Mermaids “Teaching” in Schools

I think what puts this trend into an entirely different category is the fact that you're not allowed to criticise it. We got lectures on EDs and not only the risk of death but also other unforeseen problems such as osteoporosis, infertility, teeth falling out etc. etc. We didn't have talks on the dangers of cutting because it wasn't "the thing" when I was at school but you can well imagine what the talks would have been about and the risk of death and infection and so on.

Interesting that it was the same at your mixed sex school LadyLance.

The thing about emo/goth/etc and social contagion is that it's easy to dye your hair back to its original color and take your piercings out. At worse you might be left with a regrettable tattoo.

The long term impact of artificial hormones and surgery puts this particular trend into an entirely different category.

There is a short film called 'Just Charlie', a teen trans drama. I haven't seen it yet but I know it's being promoted by Mermaids. I don't know whether it's just a drama about a gender confused teen or if it goes into the whole puberty blocker thing. I'll post back here if I see it.
Trailer:

@EmyRoo I've also seen the eugenics argument used about people with autism who are uncomfortable in their own skin and perhaps more likely to identify as trans in their teenage years. Again, it's not necessarily genetic though. I do think it sounds a bit conspiracy theory-ish, but given what I've read recently about drugs companies funding the trans lobby, it's not impossible.

When I was at secondary school, being emo and self harming was the thing (although one of my friends and I also egged each other on in disordered eating at times). It was sort of a contagion and there was almost an element of competitiveness in it. I went to a mixed sex school, and it did affect the boys as well. We called ourselves emos or goths and all the girls claimed to be bisexual, whether they actually were or not. I have no doubt that these days some of the group would either have "come out" as trans, or my male friends who wore make up would have been pushed towards being trans by well meaning but misguided teachers. None of them are trans or even "gender fluid" as adults- they were just boys who liked wearing make up.

Thinking back to my own secondary education, at a single sex private school, we had a fair number of eating disorders. Very little self-harming as far as I knew but we all shared a lot amongst ourselves as it was a small school.

I can say very confidently that people would have been horrified at another student transitioning because one 14 year old girl did so. She was seen as pretty damaged, profoundly attention seeking and in many ways plain odd. Which you could easily argue was unkind, I'm not suggesting otherwise. But the point is it wasn't the norm, nor was it contagious. She was 2 years above me but her classmates were bewildered and took the piss out of her.

I do think the trans thing is highly contagious now as it's the in thing.

Well before I became aware of the trans issue I didn't really understand why schools haven't just introduced a trousers or shorts uniform for all - just so much more practical and inclusive for both sexes and all religions. And if there is tolerance of make up, again it should be tolerance for all. We weren't allowed to wear eye or lip make up but were allowed to very badly attempt to cover our spots.

I am guessing it is because rigidly enforced gender performance is essential to validating some trans identified male's gender identity.

Patodp what I don't get with that is, why not let the boys wear dresses and make up? Why do you have to "be a girl" to do any of these things? I never understand this about TRAs. They always pretend to be so inclusive and gender open and gender stereotypes are bad, and yet the group boy is not inclusive of people with dresses and make up and their idea of gender is highly stereotyped.

Thank you.

Sterilising, yes, I get that bit, but gay and lesbian people are not likely to naturally reproduce, and no-one is arguing homosexuality is hereditary (and therefore needs sterilising to stop being passed on)

So I am not seeing it as classic eugenics. Homosexuality cannot be bred out of people as there is no gay gene, and gay people do not naturally reproduce. As it stands, gay couples can use assistive reproductive technologies or surrogate women to become parents. I understand the homophobic aspect of the trans agenda, but I don’t see gayness being bred out, as oppose to suppressed.

Whereas classic eugenics was seen as stopping reproduction of perceived ‘undesirables’, the trans agenda relies on reproduction being done by artificial means (so too does reproduction with gay couples). So, modern eugenics is something different.

So, for TIM, artificially created ‘women’ (taking hormones, having surgery) can, following their future planning logic, have artificially created babies.

Then you have the embryos being subject to screening and selected.

It is eugenics, but it is working in a different way, I think, than breeding out the gay population. I don’t really understand the logic of what I am suggesting, but the genetic engineering is working in a different way to classic eugenics. Biological females are being sterilised, reproduction is becoming artificial. Who or what is being bred out? Nature and natural ‘defects’?

@EmyRoo, sterilizing through transitioning the Gay and Lesbians so they do not breed more is classic eugenics.

Hi - just down the first page there are a couple of references to eugenics. Can someone explain the connection, please? (Apologies if it is obvious and I am missing it)

mirialis and qumquat sorry to hear about your experiences with anorexia

From what I gather, in the UK, single sex schools are allowing pupils to change gender, name and pronouns to the opposite sex, but are not admitting pupils who are of the opposite sex to identify into the school.

Unless you are in Australia where transgirls have been accepted into all girls schools.

I found this article in The Times re boarding schools...

Containing the gem from a source via the Boarding School Association, most likely originating from Mermaids, that...

If a boy intends to change gender he should be offered the chance to sleep in the girls dormitory and vice versa

Just wondering how many boys schools are changing their policies to cope with lots of boys deciding they are girls all of a sudden?

I'm totally out of touch with the school systems these days so I don't know how many single sex schools you have which are single sex but which are not private/grammar (and therefore a tiny minority).

It's interesting though as I stumbled across this blog by a gay male journalist who must be around my peer group and I know went to a St Paul's type school (someone I know dated him for a bit).

His argument is that he tried on dresses when he was younger and the outrage about boys in dresses is bad etc. etc. but reading it I was thinking "ok but aren't you a great example of someone who was a gay boy experimenting with women's clothing who just went on to be a gay man rather than a transwoman?" and who didn't have all this shit to muddle your head into thinking "maybe I'm a girl?"

If his all boys school had gone down the mermaids route, where would he be now?

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/outrage-boy-dress-trans-rights_uk_5a218bc0e4b0545e64bf929d

I also don't know how it works in these single sex schools with regard to toilets or overnight stays - presumably they don't have to make special provision for trans pupils, so it's a different issue from one that Datun highlighted about your teenage kids in mixed-sex facilities... unless they are actually admitting children at 11+ who are identifying as the sex of the school? I'm sorry as I'm aware you must all of have talked about this a lot in the past and I'm late to the game, but are Eton and the like really prepared to open the doors to 11+ and 13+ self ID kids?

The thing is, 80+ % of the girls at school - even, or perhaps especially, the super-gorgeous ones were on a permadiet, had horrible body issues and I reckon would have binged then vomited on at least a couple of occasions but the ante was suddenly upped by both external media influence and I think a sort of "contagion"/competitiveness that most pulled back from the brink of but for a few they just got in so deep there was no turning around without proper intervention. I don't know how much of that was due to being in a very high-pressure school like St Paul's.

If girls these days want to say they are gender non-conforming or fluid or even trans then obviously the school needs people coming into talk to the girls about what that means (in the same way that we had a lot of external speakers come in to talk to us about EDs) but people are horrified at the idea of girls being bought breast implants as a "sweet sixteen" or high school graduation present in the US and I can't quite get my head around the idea that we would ever be supporting girls to aim towards mastectomies at that age. I know on another thread a poster came on to say that this is what her child is intending to do at 18 and I really do want to be mindful of what a terrible predicament that mother and child find themselves in.

Just wondering how many boys schools are changing their policies to cope with lots of boys deciding they are girls all of a sudden?

Eating disorders appear to be highest among white middle class girls (I was a white middle class anorexic myself so not saying this to minimise the horror of eds at all) and I wonder if IDing as trans is the same?

A lot of the media reports about girls schools altering policies to cope with multiple trans identified pupils are either private schools or grammar-type schools in middle class areas, so you may be onto something with the distribution/likelihood there, qumquat.

Thanks everyone. I'm also a teacher myself and planning on broaching the subject with my school. So all the links and advice are very useful. Re the anorexia link I always wonder if there is a class element. Eating disorders appear to be highest among white middle class girls (I was a white middle class anorexic myself so not saying this to minimise the horror of eds at all) and I wonder if IDing as trans is the same? Certainly it doesn't seem to be on the radar of my mainly black African students.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5429219/Charity-calls-police-teacher-misgenders-pupil.html

(Yes, a Daily Mail link but (a) can't find the story anywhere else and (b) the comments indicate how far from the 'real world' this sort of intervention is).

For a few of the girls with severe anorexia, it virtually was attempted suicide. One of my friends who had to be restrained so that she couldn't rip out the drip that was keeping her alive knew that she would die if she did that but felt that was preferable to giving in. It took years of treatment but she made it thankfully and is now a happy mum despite the havoc her anorexia caused to her hormones and periods. I have another friend who was severely anorexic for longer and well into her twenties who wasn't so lucky on the fertility front.

Eating disorders were the main issue when I was at school - I was at uni when cutting became a bigger issue.

From The Guardian 2002,

"Why are so many teenage girls cutting themselves?
Thousands of teenagers across the country are using knives and razors to injure themselves. Nicci Gerrard reports on this alarming new blood cult"

www.theguardian.com/society/2002/may/19/mentalhealth.observerfocus

Can you imagine them now daring to write anything like what they did about cutting when discussing the huge rise in the number of girls wanting to trans?

mirislis
I totally see this too. Gender dysphoria is the new body dismorphia. The go-to mental illness for troubled teens.
It makes the statistic of 41% Transgender people will attempt suicide make more sense too.
If you took all people suffering bulimia or anorexia or self mutilation you will probably find 41% of those groups attempting suicide too.

These childen/young adults are troubled to begin with and turn to transgenderism to express this. They need help not a sex change.

Or the 10 girls at Saint Pauls girls' school, coming out simultaneously

It's interesting as I was at a very similar school to Saint Paul's and anorexia/bulimia were common throughout the school but there was one year where the prevalence was particularly high - it honestly started to feel like a contagion. It also brings to mind the true story of 18 girls in a school in the US, falling pregnant in one year, when I think the average was 3. In both situations the discussion looked to external influences affecting the girls (I think the year of the sudden boom in teenage pregnancies was when the film Juno came out and there were a few celebrity "teen moms" - I don't know what the conclusion was on that though). Meanwhile, when I was at school and numerous girls were being hospitalised due to eating disorders, it was the period of "heroin chic" and the "super waifs".

But of course it's massively "transphobic" to question whether something like this is at play at the moment.

qumquat

You could pre-empt the situation by pointing them towards Transgendertrend's guidance for schools. It's inclusive, and looks at all children, gay, bi, lesbian and trans. And all the other children.

Mermaids' information elevates trans individuals above all the other children. Which is not what the equality act advocates.

A thread about the pack and it's reception amongst the transactivist community is in the link below.

Its a useful read, because it will give you, personally, an understanding of exactly how the propaganda from trans pressure groups, is so damaging.

And will give you more confidence to approach your school.

You can absolutely say that groups like Mermaids, GIRES and Gendered Intelligence don't present an accurate picture, and their information looks homophobic.

Young lesbians coming out, are encouraged by TRAs to accept men in their dating pool, as long as that man identifies as a women.

Gender dysphoria is incredibly rare.

Children are becoming confused. I'd love to see places like Mermaids account for the 2000 a year showing up at gender clinics, most of whom have nothing wrong with them.

Or the 10 girls at Saint Pauls girls' school, coming out simultaneously.

Their argument, that transgenderism is more accepted, so people are more confident in coming out, sounds ridiculous in those circumstances.

Mermaids have just had a teacher arrested for misgendering a child.

That is not the action of a non-partisan group. Schools have no business supporting an ideology. In fact, the rules are quite clear that they shouldn't.

Tell your school that mermaids are doing things that you disagree with, get them to read the transgendertrend guidance and let them make up their own minds.

Because anyone reading the TGT guidance will find it reasonable, rational, calm and inclusive of every child.

Something that seems to be notable by its absence in a lot of the other information being sent to schools.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3166853-Transgender-Trends-new-resource-pack-for-schools

Horrifying as it may seem the transgender advocates have begun arguing the creepy eugenics lie that Black women are not like white women but rather they are like "transwomen".

qumquat
Fist have a look at their website for details of their PSHE programme - that should give you a clue. Look at their equal opps / diversity policies as well as their anti bullying policies and see what they say. Hopefully it will all be appropriately positive. I'd only be concerned if it was excessively focussed on trans issues to the exclusion of other vulnerable groups.
When she starts in September, you could ask how equal opportunity / anti bullying is dealt with as a way in?