Tomorrows Mail on Sunday Front Page

If I was part of a movement and the DM was backing my p.o.v. I'd be worried. Very worried.

The Mail on Sunday are covering a specific issue, informed by a teacher who has whistleblown.

This week (15/11/18), the Daily Mail ran this story informed by Mermaids Charity:
'If I have to go through puberty, I don't think I'll make it': Emotional short film shows the struggles transgender teens face - including being bullied and not knowing which toilet to use at school
Short film 'Listen', made by trans director Jake Graf, includes young trans actors
The five-minute film highlights the trauma many young trans people experience

Includes a trans boy who won't drink because he doesn't want to use the toilet
And a trans girl who fears her teen years because of the onset of male puberty"
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6392767/Short-film-highlights-agony-transgender-children.html

In May 2018 The Guardian article included a range of perspectives:
'Schools pulled into row over helping transgender children
As more teens come out as trans, experts clash over how schools should help'
(extract)
"[Stephanie Davies-Arai Founder Transgender Trend] says her broader concern is that by affirming students’ gender identity, schools may be nudging them down a route that can lead to cross-sex hormones and life-changing surgery without enough time to reflect. Teachers, she says, “are essentially being forced to collude in an experimental approach towards children with gender dysphoria”. She adds: “You can support children and accept them, without affirming their belief that their body is ‘wrong’.”

Adele Robinson (not her real name), a head of year at a secondary school, shares Davies-Arai’s worries. The school has had 12 children, all girls, come out as transgender in the past 18 months. The majority, she says, have autism, and some have experienced sexual abuse.

When they come out, she says, they have brought in information sourced from Tumblr blogs and YouTube videos. Although her team does its best to “support every child in a loving, kind and compassionate way”, she feels that staff are too frightened to challenge what she sees as harmful practices: “We have chest binders worn in school, which is horrible. If a child was cutting, they would be straight in with a counsellor. Yet damaging developing breast tissue goes unquestioned. It’s a gross failure in terms of child protection.”

[Susie Green CEO Mermaids Charity] disagrees, and argues for a biological underpinning to transgender identity: “If a child or young person consistently, insistently and persistently states their feelings, to ignore, punish or repress their gender identity would effectively be reparative therapy.” (continues)

www.theguardian.com/education/2018/may/15/transgender-row-teachers-afraid-challenge-breast-binding

The idea that the Mail are inherently evil

they have led campaigning on reducing use of plastics
they were at the forefront of investigating Stephen Lawrence's murder and the incompetent investigation of it

they're not a hate filled rag. they just have a different view to you on some things.

grow up

Spanna...

"This is behind all their ........ pro Tory wind-up merchant 'journalism'.

I assume you are a Labour party supporter then...

As a floating voter I will vote for the party who best aligns with me on the issues I care about.

I also feel comfortable reading a variety of papers online, including articles I disagree with. I find it helps me test and develop my own opinions. I don't know if you find the same. And good articles can be found across the British press. For example the Guardian's football coverage is often very good.

Accidentally hit post just now. I'll try again.

I'd prefer it to have been the Guardian or the Times printing this story. But if it's the Mail it's better than nothing.

A note to the Scots on the thread - if names person legislation goes through, this will no longer be true

Yes. Very worrying.

The BBC News has just been forced to cover this on its TV paper review.

It was the last paper reviewed, and brief. The male commentator was rubbish. Too scared/befuddled to comment. Katie Balls from The Spectator got it.

Thank goodness it is finally hitting the headlines. That psychotherapists article covers the issues so well

Because a lot of family are on the spectrum I am horrified by the vulnerability of autistic teens. Often they find it so hard to fit in. And are so gender non conforming. So what is more attractive to an autistic teen than a sudden way to be popular, part of a group and even looked up to and celebrated by other teens? It is scarily seductive.

Just to add, spanna, I'd prefer it if i

‘Discussed’ on BBC news just now. A comment was ‘maybe all the autistic children are transgenger’ . That explains it so.

Sunday Times article today: 'Thank God they didn’t make this tomboy trans
The psychotherapist Stella O’Malley was sure she had been born the wrong sex — until she hit 16. She argues we must give children time to decide'
concludes:
"One group of voices is notably absent in the documentary. The production team spent three months approaching transgender lobby groups and charities, but all refused point blank to speak to O’Malley.

“It astonished me,” she says. “I thought we were going to explore this [issue] in its entirety, meet people who have transitioned at a very young age, meet all sorts of people. I thought it would be a film that would help parents and teenagers. It would add to the body of knowledge already out there. I didn’t expect to be silenced.”

O’Malley, who works from a private practice in Dublin and has written two books about children and mental health, realised it was her own experience that was putting the trans lobby on edge: “I think they thought I was confused, that I didn’t have the experience I had.”

She insists that she approached the subject of medical intervention with an open mind.

In the documentary she meets James Caspian, a psychotherapist whose research into people who have “detransitioned” after gender-reassignment surgery was shut down by Bath Spa University. It was concerned about the backlash that it might get on social media.

This absence of debate is alarming, considering the growing number of people affected. In the past nine years the number of children referred to NHS gender services has increased 25-fold. Many will go down a path of puberty-blockers, hormone treatment and surgery.

O’Malley met the parents of a 13-year-old who had been born a girl and was about to start taking hormone-blockers. These will stop breasts developing and periods starting. The child can then make up their own mind about their gender when they are 16.

“This line is sometimes given: that puberty-blockers are a pause button. Yet every study shows that 90%-100% of children, once they start puberty blockers, will go on with it,” O’Malley says.

Of the trans people O’Malley spoke to, none said they regretted their decision to go down the medical route — even Cale, a young woman who ended up detransitioning after a double mastectomy.

The point that O’Malley wants to make is not that medicine is wrong, but that we need to be sure we aren’t causing unnecessary damage: “I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to say this approach is wrong or that approach is wrong. But I wonder aloud: are we exploring it all?

Trans Kids: It’s Time to Talk will be on Channel 4 at 10pm on Wednesday”

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thank-god-they-didnt-make-this-tomboy-trans-thzt8xr3z?shareToken=ef90dd949e3021e89e59da268525e9d0

If I was part of a movement and the DM was backing my p.o.v. I'd be worried. Very worried.

What would you be worried about exactly, spanna?

Named sorry - autocorrect

Only the courts can remove this, not schools.

A note to the Scots on the thread - if names person legislation goes through, this will no longer be true

The DM is a hate filled rag. You think they care about women, working class people, autistic people, or LGBT people? Anyone who's ever had anything to do with them would know they are driven by ££ and nothing else. This is behind all their racist, anti immigration, pro Tory wind-up merchant 'journalism'.

If I was part of a movement and the DM was backing my p.o.v. I'd be worried. Very worried.

Mimmymum's wise words... I snarked a little at who they tagged into their photo. Who do they think they are?

There are a number of parents, volunteers, trustees and people employed by Mermaids Charity (as is the case with other trans rights lobbying groups, organisations and charities) who believe they are omnipotent.

In fairness, this belief has been formed/ supported by the unquestioning backing they have had from many influential, powerful people and public bodies.

If a school doesn't share this information with parents then they remove the parent's ability to safeguard their own child. And the school are also removing the parent's rights / responsibilities which they are not competent to do. Only the courts can remove this, not schools.
If a teacher follows trans lobby groups guidelines and keeps a child's disclosures about being trans confidential - ie not sharing with pastoral / safeguarding leads in the school - then the teacher is breaching the school's safeguarding guidelines.
ll of this leaves a vulnerable child isolated from support and even more vulnerable to grooming / abuse / harm

Great post.

Remember everyone: only the family courts can remove PR (legal parental responsibility) and even then, PR would be given to the Local Authority and not the school.

As LangCleg said

I teach in a rural comprehensive with a mixed cohort. Predominately white but a range of middle and working class kids. We have recently had a couple of kids identifying with trans who receive counselling and what seems to be 'watch and wait'. They are in a similar friendship group and apparently have a name friend who secretly identifies as female. There is one other child in the year below that I'm aware of.

However, when the new Year 7s arrived in September there are a cluster for females who identify and present as males. School are aware and are not intervening except where anxiety is involved.

Normal whistleblowing procedure is to report within the system. The entire point with this story is that it has become impossible to do so. Like was the case with North Staffs.

This is a really important point to take in. Anyone who cares to research further should look at Lisa Muggeridge's video on institutional grooming. This has happened here and whistleblowers can no longer use internal procedures to report concerns.

Just a comment about safeguarding and parents.
If a school doesn't share this information with parents then they remove the parent's ability to safeguard their own child. And the school are also removing the parent's rights / responsibilities which they are not competent to do. Only the courts can remove this, not schools.
If a teacher follows trans lobby groups guidelines and keeps a child's disclosures about being trans confidential - ie not sharing with pastoral / safeguarding leads in the school - then the teacher is breaching the school's safeguarding guidelines.
All of this leaves a vulnerable child isolated from support and even more vulnerable to grooming / abuse / harm

Mimmymum's wise words

I snarked a little at who they tagged into their photo. Who do they think they are?