Another trans related one, I'm afraid

My gay friends are actually quite wary about the "rise of trans" - there was a petition they supported to remove the T from LGB and a number say that they'd have been brainwashed into taking hormones as children when they were trying to "not be wrong".

My one friend also believes that most trans people are strongly homophobic, particularly against non butch gay men - and that the reason they're so adamant they're women is because they loathe unmasculine men and hate the idea of being one. The problem is, saying this in some parts of the gay community can get you ostracised.

Catching the gay would be the worst thing. Much worse than finding out your son was a girl trapped in a boy's body.

There does seem to be a correlation between the rise in the past 15-20 years of the 'girls toys' vs 'boys toys' dichotomy, and the rise of trans. I'm not a sociologist so don't know how you would set about analysing whether correlation relates to causation, but it seems to me that they are unlikely to be unrelated. It's not just toys as well- when I was a girl (and I'm only 36 now) boys and girls wore pretty much the same clothes - jeans and a baggy t-shirt. But children's clothes now are much more copies of adult clothing with tight jeans and tight tops for girls from a young age. Even books for children are frequently divided into 'girls books' and 'boys books.

Indulge my flights of fancy...

It's as if we suddenly stopped being a secular society, and reasoning and critical thinking went out of the window, and blasphemy became a crime again. Even the mere suggestion that you might not fully embrace the dominant religion would be a thought crime. And however much you screamed that it wasn't progress at all, but quite the opposite, people kept repeating that it was, and that you're the one in the wrong and must be evil, or reeducated against your will because all good people believe. Orwell, we need you! I bet they'll take it off the set texts.

Yes, I have a vivid imagination but I can see how it would happen. It's more of a dystopian allegory than an analogy I guess!

Absolutely Queen. I have met dads who feel very uncomfortable about their 3 year old son playing with dolls, who have hinted very strongly that they are worried they will turn out gay because of it. Like that would be the worst thing ever, like being gay is something you can be influenced into being, like there's something unmanly and not quite right about a little boy playing gently with a doll and pretending its a baby. The mind numbing stupidity of it all. This nonsense about gender stereotypes and 'hardwiring' is at the root of all sexism and homophobia

I really feel that there is a strong undercurrent of homophobia to all of this.

A little boy who likes to wear dresses, fairy wings and play with dolls is still a boy. Some little boys like this (not all) grow up to be gay men.

I'm curious as to why the gay community don't seem even slightly concerned that children are having puberty (and future fertility) suppressed when the likelihood that they are trans is far from certain. How does anyone know what they want when they are 8/9/10 yrs old?

I wonder if this special assembly would be given minus the Trans element? Or is being LBG passé now?

Why are our children having this shoved down their throats at primary school when they have no chance of understanding it.

Are we all going to be required to sign something to say that we believe black is white? Because that seems to be the way it's going. It's awful that we have to have this cultish, ideological bullshit foisted on us everywhere we go.

It would be wonderful to ask the trainer whether, if they thought it was right for Tara Hudson to be housed in a women's prison, he also thought Davina Ayrton should be housed in a women's prison. Of course, if, like me, but work in the public sector, it would be literally more than your job's worth. The situation is Orwellian.

Poor kid.

There is a trans-girl at my son's school. He is in Y4.

His Mum is a lecturer in Trans studies. Co-incidence?

You couldn't make it up.

I agree, and this was always my bugbear when I read articles about PC gawn mad in the DM. The legislation was (mostly) fine and there was a very real need to protect people's rights, but unfortunately many people didn't really understand it or have the critical judgement skills needed to apply it correctly.

Not that intersex is linked, but they will get lumped in by idiots as the trans community often uses them to prove debating points about who is "assigned female" and who gets to be defined as a woman.

And it's the putting up with people with influence's ideas as being right.
Like the OP - school telling children. And the trainer at the workplace.
They think they are saying the 'right' things, and there's legislation to back them up. Just, I think they are understanding it all wrong.

And I totally agree, and also think it will backfire on trans people. Particularly including non-binary, pangender and other rubbish, with serious issues like intersex and gender dysphoria.

I'd have had to walk out. I would have had a severe, sudden need to run to the loos after being struck down with a mystery illness. I totally can see why you couldn't say anything, but I'm not sure I would have been able to just sit through it.

What I mean is, I think that Equality Act is being misunderstood by a lot of people and rather than trans people being a protected group, they are lumped in with existing frameworks (because it's easier, cheaper?), but that clashes with women's rights.
Like the Olympics thing. The prisons etc.
Really, trans people are probably being let down here as much as women.

And I don't know if it's because he was a bloke, but our trainer only saw the trans woman in prison as a women - no question. I think he had a touch of 'man - not man'.

I had a workplace training thing today where the Equality Act came up.
Transgender is within the Act. As they should be, they have a right to be treated fairly and not discriminated against.
But the trainer went on to bring up the-shocking-case-of-the-woman-in-the-mens-prison etc and that transgender women are women and should be treated the same as women.
It was not the time and place for me to say anything, how would I have looked? It would have looked like I was going against The Equality Act - how horrible a person would I have sounded?
The same as the OP here not wanting to sound 'anti trans'.
This politeness is silencing us.

While we're on the subject of football, I met a 2 year old girl (at work) recently who just loves football. She carries her little red ball around everywhere with her and was holding it when she arrived at the session. Her mum said that she just loved playing football with her older brother, and it was her favourite thing in the world to do. Adorable. Then in the next breath, Mum sighed and said 'I just don't understand it. She's a girl! How can she like football???' She was openly horrified by it, not just perplexed.

I gave mum a gentle but firm talking to and I really hope that some of it actually sunk in

This was a two year old. And its by no means the first time I've come across attitudes like her mum's. So by the time children are school age, their heads are full of this utter nonsense about what girls do and what boys do, and what's 'normal' for a boy and 'normal' for a girl. Its no wonder some of them are extremely confused about what they are allowed to play with and who they are allowed to be.

Yes Pipistrella: I think by the 70s and 80s, when my children were growing up, the sugar and spice image of girls had begun to set in. My girls certainly had more criticism than I did when they wanted to do normal things like playing football. Luckily they had been brought up by an awkward mum to be awkward and ignore the dinner lady admonitions!

I wonder too if my childhood (I was a war baby) was so near the end of the war, in which women had become much more accepted for doing unladylike stuff that I was still in the afterglow of women being acknowledged as capable human beings. By your childhood the backlash had started I fear

Sorry for any potential derailing.

Grimble, I have to say I think you were lucky to be accepted into the boys' stuff thing when you were young.

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and circa 1981 decided I wanted to play football on the playing field - it looked like a lot of fun and I thought I might be good at it.

I was alright. For the day I got away with it for maybe 20 minutes. Then the dinner ladies called me away - 'you'll get hurt'. 'It's a boys' game'. 'It's dirty, you don't want all that nasty dirt on you'. And when I resisted - because I was always well behaved, but couldn't see the logic - 'You're being naughty'.

I gave up.

I also wonder where the wider narrative is emanating from - is it ground up, or top down?

Perhaps there are some elements of the patriarchy who consider that men who feel 'feminine' are less of a threat to men as a whole if they are actually really women after all.

If men are allowed to be men who wear dresses or like pink, then what's to stop it spreading and changing the entire culture of masculinity?

As for the other inevitable side of the coin - women being men - meh, they aren't really, they're just poor deluded women, so they can't be much of a threat.

Another tomboy here too. I was really into so-called boys' stuff when I was small. Short hair, corduroy trousers, people called me sonny etc. from aged about 7 to 11. I didn't want to be a boy. I wanted to be me and my 'me' was enjoying all the stuff that was acceptable for boys, but not girls, and hating all the 'mummy's little helper' stuff and behaviour thought appropriate for girls. Therefore, by identifying as a boy I got to do the stuff I wanted without recrimination and stupid comments.

That was the 1950s. Thank God this 'trans' crap had not started then or some trendy fools might have been trying to persuade me I was a boy. Instead I grew into a straight (and married) woman with kids - who still likes "boys' stuff".

I wonder how much the relatively recent trend of pink and blue shit is promoting this really dangerous trans agenda.

Disclaimer: I am not saying there is not a small minority of people with genuine issues. I wish them well and would certainly never discriminate.

If educators concentrated on what they should be doing in schools instead of cluttering up the curriculum with the sort of crap the OP talked about maybe English teenagers would not recently have been ranked 23 out of 23 for literacy levels and 22 out of 23 for numeracy levels by the OECD.

I agree it's bullshit. I would be talking about it with my child, and explaining it in much the same way as I explain the religious bollocks they come home with most of the time.

Ie, some folk believe this crap, because it makes them feel better - but you don't have to. And always be nice to kids who are confused about what sex they are.

I'm sympathetic to trans people, and certainly don't condone any nasty or abusive behavior towards them, but very much agree with other posters that women should not be expected just to suck it up and move aside and shut up and do what they're told by yet another group.of men