Non binary 12 year old on Today Program

He can call himself whatever he wants, that doesn't make him something that doesn't fucking exist. Grown-ups shouldn't give airtime to children making shit up.

"Boy said he was non binary and talked about how he didn’t feel that he fitted in."

NB is basically saying "my personality doesn't fit stereotypes of boy/girl".

That is all it is. The world is going crazy.

Just listened to this on catch up and yes, Stephanie was outstanding.
Clear, knowledgeable and respectful about children. She really knows her stuff.

and a body without breasts (a female secondary sexual characteristic) is not "non-binary" - it's seeing a male body as the default or neutral or the "universal."

Very good point "Mouthy*, hadn't occurred to me before.

It disturbed me in the Scottish census committee they had ths Scottish Trans Alliance non-binary (female) Vic Valentine in, and when someone (maybe Joan) mentioned that the data would be used for planning healthcare etc, Vic casually mentioned that lots of non-binary females probably have hysterectomies so sex data wasn't relevant for cervical screening numbers.

Anyway... Stephanie was fantastic. Flawless. She came across as very caring and compassionate, and got all her points in clearly; it was great NR allowed her to speak.

I asked my dog and she said despite a hysterectomy she's definitely still female. What a bitch.

"whatabattery". [grin,]

Anyway, to get back on-topic. As per a PP, how is it better to reject the binary reality so much as to become "trinary"?

And now it's dogs? Honestly.

Dog just got it! Arf 🦇

Nope just curious. Genuinely.

These questions about bats are nothing but whatabattery.

Bats? What about bats??

Haha @LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD the thing about being a zoologist is that you think all sorts of animals are interesting. These days I mostly do ants, amphibians and reptiles and I think they're fascinating. An aardvark would be totally awesome but I dont think my wood ants would agree.

I'm.also concerned about all this being done in public.

Between puberty blockers and being paraded on TV or radio or media as something special they constantly make it impossible for kids to every change their minds.

Why is this?

Why does it have to be so public. Its deliberately manipulative.

Thank you to whoever's posted the link!!

I've just listened and I too was disturbed how little the head teacher seemed to know. He sounded unprepared next to stephanie who did well to get in how serious the non binary identity can be and what it can lead to. I dont think the head had realised that..

@BarbariansMum oooh a zoologist? That sounds really interesting! I hope you get to work with interesting creatures (not aardvarks or sloths).

We had snails too, Arnold- they're great pets for small children, just liberate them when you go on holiday and collect some new ones when you return or if any expire. It's quite easy to set up a habitat for them. I can't imagine why anyone shells out(sorry) for those giant African ones.

We had a 'pregnant' woodlouse with tiny babies once too.

Speaking as a zoologist, his grip on biology was no worse than that of the average person in the street.

When my son was small he took a notion for a pet snail, so I figured what the hey, we can gather a few up and stick them in a pot with a lid, they're snails, they'll probably won't live long. Naturally his sister also insisted on having snails even though she thought they were slimy and horrible, so we ended up bring about a dozen home.

Hoo boy was I wrong about snails. Little buggers live forever and produce their entire body weight in shit every single day!

Still, my boy did get a nice certificate for 'interesting contributions to show and tell' out of it.

(I'll stop derailing now)

I just can't reconcile the 'he's so mature' with the 'he's so staggeringly ill informed he just compared humans to worms'.

The very first book DD chose to bring home from the school library was 'The Life Cycle of the Snail'. Somehow even at 4 years old she wasn't in the least confused by the fact that they're hermaphrodites but most other creatures - including people - aren't. Neither did she have much time for stupid stereotypes as to what she should or shouldn't be interested in or wear.

I just can't reconcile the 'he's so mature' with the 'he's so staggeringly ill informed he just compared humans to worms'.

I wonder if some people who say things like this just don't spend much time with children. Some children are very good at repeating what they hear around them from adults, and it's easy to mistake that for some kind of real insight or understanding. But they often don't understand the words in an adult way at all.

Especially concerning is the issue of mastectomy for young women, so they can achieve what they believe is a 'non-binary' body.

Yes, SisterWendy - and a body without breasts (a female secondary sexual characteristic) is not "non-binary" - it's seeing a male body as the default or neutral or the "universal."

Actually I totally get why "non- binary" seems like a good option when you feel that your other choices are "toxic masculinity " on the one hand, and "hyper-femininity " on the other.

If you look at the mermaid etc charts, with Barbie on one side and GI Joe on the other reinforcing this idea, then everyone is in between. Young children are very open to stereotypes when they are trying to work out what makes them male or female. I remember my little brother refusing to flush the toilet, then crying when I told him to, because "boys don't flush toilets" when he was about 5 years old They are busy learning from what is around them.

Stephanie Arai-Davies was so good. She really does know her stuff and I think that explaining that 'non-binary' leads onto pathways of hormones and mastectomy, without coming over as sensationalist was really well handled.