Impressive new article by Debbie Hayton.

Dr Hayton has been influential in shaping school policies (NASUWT) & as a teacher has direct & indirect influence on children.

Last week there were reports of a hate crime conviction being secured against a teenager who asked/demanded if PCSO Freer was 'a boy or a girl'. PCSO Freer, like Dr Hayton & many other trans rights activists has considerable opportunity to share their narrative & influence public policy.
(extract)
"In a victim impact statement the officer told how he worked closely with North Wales Police diversity unit, victim support and other agencies to raise awareness of hate crime and the need to report it.

He provided talks to children's and youth groups in Flintshire and Wrexham to raise transgender and LGBT issues and lectured at Glyndwr University" (continues)
www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/transgender-pcso-subjected-transphobic-abuse-17651776

PCSO Freer believes:
'I was born female but from my earliest memories and before I could even talk I knew I was a boy in the wrong body.

'I told my parents when I was a small child that I was a boy. However, I was brought up as a girl and began to transition to male when I was around 15."
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7943147/Teenage-yob-ordered-pay-compensation-transgender-police-officer-abuse.html

I looks to me like criticising that particular small comment about someone's feelings as a kid was being used as a stick to beat them with rather than anything more productive.

I think this might be because Hayton has admitted to being AGP. This is a paraphilia which develops in adulthood, but many AGPs create a back story which involves them wanting to be/thinking they were a girl when they were children. It didn't necessarily happen.

This seems a bit confused to me, but I think it's the way it's written - do you mean that a gender identity that seems to be opposite to the person's real sex only makes sense if it isn't connected to the person's sex?

I'm not really sure what you mean here, but I think my meaning might have been clearer if I had said simply 'identity' instead of 'gender identity' (because try as I might, I cannot comprehend what a 'gender identity' is).

So what I was trying to say is that this idea of an identity which is that of the opposite sex only makes sense if you assume that personalities or self image are somehow connected to one's sex. Sex is a biological fact which can't be changed, so your identity or personality is constructed around this immutable fact, but should not be in any way restricted by it. Is that any clearer?

I also think this is part of the reason teenagers, who are in a period where cultural identity is being formed in a very intense way, are so vulnerable to being told untruths about gender identity.

I agree with this, and it's why people have sometimes commented that 'gender identity' is 'the new goth'. With teenagers there's a lot of trying to fit in going on as well, so for those who don't, an opposite sex 'gender identity' or identifying as 'non binary' gives them a way of belonging, or an explanation of their failure to fit in.

But I was responding to a very specific point, criticising Debbie for saying that as a child the sense of gender identity he experienced seemed to be attached to "girl".

This is where I get lost. It's that idea of a 'gender identity' again. Why is 'gender' attached to identity? There are people of both sexes and there are personalities. Why should any particular personality belong to a particular sex. I really don't get it at all.

Cases like Maya's are the direct result of institutional capture - policies such as the NASUWT guidance, which have been developed and pushed through by seemingly reasonable 'old school' transsexuals like Debbie Hayton.

The behind the scenes lobbying by trans rights activists has been going on for a very long time. The lack of care for Women's rights & Safeguarding is apparent thoughout.

Last year AngryAttackKittens wrote,
"I'm going to point every "but the nice, harmless old school transsexuals whose movement has been unfairly appropriated by the nasty transgender people" person to this thread from now on.

All the same elements we're seeing now were there in that old BBC roundtable from the 70s with the 4 transwomen, the politician, and the doctor. None of this is new."
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007
its an important thread

Thinking aloud I suppose it is other children and their parents.

Probably the other kids who are slightly older. Around age 4-6 a lot of them have very concrete ideas about markers for boys and girls. It's part of how they solidify their sense of male and female, it starts to pass usually after about age 6 (granted that kids develop at different rates at that age.)

I'm glad you posted this, op. We need to have these discussions about the so-called allies.

From the article

The subordination of science to myth was exemplified in the recent British case of Maya Forstater, who’d lost her job after pointing out the plain truth that transgender people like me cannot change our biological sex by proclamation. “I conclude from…the totality of the evidence, that [Forstater] is absolutist in her view of sex and it is a core component of her belief that she will refer to a person by the sex she considered appropriate,” concluded Judge James Tayler at her employment tribunal. “The approach is not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”

I’m not sure where that leaves me, a British transgender person who agrees with Forstater.

Cases like Maya's are the direct result of institutional capture - policies such as the NASUWT guidance, which have been developed and pushed through by seemingly reasonable 'old school' transsexuals like Debbie Hayton. The loonies on Twitter are just the cheerleaders.

This idea of a 'gender identity' which might be the opposite sex only makes sense if you assume that personalities or self image are somehow connected to one's sex.

This seems a bit confused to me, but I think it's the way it's written - do you mean that a gender identity that seems to be opposite to the person's real sex only makes sense if it isn't connected to the person's sex?

I actually think identity is something that largely is formed over time. It's an innate capacity but also flexible in many ways, which is why people can form identity around things like political parties - obviously we don't have an innate connection to the Labour party or whatever. I also think this is part of the reason teenagers, who are in a period where cultural identity is being formed in a very intense way, are so vulnerable to being told untruths about gender identity. Young kids also do some development around identity and sex too, and because of their development it can go through some odd stages.

But I was responding to a very specific point, criticising Debbie for saying that as a child the sense of gender identity he experienced seemed to be attached to "girl". I don't think that's odd, because I had a similar experience for a time, and because I know it's not unusual for kids to do those things. So I think it's really quite strange that people are criticising that comment by posting stuff about kids developmental understanding.

Is that experience Debbie had connected to later issues around identity and sex and gender? Clearly Debbie thought so at the time of the interview. It's possible I think, but it also might be unconnected. And even if it is, I suspect it would be difficult to say how i is connected in a clear way.

I looks to me like criticising that particular small comment about someone's feelings as a kid was being used as a stick to beat them with rather than anything more productive. We should be making it clear that ideas like that which kids have don't say they were born in the wrong body, or necessarily indicate ongoing issues, but that doesn't require saying they don't happen.

She declared that these were boys' clothes. She wore them without a problem, but I am still left wondering where or when she decided clothes are gendered. Certainly not from her parents or me.

TV, media, books, children's clothing sections in shops, adults & children outside the immediate family & yes many nurseries schools reinforce gender stereotypes.

Slightly off topic from Debbie, but the last few posts reminded me of last week, when I chose a blue tee shirt and jeans for my 3 year old GD to wear to nursery. She declared that these were boys' clothes. She wore them without a problem, but I am still left wondering where or when she decided clothes are gendered. Certainly not from her parents or me. Surely the school can't be reinforcing gender stereotypes? Thinking aloud I suppose it is other children and their parents.

Oh now stop it! Hiding your face is something you’d play with an 18 month old, not a child of 7 I fear I did not type / you did not read that as clearly as was intended...

I was talking about the ages between 2is and 7 ish: from hiding your head = invisible to having a good idea of your self as an individual! The journey from solipsism to individualism!

Oh now stop it! Hiding your face is something you’d play with an 18 month old, not a child of 7.

Age 7? Bin on head? Have you never seen that? It's a common enough occurence in small children!

What? Children have developed object permanence by age 2. Such absolutism! They have started, gained some understanding of how they are seen from someone elses perspective. By the time they are 8 it has become relatively stable.. before that it is all pretty much in flux with new concepts of self and other being added all the time.

In the 70s if you were GNC as a kid and had decent parents they shrugged and got you the toys you asked for. Now they get you Lupron, in some cases not because they want to but because they've been told that if they don't either you'll kill yourself or they'll be reported to social services.

How anyone considers this progress is beyond me.

If someone says their sense of gender identity, which is I think the same or close to the concept of self-image, was of being the opposite sex, that seems quite possible to me. And someone who later sees themselves as trans might well see that as the starting point.

Let me muse... based on my own expereince....

I was a tomboy, was called by the male version of my name for a few years, even as an adult my chosen name is 'non binary'. At 4 and 5 I wanted diggers, cars, transporters and rollerskates. Never liked dolls or dressing up. Had very long hair, wore dresses out of choice. Favourite sports were boxing, played football, to play and watch... in the late 1960s early 70s.

I grew to know I was female, a girl by the time I was about 7. But continued to enjoy more masculine pursuits, always dislike feminised products, girly spink, sparkly shite! Still do. Nobody batted an eyelash. I was me, I was always accepted. Later, in my teens, I would be bullied for wearing glasses, being freckled, being clever and having red hair, but never because I was not feminine enough!

I am hetero, married, female adult.

Had I been born in this century what would I be?

Age 7? Bin on head?

What? Children have developed object permanence by age 2.

It was very concrete, I just thought I was a boy. I remember telling my mom I had boy hands, but it was a rather circular argument, in hindsight.

I grew out of it, and I don't consider it developmentally abnormal.

Well yes, children can have all sorts of odd ideas about themselves as they grow up and learn about the world, but as you say, they tend to grow out of the ones which don't align with reality.

If someone says their sense of gender identity, which is I think the same or close to the concept of self-image, was of being the opposite sex, that seems quite possible to me. And someone who later sees themselves as trans might well see that as the starting point.

This idea of a 'gender identity' which might be the opposite sex only makes sense if you assume that personalities or self image are somehow connected to one's sex. Why not just accept instead that anyone can be masculine or feminine? The idea of a gender identity just seems so regressive, as though men and women should fit in specific boxes for their sex.

She’s using Kohlberg’s gender constancy as being a pre requisite for gender role typing, yet there is plenty of evidence of gender role typing occurring before the establishment of gender constancy. Is that wilful?

She is explaining how children come to understand sex, being a boy and being a girl. How a kids begins to understand that the universe is not just them...

Kids are 100% solipsists until they are about 7, like playing hide and seek and hiding by putting a bin on your head... if I can't see you then you can't see me. Same thing with genitals and anything that is not 'me'.

Umyeahnah

I take my last paragraph back blush

Drink has been taken (antipodean so not morning drinking), and chagrin.

Nicely said. We're all flawed.

you keep saying this place doesn’t have to be supportive. Is this a dig at trans widows because it feels like it?

It's a response to people suggesting that we can't discuss certain topics. That's not a dig, I'm not the person who brought up trans widows, it's an opinion about what we can and can't talk about.

Not ever space has to curtail their discussions in order to show support. There are specific threads here for that, which is good, but there is also a lot of discussion that may be uncomfortable to all kinds of people, including many women. At the least the OP thought this article could be useful or revealing or influential, and wanted to discuss it with the people here. The article itself doesn't talk about the families of men who transition, because that's not the topic, but it also doesn't in any way deny or minimise their experiences. And I really can't fault the author for making a fairly short comment, in any case the dominant voices in the forum are women, and GC women.

I am not at all comfortable with people telling us we can't have discussions because it makes someone uncomfortable, or even unwelcome. (For that matter, I have doubts about people asking such things on behalf of a whole group of people, who may or may not agree.) I'd very much like to know where you think we are suppose to discuss articles like this?

But why did you think you were a boy? What gave you that idea?

As far as I remember there was nothing specific that gave me that idea. I was a tomboy, but it wasn't like I thought girls couldn't be tomboys, or even that boys had a better life, and I had plenty of girl friends. It was very concrete, I just thought I was a boy. I remember telling my mom I had boy hands, but it was a rather circular argument, in hindsight.

I grew out of it, and I don't consider it developmentally abnormal.

My point was that someone talks about their perception as a child, I don't really see any reason to dispute it unless it's a matter of telling a lie on purpose, or clearly mangling what actually happened. If someone says their sense of gender identity, which is I think the same or close to the concept of self-image, was of being the opposite sex, that seems quite possible to me. And someone who later sees themselves as trans might well see that as the starting point.

Perhaps Debbie's next article can be about the schools guidelines that Debbie helped write and how those can now be amended to reflect Debbie's admission that Debbie's transition was motivated by AGP. This is particularly important in that Debbie's personal journey is not an unusual one in any way, so there will be other teachers in the system to whom all the same information applies.

I'm one of the earlier posters. I am in shock. I hadn't realised AGP included humiliation. I had someone who I'm now 99% certain was AGP very close to me.

Feel a bit sick...

And want yo vanish said Shakira.I L so chevwed their ear out.

It seems very strange that the NASUWT school guidance which relied on Dr Hayton's expertisewas published the following year & remains in place. Especially strange given the incusion of policies explicity demanding that males such as Pips/Philip Bunce, Alex Drummond & those who recognise the nature of their autogynaephilia be treated as female members of staff in school.

^^It's baffling. I've learned not to expect rational behaviour from AGP males, but for NASUWT to adopt such guidance is just... I have no words.

"I do feel for Alex being made the example"
Eh? Alex Drummond is the Stonewall posterperson for this shit! Not exactly shy, is they? Alex visits schools as a lesbian "woman".