So my dd had a LGBT assembly this morning

parent...sex AARRGH

I'm finding it quite useful to say to my teens, 'Oh, right, so what gender would that make me, then?'

(I think they'd assumed none of it applied to parents, only to 'real people', i.e. those under the age of 25 and not yet boringly ancient. They probably thinks we're past all that sexuality stuff in any direction whatever, too...)

I should add that it isn't the school itself which is feeding this stuff to her, but some older girls

El

I have been challenging a very calm, non commital version of me quite a lot, as I think making a fuss will push her further into it.
Oh, right.
That's interesting
What's that then?
Explain that to me again?
Ok
Interesting

While internally biting my tongue

I do feel I can be stronger on the 'hard done by men' line.

If my child said they were demipan I would be able to say straight back that I was as well, I was friends with my husband for a fair while before we got together. Agreeing like that rather takes away the whole ‘being different to your parents’ angle

my dd is year 8, currently there are kids in her year group identifying as stuff left right and centre.
Almost everyday - Oh xx is pangender
YY is agender
zz is demipan.

We have had lot of conversations about it, some of the stuff she is coming out with is horrendous. When talking about male and female spaces, she had a whole argument about how hard done by men were, eg in domestic violence situations.
We have, over the last few weeks had some pretty hard hitting conversations, some basic facts about male on female violence and Me Too etc, as well as gender stereotyping and so on.

So much of what she is saying, and what her friends are saying is basically - I don;t fit what society seems ot say a girl should be. Therefore I must be a gender oddity - pan, agender, trans etc. Ironically NONE of them are saying they are gay.
I suspect that

1. most of them aren't really anything yet (if you see what I mean) they are 12 and 13 and most seem pretty much pre sexual, so haven't 'woken up' fully to who they are
2. they don't want to be the same as their mothers and society stereotypes (well that is pretty normal at 13 isn't it!)
3. quite a number are gay or bisexual, but that isn't as cool to say as trans, so they are all 'coming out' as gender none conventional.

She recently told me that demipan means you like to get to know someone as a friend before you have a relationship. She wasn't very impressed when I laughed and said 'that's not demipan, that is HUMAN'
(I know, should have been more sensitive and subtle)

She is being fed a lot of stuff at school. much is coming from a couple of older girls. It is very worrying.

Thank you veyr much for the transgendertrend stuff. I have to make a decision abotu whether I approach the school

It’s not just schools either. Organisations like Scouts and Guides are being trained by the likes of Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence and their policies updated in accordance with the pro-trans lobby groups resources/propaganda. Scout & Guide Leaders are expected to abide by the updated policies without question.

The Transgender Trend pack could be sent to your kids’ leaders, local commissioners etc - this topic is bound to come up at some stage with any group of young people and organisations have a responsibility to be truthful and honest with their members about the reality of sex, gender and the process of transitioning.

If my kids were still of school age - particularly primary school age - I would enquire what resources were being used to teach this stuff. One whiff of Mermaids or GIRES and I would be withdrawing them from those lessons and not being quiet about why. Now the Transgender Trend resource is available, I would also be saying we would be using the time at home to go through this resource.

and MrsFogi, please go talk to the parent council and the board of governors, if you can.

angryattackkittens thanks for giving me a good laugh, not many laughs to be had around this issue!

As much as anything else, the standards of the education make me weep - I'd expect a 16 year old to be taught a more nuanced understanding of transitioning from M to F than you pop a few pills and bob's your uncle.

I agree with the person that said adolescence is a very difficult and uncertain time where we try on things but do not necessarily know who we are, I can't think that you should be allowed to make serious changes before the age of 21 really, wrt gender reassignment.

No hormones are going to give me a mans skeleton FFS

As @LangCleg says, cross sex hormones don't make your body match your gender. They will give you an outward appearance of the opposite sex, and potentially make you sterile. I wish that adults wouldn't preach fiction to children like this.

I think that I'd like to find out what was said/shown for myself before deciding whether to take my concerns to the school.

it sounds like she was taught about how you can take hormones etc to make your body match your gender

But you can't do that. You can take hormones to make your body superficially resemble the opposite sex but you cannot physically make your body match the opposite sex. And you don't need hormones to be free to have any kind of gender expression (something the rest of us call personality).

If a child is being taught this in school, it is being taught a religious belief with no basis in fact.

Sounds like mermaids. Their leaflet mentions kids playing with toys typically associated with the opposite sex could be an indicator of being trans.

Which is of course at odds with the excellent advice given in the transgender trend article on gender non conformity which actually encourages children to play with toys usually associated with the opposite sex.

This is where the problem of no debate comes in. If schools dismiss out of hand the advice given in the transgender trend leaflet they are missing out on some excellent information. And the stuff on, i think page 14, of that transgender trend article is fantastic advice for any school or parent. I don't think anyone could argue with what is said on there.

It doesn't sound like she's wildly off - it sounds like she was taught about how you can take hormones etc to make your body match your gender and has just given you a very potted recollection of that? Maybe she just needs a bit more info about the various processes that may be involved in transitioning etc.

I'm so worried about this. My son has autism and has a very scientific and fact based mind. We have recently had cause to discuss trans issues a little bit and he was very clear how biology works and that you can't change sex. He finds it very distressing when things don't appear to make any sense or have a rational basis. I'm very worried about any adults in positions of authority attempting to preach this nonsense to him and any repercussions for him if he responds negatively to it.

Cue about an hour of her hearing my views on the subject. I'm sure your daughter would have already been well informed on the subject matter as I can tell it's very important to you, which is why if I knew that if you felt you were in the wrong body you could take some pills when you are 16 and that would change your body to a boy's body statement doesn't ring true.

I imagine in many cases it makes it worse because it draws attention to what a load of bullcrap (GI Joe to Barbie, FFS) it all is. Far better to concentrate on anti-bullying than to bash them over the head with sanctimonious lectures about how special a classmate is in comparison to them. If that isn't a recipe for piss taking and resentment, I don't know what is.
For the very young it is also a recipe for identifying into being praiseworthy.

Simply parroting the standard trans literature is doing nothing to truly protect the trans kids from bullying

Exactly. I imagine in many cases it makes it worse because it draws attention to what a load of bullcrap (GI Joe to Barbie, FFS) it all is. Far better to concentrate on anti-bullying than to bash them over the head with sanctimonious lectures about how special a classmate is in comparison to them. If that isn't a recipe for piss taking and resentment, I don't know what is.

Do you know if the assembly was delivered in-house by the teaching staff? Or were outside speakers were brought in, eg Gendered Intelligence, GIRES?

Renamed not re Amex!

lots of pupils started accusing her of using stereotypes and being sexist when she tried to define what feeling male and feeling female meant.

This makes me happy/hopeful

Well my 14 yr old DS got his ‘talk’ in a PHSE(?) lesson a few weeks ago. He said he felt so sorry for the teacher because the kids were guffawing at the suggestion that a man can have a vagina and a woman can have a penis but the teacher obviously HAD to deliver that message. Obviously they completely tied themselves up in knots as lots of pupils started accusing her of using stereotypes and being sexist when she tried to define what feeling male and feeling female meant.

This really needs handling better. Simply parroting the standard trans literature is doing nothing to truly protect the trans kids from bullying and I’m sure some of these kids would be good allies if they just dropped all this male and female penis bollocks. Let’s talk about allowing expression, non conformity and stamp out homophobia but not by doing this ridiculous double speak, and ‘believe in my beliefs or you’re a bigot’ stuff.

Luckily my DS and I have had lots of conversations on this subject. I’ve talked to my 10 year old DD about it too when I had to explain to her how there was a boy in her Rebel Girl book but they thought he was a girl because he liked Pink and Princesses and her re Amex himself Coy (yuck!) after the rest of the book had been doing a great job of counteracting all that gender stereotyping too.