What is being taught in schools regarding transgender ideology?

[AugustL]

Hi, is there a thread being kept to record what is being taught in schools in the U.K. Or elsewhere?

I saw this on Twitter. It's in a school in America. For 4th grade which is apparently 9 yrs old.

mobile.twitter.com/teacher2teacher/status/1186749900911869952

I just thought, kids are going to be confused. They are going to make children think they are transgender when they're not. Kids will go home from this lesson wondering and worrying if they are born wrong. That's going to lead to bad mental health. Next week how many will say they're transgender? Some may so joyfully because they've never fitted in, they've been gender non-conforming in some way. But changing to the opposite gender, or sex is not the answer. What does it mean "who you are , how you feel as a person"? Is that based on if I like something- a toy or item of clothing or how i play, if I "cry like a girl" like my dad tells me, or not, if I like glitter, pink, and princesses or not? If I like a flowery scarf but my dad said it was for girls? If I'm a girl but I like to play with the boys because they like playing outside like climbing trees and playing in mud? If I'm a boy but I don't like that? If I boy/girl like cars, dolls, dinosaurs, make up, dresses, dancing, rough play or not? Etc. Etc. And if people tell me "that's for girls!" Or " that's for boys"! Because that's how society conditioned them to think too. If I like some boy stuff and some girl stuff am I neither a boy or girl? What am i? Am I both? This is scary.
STOP THIS SEXIST HARMFUL NONSENSE. BREAK THE CYCLE. BOYS AND GIRLS CAN LIKE WHATEVER THEY WANT. THEY ARE STILL BOY OR GIRL AS THEY WERE BORN. Stop confusing children and leading them to a pathway of anxiety, misery, medication, surgery, sterility, suicide, by making them uncertain of who they are and making them think they were born wrong. You are introducing this stuff to any child you teach this to and confusing them. At school they should be taught to break stereotypes, we could do anything, boy or girl. Transgender or transsexual as we used to call it in UK used to be if someone had gender dysphoria which was severe distress or discomfort with their body being the sex it was, I heard stories of boys wanting to chop their penis off and insisting they were a girl, for reasons unknown or various, treatment was to alleviate this distress or discomfort and if necessary transition - meds/surgery, which if not last resort, was certainly not first resort. ( there was also transvestite or cross dresser who liked to dress up for fun or sexual fetish - I guess they've been amalgamated into "transgender", as have "masculine women", and "feminine men" according to stonewall transgender umbrella) ANYWAYS, What you are doing here is asking children to choose if they are a boy or girl based on how they feel, which can only be based on regressive gender stereotypes which our society attributed and conditioned to their sex. We can change that, by breaking the stereotypes..not by saying they need to change themselves. This is going to make children think they are transgender when they are not. Why can people not see they are causing more problem than solving. It's almost like someone or some company will be benefiting from this? Who stands to benefit or make money? Medical companies? Tech? Where did all this suddenly come from? Why are these philosophical theories being taught as fact to kids? Why this social engineering to keep kids in gender stereotype boxes?

[AugustL]

This is in America but If This is being taught to all children it needs to stop. mobile.twitter.com/teacher2teacher/status/1186749900911869952

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

We had a visit from a dentist when I was in primary 2. Next day loads of kids turned up with carrots for their play piece. This was Scotland on the 1970s (when a 2p bar of McCowans toffee was the play piece of choice).

Children do like to join in the new fangled tings presented to them.

[MonChatEstMagnifique]

I have 2 children, one in Year 6, one in Year 11. So far there's been no mention of anything like this.

[TheShoesa]

My local primary has said they use Jigsaw for their PHSE lessons and a quick search on Jigsaw tells me that the views presented will not be GC.
My children are aware of the reality of biological sex, so I think they will be left confused but not brainwashed. I need to discuss it with the school, really

[foodname]

My (then) 4 year old came home from school and told me the teacher said boys can be girls and girls can be boys he was completely confused. Aren't we all.

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

I’d ask the teacher about that piece of biological curiosity.

[tilder]

My eldest is year 7. Has been told by school and friends that boys can be girls and that girls can be boys. He was unclear how and when the discussions happened.

Ffs.i was clear that biology is reality. Will obviously need to chat some more.

They are being brainwashed. I know it's bad form to discuss other threads, but the pretty princess thread in aibu is an eye opener. One poster even blamed gender confusion on too much gender neutral stuff.

[Nuffaluff]

I think we are looking into ‘Jigsaw’ at my school, a primary school. I looked it up online and this is what it says under the heading for ‘Transgender’:
In one lesson for 10-11-year olds, children are introduced to the word ‘transgender’ so they understand what it means. This lesson has a focus on prejudice and discrimination where a transgender example is used. The Equality Act is also explained in an age-appropriate way. Being transgender is discussed in the following terms:
Most people are not transgender. A transgender person doesn’t feel their body matches with their gender. Let me explain...a person who was born with a male body may feel they are female, and a person born with a male body may feel they are a female. There can be all sorts of reasons why this happens. Some transgender people choose to change their appearance or body so their gender matches with how they feel. This is called transitioning. Not all transgender people choose to do this though. (If children want more detail, teachers are advised to explain they will learn more about transgender people in secondary school and they should return to the focus of the lesson which is about prejudice and discrimination).
Jigsaw’s decision to include this lesson was partly prompted by requests from schools who have pupils of primary age that have been identified as transgender, or are undergoing transition. Primary schools with a transgender pupil needed a lesson to help the rest of the class understand and empathise with their trans classmate. Jigsaw’s decision was to include this lesson as a matter of course within the Year 6 (Age 10 -11) materials so children understand what being transgender means, in line with the Equality Act. But, if a school needed to use the lesson in earlier years (because they have a trans pupil in a specific class), they are free to do so and should adapt the lesson accordingly for the appropriate age group.
This lesson does not promote transgenderism as a preferred lifestyle. It simply explains what being transgender is, and how some people who are trans face unfair prejudice and discrimination, in the same way that other people do e.g. through racism, ageism, sexism and prejudice against people who are disabled.
Personally, I think it sounds fine - I would be comfortable with teaching this. I was worried that it might include ‘blue brain pink brain Barbie dolls action man’ stuff, but it doesn’t seem to.

[cwg1]

Please note - I'm not an expert, but have been reading up recently. What follows is my understanding of the situation.

Yes - this is already in some UK schools (I haven't seen a snow person before, but look for genderbread person or gender spectrum with Barbie and GI Joe as the two extremes) and there's new legislation coming in from September 2020.

This is somewhat complex. It will be compulsory for primary schools to provide Relationship Education and compulsory for children to attend - you can't withdraw them. It'll also be compulsory for secondary schools to provide Relationship and Sex Education, though you can withdraw DC from the sex part. This includes the requirement for DC to learn about ' gender identity' i.e. that everyone has one.

OTOH, there's no set curriculum from government, only guidelines. Schools devise the curriculum, in consultation with parents [my emphasis]. Hard-pressed schools often buy in material for lessons like this and there are organisations very willing to help(!)

Particularly for younger children, this seems to me to rely very heavily on stereotypes - see I Am Jazz, for example. See also the Allsorts Toolkit, which says clearly that it's completely OK to teach 'some, but not all boys, have penises and some, but not all girls have vaginas'.

So, we have a new RE(!) Given the many concerns - with which I agree - about the traditional kind, about indoctrination (I hasten to add that I support the current approach - children learning about different beliefs, as well as critical thinking and debate) all this has me reaching for the

So, if you can, start asking schools/look out for notice of consultation - they have to consult you and will be breaking the law if they don't.

[Longtalljosie]

Sorry - so someone who dresses like Our Aveline from Bread is more female than a woman in jeans under that method of teaching??

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

We are throwing transgender and transsexual in together as a ‘whole’ and this is not the case. We weren’t taught about either when I was at school.

Some transgender people choose to change their appearance or body so their gender matches with how they feel. This is called transitioning. Not all transgender people choose to do this though So transitioning can mean - nothing or the full surgical and drug monty? Eh?

Schools maybe just need to focus on sex education, sexism, consent, coercion, respect and self respect. Also anti bullying, ageism, disability rights...

Why is gender anything to do with schools?

[DuMondeB]

My stepdaughter’s school counsellor suggested that distress at developing breasts might be evidence of a NB/trans identity (and not at all related to being catcalled by an adult man for the first time 🙄) and she should research trans issues on YouTube.
Now my sensitive, clever, socially awkward stepdaughter wants a double mastectomy ASAP.

The school uses the county LGBT advocacy resources (funded by the council) and they link to the stupid fucking Gender Bread person thingy.

It’s definitely in our schools.

[aliasundercover]

Slightly off topic

Does anyone recall the woke fire-service equalities officer who went to visit a school to teach the kids s that TWAW?
Was there ever any follow up to that story? Is she still doing it?

[3timeslucky]

Some transgender people choose to change their appearance or body so their gender matches with how they feel. This is called transitioning. Not all transgender people choose to do this though So transitioning can mean - nothing or the full surgical and drug monty? Eh?

Not "nothing" surely? Doesn't putting on a sparkly top and a pair of heels count?

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

My stepdaughter’s school counsellor suggested that distress at developing breasts might be evidence of a NB/trans identity

or it could be because this is when girls start understanding that they can't run around topless like their male relatives in the summer, and they arent a kid anymore.

It could be because this is when they need to go through the embarrassment of having a bra - and have all the boys comment and pass comments on this and the shape of their body.

Or it could be because of the attention they start getting from creepy guys.

Or maybe it's just puberty kicking in. And we all loved that didn't we? Made us perfectly delightful and reasonable teens didn't it?

I think the school needs a new councellor.

[DuMondeB]

Lovely, sensitive SD is less than a year into having periods and has only very recently stopped looking like a child. She’s in the same pubertal anguish that pretty much every woman I know experienced at some point.
She’s distressed and her fantasising about mastectomy (returning to a prepubertal flat chest) seems to me more like anorexic control than trans identity.

But then, I’m supposedly on the wrong side of history, so what do I know?
We’re contemplating making an official complaint against the school but SD’s MH is priority.

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

Won't be a flat chest though will it? It will be a scarred chest.

I wonder out loud if these kids now are the goths, anorexics, punks, mods, skinheads... of our schooldays?

[CaveMum]

@LordProf there is a lot of evidence that the sudden rise in cases of transgenderism amongst predominantly teen girls (also referred to as ROGD - rapid onset gender dysphoria) is a type of social contagion. It’s very telling that the group with the highest increase in cases of GD (15-19yo girls) is also the highest “at risk” group for eating disorders.

I thought it bore many similarities to this story on the BBC: The mystery of screaming schoolgirls in Malaysia www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48850490

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

It’s like the cases of mass hysteria and fainting (generally among young women) they used to report back in Victorian days.

[TheElementsSong]

Amazing to read the link CaveMum - I'm Malaysian, and when I was in school, we all knew about those sorts of mass hysteria events amongst teenage schoolgirls. It was just "one of those things" that occasionally happened here and there.

And yes, absolutely parallel to other forms of social contagion like ROGD.

[HandsOffMyRights]

My son's school is a Stonewall Champion School and a Diversity Role Models school.

Both groups' understanding of sex and gender ID do not align to my own knowledge. Or to science.

[LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD]

Diversity. Does that also apply to diversity in race, religion, ability, physicality...? Or just the rainbow type?

Why are we ignoring other ‘diverse’ groups and focussing on one particular group - We know which one - and having schools and businesses dealing their necks to say ‘this is fact, this is how it is, nothing to debate, no ill intent behind any of this...’

Women are being killed every day by ex/partners, children by parents/carers, kids and teens stabbed at an alarming rate, acid attack reports have gone quiet but I’m sure they are still happening... is this just seen as an ‘easy’ and more attractive ‘fix’?

[DuMondeB]

I’ve said this before but for some reason, secondary school culture seems to have developed a kind of LGBT Sorting Hat situation.

And no, this doesn’t seem to have an equivalent for the other protected characteristics in the Equality Act.

[AutumnRose1]

CaveMum thank you! I was also wondering if there were commonalities with mass hysteria.