is it. I will copy that link into my follow up email.

It is behind a paywall but I can copy your text. Thank you. Interesting that he advocated for a slow approach like the Cass Review.

Check your inbox.

Thank you that will be useful.

Sunshine support posted this on their Facebook today.
They then posted another trans post.

Wow, I'm clearly not the only person who has complained, but they are digging their heels in. Must reload Facebook!

FemaleAndLearning · Yesterday 23:20
The webinar is on 4 Aug. I wrote on Wednesday to Sunshine Support but they have not responded yet. After yesterday's news about the Tavistock I want to write a follow up and say Mermaids are oro fast track which is in conflict with Dr Cass and ask them to consider rescheduling the webinar with Mermaids until next summer when the new centres are set up and have their new procedures in place, which will not include a fast track to puberty blockers.

Has anyone had any feedback from Sunshine Support.

I'm going to ask Mumsnet HQ to change title to include Mermaids so we get more traffic on this.

I'm so mad they are targeting SEND children.

Thank you for drawing our attention to this.
Given the lessons from the failures of The Tavistick, and The Cass report this is so wrong.

They have posted another trans post this morning on Facebook

Are they even UK stats? I find it difficult to believe that 1:8 have been evicted because they are transgender.

Oh dear that graphic uses the 41% suicide stat. Sounds like Sunshine Support are fully captured. I would think our SEND kids generally don't feel safe at school.

The poster about trans visibility is from an American organisation. It has no relevance to the UK.

transstudent.org/graphics/

Can someone explain to me what’s in it for these activists, Stonewall, mermaids etc please? It’s seriously worrying. But why do this, what’s in it for them?

Well for one individual it's projection and affirmation of their own approaches to parenting.

There's a hell of a lot of money in all this too.

They can apply for funding eg lottery etc. on the basis of MH. they're manufacturing their service user base and creating their need.

If you think about how a wait and watch and wider mh analysis model will work v affirmative, it means less need for mermaids.

In the us particularly it's the medical funding.

Look at how much training mermaids do. And then send charities pass that on. Schools buy so much more trainers in now as the centralised education lea model has greatly reduced.

Absolutely this. If you have put your child on a medical pathway by getting other parents to do the same thing you can justify what you are doing or have done.

And of course money via National Lottery, local grants, donors.