What is going on at The Guardian?

...their whole coverage of the last 5 years of Corbynism and Brexit has been a disaster, her strategy of commissioning pieces from not very good but gobby glorified bloggers has damaged the paper's reputation significantly. Plus obviously there is the whole Seumas Milne issue.

Regretfully, VERY regretfully, I have to agree.

On International Women's Day one of their young female writers tweeted happy International Women's Day to transwomen only.

Why would someone do that, why? As I'm going from memory and can't be 100 per cent accurate which young woman this was I won't name her. But it was obviously intended to give the finger to women. Is that what the Guardian is now? Maybe they're terrified of being petitioned the way Suzanne Moore was for writing a thoughtful piece about gender.

I despair. I used to support it. I can't now. I just can't.

I'm not convinced by a out and out deliberate conspiracy re the Guardian. Rather I think it is a combination of several things. 1) individual personal politics 2) general rise in culture war/binary extremist positions 3) desperately chasing the global woke yoof traffic to avoid a fucking paywall 4) increasingly intolerant staff and instead of telling them to bog off the management have tried to appease them 5) thinking that you can take your older/non-woke/liberal/centrist readers for granted and they will stay loyal and 6) Kath Viner is a crap editor.

The last point is really important. It isn't just this issue she's cocked up - their whole coverage of the last 5 years of corbynism and brexit has been a disaster, her strategy of commissioning pieces from not very good but gobby glorified bloggers has damaged the paper's reputation significantly. Plus obviously there is the whole seamus Milne issue.

Sadly, this explains a lot. Absolutely devastated at what has become of the Guardian these days, it was my go-to read for so many years. They won't get another penny out of me.

Thank you @Glinner for bringing this to our attention.

Woah.

Hold on, we're not allowed to mention that charity? Okay.

oops!

replace:
since it got Women's Studies closed down and replaced with women's studies.

with:
since it got Women's Studies closed down and replaced with gender studies.

Thanks Glinner. This is fantastic work.

Very interesting thanks Glinner

Ahh, I wondered why it had disappeared. Can I thank @Glinner for his article, and more importantly for leading me to this board - which has been an inspiring, educational but also profoundly depressing experience. Iynwim.

It has, however, tooled and geared me up to try to change things in my city and I've decided that I'm going to try to ensure that all the "born in the wrong body" ideas are taught as ideas rather than facts. And that other viewpoints also need to be taught.

Oh, the thread has a new title. Usually Mumsnet say they have edited but no mention.

So the thread is allowed to be back provided it doesn’t mention a certain gender charity that has people monitoring this board for mentions? Noted. It’s all explained in the link in OP anyway. [waves]

Good point that they are political organisations. As a teacher in the classroom, it doesn't appear like that. Most teachers have no awareness of how everything works beyond their own school, and even then aren't aware of how much governors impact a school for example.

Glad the thread is back.

NeurotrashWarrior
I know that you're right. But that's why we need to keep repeating that these are political organisations. There's nothing wrong with that - organisations acting and lobbying on behalf of their members is how change happens - but children are meant to be protected from one sided views.

And when you look at some of the awful SRE materials coming from certain groups (misogynist, porn soaked and anti safeguarding) it's a catastrophe for children in the making.

(And apologies for the error re Salz /Hamlyn upthread. I'll get the post removed - the legislation about impartiality is the important bit).

Truth, I'm not sure how often that happens for the area of gender identity in schools on the coal face so to speak.

It's becoming accepted 'fact' that you might have 'the wrong body.' It's seen as science now rather than something like creationist theory or political representations. Thanks to all the orgs listed in the article and more. When it's also on cbbc, and programmes referenced in applauded privately written schemes of work, (no outsiders) it's rubber stamped with gilt edges.

Individual teachers have more power to take forward their own passions as more lower level staff are now leaders of curriculum areas. So they can prioritise things like lgbt awareness with quality marks which will ask for evidence of certain things covered by the curriculum or assemblies.

The trans lobby isn't seen as political anymore, it's RSE.

The right wing media organisations manipulate their stories because they think they know what’s best for them.

The left wing media organisations manipulate their stories because they think they know what’s best for us.

It's all concerning though. The links. I've just been watching posie's new interview with Marcus Evans who mentions how much the "trans charities" influence the Tavistock and GIDs.

Thanks for clarifying. His wiki page needs updating.

As it's Salz who holds the non exec board membership at the DfE

He did, but only between 2010 and 2013. He was appointed in Dec 2010 for three years.

www.gov.uk/government/news/michael-gove-appoints-4-new-board-members

@glinner obviously only use truth's quote without the Hamlyn ref. As it's Salz who holds the non exec board membership at the DfE

It's section 407 of the 1996 Education Act that requires that, where political issues are brought to the attention of pupils, they are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views. More details here:

www.teachingcitizenship.org.uk/sites/teachingcitizenship.org.uk/files/Briefing%20for%20Schools%20-%20remaining%20impartial%20and%20avoiding%20partisan%20activity%20-%20final.pdf

It certainly needs further investigation.

I think there's a lot of links and circumstantial "evidence" but it's not conclusive (though absolutely potentially concerning).

Glinner
There used to be guidance on teaching sensitive subjects and it was in there. Let me see if I can track it down.