This morning - parents questioning gender identity stuff

I was listening to the R4 interview and thought the interviewer was going to say, "Go on, admit it, it's Deuteronomy 22:5 isn't it?" But if the children have to answer "Credo" when told that a boy has miraculously transformed into a girl, and get carted off for some 1984 style re-education if they refuse, then I see their point.

'The fact that trans issues can effect prepubescent children (in contrast to LGBQ issues for example) makes it even more difficult to know how to broach the subject appropriately.'

Of course prepubescent children are involved in LGB issues. Many have LGB parents and many are themselves LGB. Many people know their orientation from very young ages. Trans activists seems to be pushing this line that homosexuality is something not to discuss openly with kids so that the kids that express strongly gender variant behaviour, who are far more likely to turn out to be LGB, can be dragged into this whole trans/medical intervention/lifetime of therapy route. It is so messed up.

*Sorry, i meant, when they claim it's their innate biology it's actually their personality.

What would be the procedure in a boarding school where children are segregared into boy/girl houses and dormitories. Could a 16 year old boy who identifies as a girl insist on being housed in a girls house? Girls dorm?

In New Zealand, a 16-year old boy enrolled in a girls' college and won the right to use the female toilets.
www.stuff.co.nz/national/81590796/marlborough-girls-college-transgender-student-stefani-muollogray-to-use-girls-bathroom

It's not a feeling or a personality. It's a biological fact.

Yes. It's personality.

This whole feels like a girl thing falls apart as soon as it's challenged.

Firstly how do they know. Secondly how can you feel like a girl when every cell of your body is male, including all your anatomy.

If you ask, all they can do is resort to stereotypes. They learnt pretty quickly not to do that. So now the answer is I just do, I can't explain it, but I do.

The most articulate, erudite people, who can describe abstract and existential concepts, simply don't have the words to describe what feeling like a girl is.

Reason? It's not a feeling.

MissHavishham
But we are not obliged to believe that transubstantiation if true. And it isn't taught in (non catholic) schools. The gender bollocks is being forced upon children and objectors are being labelled as bigots if they don't conform

Ben Shapiro recently had a good rant that he would take violent action if the state were to take action against him and his wife, re their children's 'identity'.

Shapiro also bases his argument on biology, not religion. He is, not unsurprisingly, anti- abortion but again does not bring his religion in to it. I doubt he would have any issue with a boy wanting to wear a dress.

In fact, if it's wrong and bad to refuse to believe implicitly in the miracle conversion of male to female then surely it's wrong, bad (and prosecutable) to refuse to believe in the miracle of transubstantiation.

Bread and wine DO turn into actual flesh and actual blood and only the fake appearance of bread and wine remains. Some people believe it. So surely it's wrong, bad and prosecutable to deny that it's possible or say you don't actually believe in that?

Or did we try that out for some hundred years, burn people at the stake a lot and then decide that no, we'd evolved past all that crap?

I agree with elendon. Both sides attaching an insane amount of significance to a 6 year olds transient clothing preferences. I well remember the day ds at a similar age came downstairs wearing his sisters goldilocks dress and long blonde wig announcing that henceforward he was to be known as Peter. God knows what the TRAs would make of that

The impression I've had all day from media brief overviews of the story: Extreme Christian nutters pull their child out of school because they're freaked out by a boy in a dress, and their child is confused by it. Which made me think irritably, that confusion was not exactly insurmountable, get over silly gender stereotypes, boys can wear whatever they want.

BBC news article on their website more than slightly different: the issue was their child and family questioning and not believing that a boy can turn into a girl. And a mention of their child being in trouble for not conforming to this. Which horrifies me.

As does the statement that being 'unable' to believe that a man can become a 'real woman' (whatever the fuck that is) just because he says so is transphobic and illegal.

So:

If I say I believe in God, I can be villified and let the sky fairies comments commence.

If I say a man is a woman because he says so despite all scientific, factual, obvious visual evidence to the contrary - I'm right on and with the programme.

I won't lie. They're going to have to lock me up for that one. I respect people's right to dress any way they want, use any names they want, present themselves any way they want, great. Wonderful. And that should not ever mean they are discriminated against. Am I going to lie about the fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE TO CHANGE BIOLOGICAL SEX? No.

No I know Elendon and they might well be opposed to a boy wearing a dress because of notions of gender roles. But in other interviews they seem knowledgable of trans issues but that it shouldn't be a factor for children of this age. I don't think they are great media luvvies and have performed badly. Perhaps this is deliberate given the pro trans position of much of the MSM.

Hate to make it out to be conspiratorial but then media have form for it on this

I don't like the implications of teaching a child that if you wear a certain article of clothing that makes you male/female!
I'm wearing trousers today. Am I a man for the day then???
I'm all for children exploring and dressing up and expressing themselves, but why should be label them for it?
Let them just be children fgs.
I once looked after a boy who enjoyed going out dressed as a fairy and putting bobbles in his hair, but I didn't tell him he was a girl! 😀 He was just a young boy expressing himself x

In regards to school, uniform is uniform.
Personally I'd say shorts or trousers for all pupils and take out the dress option anyway.

No one asked them what was wrong with a boy wearing a dress.

I mean, really. It would be the first question on my mind.

The person who has fathered children regularly changes gender. They post blogs in both genders.

A clip from Victoria Derbyshire. With a woman who has fathered children.

The parents here are not very articulate but it has taken most of us a while to be schooled in gender politics and the tricks the TRAs pull. I feel sorry for them

twitter.com/VictoriaLIVE/status/907172547812139008

The school is clearly at fault here for pandering to the thought process that the wearing of a dress indicates that that child is female. The parents are bigots and intolerant.

I feel sorry for the children.

My take on this is that the parents were wrong and foolish to head for court on this - it is essentially shaming a child and is unkind. It is also incredibly unhelpful as of course people will look at this and see the unkindness and therefore condemn them.

This then obliterates the real issue which is about parents deciding that a young child is changing their sex rather than simply allowing them to explore life, clothing, roles, identity etc. All the things that growing up entails.

I believe that there's an issue of safeguarding involved with attempts to label such young children as transgender - but that debate won't get heard while people like this head to the courts in this manner.

I think the right wing element will eventually rebel against it all, especially in the US. There are some of the right wing commentators who are getting v vocal about this. Ben Shapiro recently had a good rant that he would take violent action if the state were to take action against him and his wife, re their children's 'identity'. The context of this was from a media item saying that children could be taken into care if the parents did not accept the the 7 year old child's chosen identity. This is on a podcast that offers insurance to people who are 'forced' to shoot burglars.

Today 12:21 TalkingintheDark

I saw this in the ST. How's this for thought crime:

The school said it had policies to tackle transphobic behaviour, which included an inability to believe a transgender person was a “real” female or male; refusing to use the person’s adopted name, or using “gender inappropriate pronouns”; and feelings of discomfort and an inability to trust or connect with someone based on their transgender status.

Enforced denial of reality. Could it be any more regressive?

Unbelievable. This needs a test case. It's the very definition of free speech. A government mandate telling you you can't say something.

And yes, we have hate speech, which does violate the principle of free speech. Nonetheless, that is something of a benign censoring and, most importantly, it is not asking a person to deny biology.

Unless there is a government mandate to change the literal definition of words, how can you force someone to say a male is a female? Unless you change the definition of the word female.

I know they have done it, already. In Canada and many states in the US.

The general feeling is that what happens there, will eventually happen here. But the laws and protocols are different. The (female) governor of Virginia, for instance publically calling Michelle Obama a monkey in a dress. It would not be tolerated here.

Forcing people to not only verbally deny reality, but to stop thinking in those terms, legally surely, honest to God, could never wash?

The fact that I'm even doubting it, tells you everything.

Hmm, money does indeed change a lot. But I'm not sure. The parents themselves might be caught up in transideology. For some, their willingness to throw women under the bus might stop at their own daughters, but I fear for many, it won't.

Mm, not sure. I think most parents who blather liberal-minded waffle about tolerance and oppression would be viscerally unhappy about a situation where their own daughter was being made to feel uncomfortable or threatened by sharing a bedroom or bathroom with a male-bodied peer. And the population of parents who can afford to pay northwards of £35k for the privilege will be those who are used to getting their own way. Also a large proportion of pupils in UK boarding schools are not British in origin - there are lots of Russian, Nigerian and Chinese pupils in UK boarding schools, and I imagine their cultural take on it will be less liberal-tolerant than mainstream UK parents.

This whole shitstorm is going to keep the courts very busy over the next few years, I imagine, whichever way the self-identification proposal goes.

The difference being that almost all parents of boarders are paying an eye watering amount of money in fees, and thus have a level of financial clout that prisoners can only dream of. I imagine most parents of boarders would withdraw their daughters pronto if the school expected them to share with a male-bodied peer.

Hmm, money does indeed change a lot. But I'm not sure. The parents themselves might be caught up in transideology.

For some, their willingness to throw women under the bus might stop at their own daughters, but I fear for many, it won't.

I struggle with it now and I'm an old git