To think we’ve got it wrong about gender identity in children

Yes I agree with you.

Keep doing what you’re doing. You are an amazing mum. Our school always makes a fuss and celebrates successful females and encourages both genders to get involved in all types of sport, sciences maths, arts etc Hats off to them. I would frankly take my child out of a school where if they put the kids through a gender workshop like the one you describe.

I agree. I think we need to do a lot more to teach kids that there is no such thing as boy and girl stereotypes - women (and men obviously) can be however they want to be and have whatever interests without changing gender. I didn't wear any kind of women's clothes or makeup or have any stereotypical women's interests until I was about 20 (my auntie used to buy me barbies in primary school and I'd shoot them with my air rifle 😅). I'm still not interested in what is presented as being what women are into (fashion, makeup, romcoms etc etc). I'm still a woman. Imo it's perpetuating sexism.

I worry for my nieces as one has now decided she's a boy (despite wearing skirts etc every time I see her... sorry can't bring myself to say 'him') and the other who is only 6 has started to say she's a boy too. I just hope their parents don't let them do anything irreversible.

It really worries me that there are so few voices in parliament to speak for concerned parents now. A few dozen Tory MPs, if you're lucky, Reform & DUP I suppose, but where will the pushback come from? Labour, Lib Dems, SNP, Greens, they're all Stonewall compliant. Add the BBC who are anxious not to upset the govt, and I'd imagine curbs are coming to social media because you cannot suppress criticism of an extremely unpopular ideology otherwise. Starmer even used the phrase 'LGBTQ plus' when describing the new intake of MPs yesterday. All you can do is get together with like-minded parents and make your feelings clear to the school.

I was exactly like that when i was a kid and even as an adult I preferred going out riding motorbikes and going to rallies.
But when I was a kid there was no trans ideology so everyone just called me a tomboy.
Now I'm older I know that in no way did I want to be a boy, I just wanted to share their fun and wasn't a princess kind of girl.
I dread to think how my body could have been mutilated and ruined by hormones if I was a kid now. It would never have been the right decision for me to transition.

Article about the psychological harm adults do to teenagers when we pretend they're the opposite sex.

https://www.transgendertrend.com/teenager-says-theyre-transgender/

Just be blunt as anything. There are a million different ways to be a girl, in fact, as many as there are girls. Your interests and appearance have fuck all to do with what sex you are. It all stems from stereotyping people and then if people don't fit a stereotype people try to tell then they must belong to the other stereotype. Drugs and surgery can't change your sex only your appearance. If people want to pretend to be the opposite sex that's fine but it doesn't mean you have to believe it,it's their own private imagining. Nothing wrong with it but it doesn't alter reality. She's a girl, that's not something she ever needs to question, she just needs to go with what she likes and not worry who else likes it or not. And ask her stupid school friend why she thinks she's not a girl? Her hair? Her interests? And how backward that thinking is. Does her friend think all girls should wear pink and stay in the kitchen? Etc

I thought that gender wasn’t going to be taught in schools anymore???

Lovely heart warming thread OP - thank you.

Sadly parents are having to be the ones pushing back at schools on all this. It's a social experiment on children with no evidence, dabbling in their sense of reality and self. Hope you don't mind but I've found these 2 articles really helpful (written by a clinical psychologist) about the psychological harm being done to children when adults pretend they're the opposite sex:

https://www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/

I could be your daughter @Itsmyshadow . County footballer, county basketball player, regional/national league hockey player. Played mixed and girls football. Work in a tech-related field where engineering awareness is also important (someone a bit cleverer does the actual structural engineering, but you have to get a concept close enough for them to pass with tweaks). Very good at maths. Grew up in the very early 90s with 2 brothers and 4 neighbours about the same age, all boys. Wanted to be a boy for a little while in the primary years but would not, have never considered and never will consider 'becoming a man' and am straight as they come with a long term male DP. I do not however own a dress, heels, don't do makeup etc. Still female!

I'm pleased you are introducing her to women's sports etc, I think it is good to see that your hobbies and interests don't define your sex. (Gender is a bullshit social construct)

I do occasionally think what would have happened if the concept of actually changing to a boy was floated to me as an impressionable 10 year old annoyed that I had to do dance and gymnastics when I wanted to do muddy football and rugby at school!

I should also add that I do know someone who transitioned from female to male, probably 10 years ago now (definitely before it was cool) and there was a lot more to it than fitting the social roles/hobbies. I don't doubt that now there will still be people for whom the issue is deeper, but you don't need to transition because you don't fit the constructed social norms of interests. Maybe easier said than done but you should be able to just be 'you' IMO.

And this grooming is exactly why we pre-warned our kids the schools will do this.

Definitely agree re the 1980s. It felt then that as a result of sexism, some girls didn't want to be girls because they had been told girls were rubbish, and the things they liked was boys' stuff so they should look like a boy and therefore be stronger and more accepted. Where I always thought that girls were the best and was so proud to be a girl and knew that it didn't stop me from liking or doing anything. It feels like the same is happening now because of transgender stuff.

Strong agree with you, OP

have not RTFT and maybe won't bother. 2nd Wave Feminism tried to get rid of gender stereotyping for a reason.

I am so happy that people are rediscovering it despite the fact that a lot of us have barely talked about anything else for half a century.

Agree 100%.

I was a “tomboy” in that I loved playing outdoors, climbing trees, could run and cycle faster than all the boys in my street, had very short hair, hated barbies and dresses (though adored my baby dolls), and massively identified with George from the Famous Five.

Im a heterosexual woman with 2 kids now and I hate that they are growing up
in a world where stereotypes are more entrenched and kids have less freedom to be who they are than in the 90s when I was growing up. It is evil.

I would say that a “ boys “ football team that has a girl in ,is not a boys team, in the same way that women’s sport is no longer for women if a man is playing, or the ladies is in fact mixed if we include males.

Agree OP. Men have discovered that women and girls are not giving up-so they've decided that we can't be who we are unless we're men.

As a lesbian with many masculine-esque women in my circle who were very much like your daughter as children, it infuriates me that were they young now, they'd have been told they were boys-and that this is now happening to girls. It's fucking ridiculous IMO.

Also completely agree. As a child, I didn't play with dolls / Barbies, didn't wear anything pink / girly and definitely not skirts. I played Lego, videogames, and spent lots of time outside with boys. At no point I thought I wasn't a girl - it was just who I was, and I was free to do what I wanted. There was no pressure from my parents (or school / society) to be one way or another way.

As soon as puberty hit I started to become a little bit more girly and interested in boys, but again it was a natural progression for me. Now I love heels / dressing up but I still very much have more traditionally male interests.

good for you op wishh more were like you

Sorry, don't understand what you mean.

You’ve hit the nail on the head op. Im
pregnant with my first and hoping that all this nonsense will have died down by the time she hits secondary school!

I don't have children but if I did I think I would keep them away from school on Pride days.

I would have been at the school, asking for an interview with the head/governors. Ask the head face to face if they think people can change sex. I don't mean gender, whatever the hell that is, I mean actual sex. Well done to opt her out of the nonsense. I believe some of this pressure has come from the polarisation of the sexes in terms of clothes/hair/hobbies etc. (loath the word Tomboy, girls climb trees). Not all girls are pink and fluffy, not all boys like cars.
Please do carry on with what your doing, my heart aches for children in this situation. I have a Pokémon playing, tree climbing daughter who's never voluntarily picked up a Barbie doll in her life. She can change a car radio from one car to another faster than her dad. She's great.

Obviously families differ but I was born in the 50s and brought up playinv with contruction toys, a train set etc in addition to dolls and to believe I could do anything career wise. When I started teaching in the early 80s it was definitely a case of reinforcing equal opportunities and getting rid of stereotypes.