Sarah Vine in the DM nailing it for the second week running

I'm not assuming anything. I'm responding to what she has written.

A stranger emailed me telling me that TimeLady eats babies. This is appalling. No baby deserves to be eaten by anybody.

You're still assuming she hasn't confirmed it. Where's your evidence of that?

I actually cringe each time a young person is 'named and shamed' (and any objecting girls are named and shamed). It's all so tacky and potentially damaging for them.

Don't be daft VickyEadie. She could make it clear that she has not confirmed it, but that advice bring given to schools and other organisations traditionally understood to be single-sex, encourages precisely this.

So what evidence are you actually expecting her to provide to satisfy your misgivings? The name of the school?

Sarah Vine is an opinion columnist - not really a journalist. She will be subject to fact checking by her editor, but her job is not to dig into facts and give a rounded viewpoint. It is simply to give us her opinion.

Which she did.

But she is implying that a dreadful situation exists without providing any evidence, basing it upon hearsay. That is exactly the sort of lazy, rabble-rousing, Daily Fail journalism that MNers generally condemn.

What evidence could she provide other than "Jodie Smith (who was christened Joseph) is a boy who now identifies as a girl, was permanently excluded from Bash St School and has now been enrolled at St Posh's academy for nice girls..."

Is that what you have in mind, jellyslice ?

Gove has a daughter. If May goes, Vine and Gove will try to take over again. I don't like them, this one view is their saving grace.

Right-wing men believe they own their females, left-wing men believe society owns their females. Right-wing men will not want any of this, lefty dude bros chant TWAW in the streets, except between the sheets

Jelly

So do I. I think you've pinpointed my anxiety about it.

I'm not saying that she is fabricating a story.

Because of the trans ideology rhetoric, all their unfounded claims and dodgy statistics, I feel that the counter-view needs to be presented in a much more accurate and honest manner.

sorry, someone like SV

Once again it's that niggle isn't it - someone with SV who's been no friend to women in the past, and who's married to that toad is someone who can get a message out in ways that others cannot.

The situation described in the article is exactly the advice given to schools by Mermaids, which many have adopted as their trans gender policy. Why is that "lazy, rabble-rousing, Daily Fail journalism"? Schools are adopting these policies. I'm glad that more people realise what the implications of it would be. If Sarah Vine is fabricating the story, then a complaint should be made.

jellyslice

You've no idea if SV checked out the e-mail story or not. It may be that she established that it is true and decided to speak about it on more general terms.

I entirely agree with what SV is saying.

But she is implying that a dreadful situation exists without providing any evidence, basing it upon hearsay. That is exactly the sort of lazy, rabble-rousing, Daily Fail journalism that MNers generally condemn.

Even though 'even a stopped clock is right twice a day'.

Not a Vine or DM fan by any means, but can I piggy back on this to make a plea to recognise schools and individual teachers are terrified of getting it wrong in sensitive areas like this and clutch at any guidance they are given, almost all of which has come from trans groups.

I have posted elsewhere about the Chartered College for teachers tweeting support for a petition to ban 'anti-LGBTQ' publications in schools. The petition is targeting the TransgenderTrend resource which was produced to counter all the materials from Mermaids and the like which ignored sex-based protections. I can't stress enough how serious this is. The College is one of the government's main engines for CPD for teachers, is involved with new teachers, trainees and very influential with the DFE. The establishment is (possibly unwittingly) promoting this abandonment of women's and girl's rights.

The accompanying photo for article is from J'amie Private School Girl - for anyone who doesn't know, the central character is played by Chris Lilley, a male Aussie comedian. I thought it was quite apt!
I find the contradiction between this and the whole #metoo movement the worst issue. On one hand, women&girls are being encouraged to be more assertive about their boundaries, rights to their own bodily dignity, speaking out about harassment etc while on the other hand being told that it's ok, some penises can belong to women and if you're not happy about that then according to Mermaids, a school should move you to a another changing room.

The DM does not care about women, especially Muslim women. They only care about those groups when they can use them to attack another vulnerable group.

Has anyone sent this to Janice Turner or anyone at The Times? I feel that they would report the story with more accuracy.

Problem with that article: lazy journalism. Third-hand information, no evidence of checking sources, no independent confirmation. Dangerous, potentially untrue scaremongering. Totally undermines itself

Not lazy at all. Your critique was lazy though because it relied on general accusations. Vine wasn't 'fact-finding' on a specific case, she was providing commentary on an email sent to her by a parent and contextualising this in terms of a broader debate. In other words, she was focussing on the issue at hand and not on the specifics of the given case (which are likely confidential for a whole host of reasons). We all know that cases such as the one at the focus of the article exist. Enough have been reported here and there has been at least one high profile one in the US. It is also the job of journalists to discuss general problems, issues and cases and this is what Vine was doing.

My dd goes to a very good state girls school. There is a waiting list a mile long. Our friends dd didn't get in this year spaces are extremely highly valued. Dd had the job of showing around the new year 7s. She was surprised as some of them "were boys mummy".

I didn't see that post on the other thread, but I do hope the parent/s of the girl who posted it will be in the head's and governing body's ears urgently asking questions about safeguarding and privacy.

I would also like to see some proper investigative journalism on this

NotMe - I agree. We only have Vine's word for it that this school exists - most journalists on receiving an email like that would ring the school and get a story out of it. It's disappointing she didn't do that. Having written this new column, maybe she'll receive more emails and do something better with it.

That photo made me very uncomfortable. The sexualised way that the girls are posing. Inappropriate.

JellySlice

It is an example of organisations getting ahead of the law. And why did they suddenly decide to do this? Who's been in their ears?

Exactly the point. The lobby groups have worked hard to persuade councils/LAs and schools that they 'must' do things that they really, really shouldn't do. And they've fallen for it - schools, because they often take as 'the law' the "guidance" that LAs send out to them and councils because they're full of fools who don't know any better.