Women's Hour today, Michelle Moore and Layla Moran, on safeguarding

I've worked in education. I have many real life friends who work in education. Including autism advisors. We've talked privately about this.
No one believes that a person can be born in the wrong body. Not one.

Gender Incongruence is a horrible situation for people and an adult may decide to transition to help that, but we all need to be very very wary of this in kids.

The refusal to acknowledge there's anything odd about the number of autistic spectrum children presenting as trans is just insane.

"Oh it's just they feel more comfortable coming forward"
Bullshit
These kids particularly are at risk.

And as for the rest you make absolutely sure theres no underlying mental health issues and / or trauma . And guess what, you can't tell that from the eyes.

Why do both sides keep banging on about it being good that school kids are exploring thier identity? It isn't good if they explore it in any other way. We don't allow kids to deviate from the regulatory school uniform or to explore thier identity with tattoos, piercings or hair styles so why is 'gender' different?

Layla hasn’t read up on it.
She is a physicist by training so deep down she knows fine well that she is ignoring facts.
Likewise NAS are pushing the trans agenda. Rightly or wrongly. I had training from them recently and they listed trans writers and reference for reading around autism (fine but disproportionate I would have thought) and kept saying ‘gender is a spectrum’.

Layla tried hard to attack Michele on safeguarding - this shows that she knows its very strong ground that 'our side' stand on. She tried to draw a distinction between safeguarding and inclusivity and by implication attack Michele for not being inclusive.
Michele is a professor of inclusive education.

And I ask again, where did Layla Moran teach? She goes on about being a teacher all the time, but where, for how long and when? There's a vague reference to a comp in London somewhere, but mostly private and international schools as far as I can see. The idea that this woman has any real sense of what goes on in the average British classroom is offensive.

Its scary that MP's don't understand or promote safeguarding.
Its extremely worrying that an ex teacher doesn't.

If a teacher didn't understand safeguarding that would in itself be a safeguarding concern, wouldn't it?

I think Michele could have been clearer about what exactly she meant by safeguarding and what the specific safeguarding issues are that could arise. People don't know this stuff.

Life changing MEDICAL decisions

Gender Incongruence is still down under WHO as a medical issue.

I HATE the way it gets hooked onto being gay.

If a child is exploring their sexuality that's fine. And I can understand keeping that private. The child can come to no harm.

The consequences for a child exploring their gender is completely different. We are talking about life changing decisions here. Schools should support gender non conformity. Schools shouldn't follow trans activists blindly. It absolutely is a safeguarding issue and Michelle made a great point in linking alienation at home to children being at greater risk. That's a tale as old as time.

Good to see a civilised discussion though.

Can I say a "well done" to Michelle for having a polite, respectful, grown-up debate. What, exactly, are the trans lobby so afraid of? Why can't they debate with feminists?

MsMCWoodle:

Very well put."Layla intellectually lazy, as well as patronising". Totally her style - after watching her performance in the commons too.

but it showed how far behind the politicians defending self-id are in the debate

This is an important point and one that is increasingly standing out to me.

All our parliamentarians are at least two years behind the actual conversation that is happening. It is very concerning.

I should have said Layla is professionally dangerous !

Great discussion and good to hear two women talking about this. Layla sadly is dangerous as she speaks with authority (as an ex head of year) while evidencing only a very rudimentary knowledge of safeguarding.

Confidentiality is a nuanced issue in schools but to repeatedly promote the idea that "the drama teacher can take a child's disclosure and keep it a secret" is so dangerous - to both the child and the teacher. When that goes wrong (and I have seen it go catastrophically wrong in a number of schools in terms of serious harm happening to children) several teachers subsequently lost their jobs for failing to refer concerns upwards and (in one case, alert parents). One of these children took their own life and another attempted to - and each time a teacher had failed to share their disclosures.

Layla thinks she can get by because of her confident and posh enunciation; however she has done very little research into any of this.
She wasn't a teacher for very long at all. A career in politics suits far better. She hardly let Michele get a word in. Michele was very patient.

Lots of mock offence from Layla when she was shown to be ignorant of what safeguarding implies and in her lack of real awareness of the autistic connection. She is comfortable riffing off of her expensive education. Clever girl - but not much originality or considered thought on the subject.

I will do "listen again" tomorrow when I don't need to concentrate as much. I could do with hearing the piece about the menopause.

Not that I am concentrating as much as I should be at the moment. Trans seems to be taking over my life. I have data to input!

Yet another person who didn't do any research before going on to womans hour.

It's weird isn't it.

Excellent choice of following piece!
And preceding piece, about menopause.

Excellent choice of following piece!
Was disappointed that they didn't get into the affect on other children of transitioning children - boys in the girls' changing rooms etc.
Still Michelle was great Layla sounded intellectually lazy and quite patronising too.

Layla is assuming that children all have a very secure and set gendered self identity inside which is just simply true and pre social. All her answers came from that point of view. The gendered soul. But our sense of self develops and changes and is built by our interactions with the outside world. If alot of those interactions are with online gender forums this will influence the sense of self.
Lalyas answer to the autism correlation wasn't very convincing. Alot of listeners who have not heard the stat before will be concerned.
I thought the discussion was good. They all did quite well from their points of view and michel got some really important points out.

GoldenPomBear I do think that it was done deliberately and that it's a masterstroke. Impossible to challenge from a TRA perspective without admitting that womanface is equally appropriative.

Jane said something about the reality of women's daily lives never being taboo on WH at the start of the programme, too.

Credit to Layla for at least coming on the program and having a discussion, but it showed how far behind the politicians defending self-id are in the debate. She clearly was surprised by the autism figure and tried to make up an explanation for it on the spot that would not ruffle the trans lobby's feathers, rather than deal with the alarmingly high correlation and the possibility that these socially confused kids, often with other conditions that effect their feelings about their own body such as dyspraxia, are perhaps being groomed online. I hope she at least goes away realising that she needs to research this issue some more.

I would have liked to hear Michelle say something like 'It is acceptable for a school to keep a confidence if they see no harm coming to a child, but they have a duty of care in the same way they would if they knew a child was self harming. Furthermore no social transitioning should happen at school without the parents being involved' (or similar).

A good debate, but still not as tangible as I would like. I like real examples to hang things off.

Golden Pombear - there have been some really interesting articles on these programmes, between the trans stuff.