School have a trans information session/day

gobbin but that still instils the idea that everyone has a gender. I would have really hoped that a girls' school especially would understand the importance of throwing the idea of gender into the dustbin.

Wait, gobin do you teach sex is assigned at birth or observed?

Yes, I noticed that female-ness.

It is absolutely asserting your sex is a feeling and not a fact in the same way as the other two are feelings. Very misleading and duplicitous. Anyone presenting this as innocent truth has been manipulated or is manipulating.

So, gobbin, does your version of this gingerbread man depict the brain as inherently gendered, or does it depict societal gendered expectations fed into the brain?

Personally I have always viewed body/gender dysphoria as a mental illness. Gender reassignment as a final resort for desperately unhappy people. What is now happening is it’s being presented as a lifestyle choice.

But it's being partly presented as a lifestyle choice, and partly as a serious psychological condition which which will cause sufferers to kill themselves if they aren't instantly affirmed as their chosen 'gender'. We're told that to prevent suicide, social changes have to be made immediately as well as blockers and binders as soon as possible.

Which is it? Lifestyle choice or mental illness? It can't be both. Can it?

And in case CaptainShark is tempted to pop in again and say that it's innate and 'just like being gay', there is no comparison between being same-sex attracted and feeling that your body is so wrong that you need to subject it to a lifetime of medication and drastic surgery.

But isn't that still teaching them.they have to define themselves in some way? That they still fit on a line somewhere.

Just leave them be. Don't do the tras work for them.

I'm not going to shoot you down, I am going to ask how you can possibly justify use language and ideology that minimises biological reality. Biological (though I note they use 'anatomical') sex is not defined as 'female-ness' or 'male-ness'. Sex is not assigned at birth, it is observed.

I reads somewhere recently that they target private schools as there is no LEA control.

Pupils are asked to imagine where along each line they think they might feel comfortable. The point being that that is OK and everyone is different. Not to rush out and start getting hormone treatment and surgery.

The biggest talking point is often the concept of male/female stereotypes. It can be a good debate starter.

OK I’m going to put this right out there. Do NOT shoot me down.

There are various versions of the Genderbread person.
We use it in PSHE lessons. It encourages pupils to think about the fact that their physical body (sex), gender (how they feel about themselves), how they dress (expression) and who they are attracted to can all be different.

It helps them to understand that not everyone feels the same way about themselves or others.

It helps them to actually question the concept of male and female in the context of stereotypes and whether this is right.

It also provides a discussion point for the concept of sexual development disorders (congenital) because not everybody’s BODY is born the same either inside or out.

It helps pupils who are questioning their sexuality to realise that being lesbian or gay is normal. THEIR normal. Everyone has their OWN normal.

What it does not do unless handled badly is promote being trans.

Gendered intelligence were at Sydenham High earlier this week and seem to have spoken at quite a few of the other schools in the GDST group in the past.

That's worrying. Are they targetting girls' schools in particular, in the knowledge that girls appear to be more susceptible to being taken in by their ideology?

ughhh, why did someone share that genderbread link. I'm now grumpy.

Contrasting between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s anatomical sex, it turns out, is really helpful for a lot of people to better grasp the idea of sex. Sometimes we’re talking about sex assigned at birth, and a lot of other times we’re talking about the anatomical sex that someone embodies (which changes, for all of us, throughout the course of our lives — although that change is, for some of us, more drastically, or for different reasons, than others).

I think all the parents should qualify for a refund.

The whole point of a girls school is to get away from harassment and stereotyping. If they are going to be taught they are nothing more than a performance it goes against everything those parents are paying for.

The issue falls under the fundamental british values that all schools must adhere to and falls under the citizenship curriculum.

That's a very skilful bit of crowbarring in you've done there. it's nothing of the kind.

It's arguably sex and relationships education (which covers a very wide church of topics indeed); however, 'teaching' it in this unscientific, extremely crude and frighteningly biased way is absolutely wrong.

I speak as someone with massive, prolonged experience and expertise in this area.

Do they really have a graphic that equates attraction to males with attraction to, and only to, masculinity; attraction to females with attraction to femininity; and assumes nobody will ever be attracted to 'unfeminine' girls and 'unmasculine' boys?

It also misses out bisexual attraction completely.

Wow.

Personally I have always viewed body/gender dysphoria as a mental illness.
You've got psychiatrists and the DSM on your side then...

@CaptainShark
The issue falls under the fundamental british values that all schools must adhere to and falls under the citizenship curriculum.
Do you have a link to what is under that curriculum?

It isn't just St Albans. Gendered intelligence were at Sydenham High earlier this week and seem to have spoken at quite a few of the other schools in the GDST group in the past.

I wonder what the fee paying parents of St Albans High School think of this.

twitter.com/stahs/status/1065987063995084801?s=21

Personally I have always viewed body/gender dysphoria as a mental illness. Gender reassignment as a final resort for desperately unhappy people. What is now happening is it’s being presented as a lifestyle choice. It’s not. It’s simply not. Because it requires potentially dangerous experimental life time hormone treatment But educating children along the lines of the genderbread indicates that they have all these choices to make as they grow up. Puberty is a hugely difficult time for young people. Sexuality, hormones kicking in, vast changes to deal with. Wrong choices can be made by 14 year olds. In fact it’s pretty much programmed in that they will make wrong choices. What other huge decisions do we give our 14 yr olds to make?

OP, I would be writing a long, long email to the school making all the above points, asking how they intend to address them, as this will decide whether your DD will attend, and if not I would expect her absence to be authorised.

I think the problem is, it introduces a totally false “choice” into children’s heads. You cannot “choose” to “change sex”. You are born either male or female. If you feel you are in the wrong body, you can choose a life of hormone treatment, possibly surgery and life long issues concerning relationships and sex, in the effort to change your body and present as someone of the opposite sex.
The analogy with being gay is wrong. If you are gay, you are attracted to someone of the same sex. Fact. If you are trans, you say you “feel” like you are really a man or a woman. But what does that mean? How does a boy know what it feels like to be a girl? And vice versa.

When a girl wishes to become a boy, and AS A RESULT of transition, her family throw out “all her dresses”, or re decorate her “girly” purple bedroom, or she then feels able to cut her hair short and pursue “boy’s sports”, it is inevitable that anyone with an ounce of common sense would wonder if that girl’s thinking was stuck in such rigid stereotypes developed by society and/or those around her, that she was unable to reconcile her non pink princess identity with being a girl.
We should be teaching girls that having short hair, playing football, and rejecting the online media stereotyped representations of women is fine. They can do what they want and look how they want. And hating the way your body develops, well, Ive lost count of the number of women who hated this in adolescence. The transformation into a being that society sees as intrinsically sexual, and becoming the object of a predatory gaze. Hardly surprising. As for boys, they don’t have to be “tough” or play sports. They can be who they want too.

I would want to know exactly what was being said. On that basis, I would either pull my child out, or brief them beforehand. I don’t think it’s fair for them to feel they have to confront the speakers - it’s too much for a child. I might encourage an older child to ask “But what does it mean to feel like a girl?” My DD would certainly be able to point out that as a girl she never played with dolls, never wears dresses, hates pink, thinks make up is daft.

I'd try contacting the school see what they are doing then make a decision.

At least you get a heads up.

It got shoved in with no warning into yr 6 sex education lessons for one of my children and I've heard from my children it's in their PSHE lessons quite a bit. I had a child who understood sexual reproduction come out of those sex education lessons very confused.

Funny Creationism mentioned - same primary school manged to do confusing sex education lessons sent one of our other children to a creationist zoo - we'd paid before realising and were reassured no talks would be taken no confusion non facts given - our child later said they'd had the talks and was very confused about timings as a result.

Well the response to that bit of virtue signalling was truly heart warming. I hope they cannot move for angry parents clogging up reception this morning. I await reading further in the papers. Idiots.

good to see St Alban's High School and GI getting their arses handed to them on Twitter for this sexist garbage.