School newsletter tells girls how to bind

That's a dreadful definition of intersex on the FOD link above.

Intersex

A term used to describe a person who may have the biological attributes of both sexes or whose biological attributes do not fit with societal assumptions about what constitutes male or female.

You’ll not be the least surprised to learn, that according to that link gay is defined as “Refers to a man who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards men” and if you really don’t see that that’s howlingly lesbophobic and misogynistic, then I cannot help you. This newsletter is aimed at girls! And right off the bat, they’re disappeared.

This is really clear isn't it. This is erasure.

I'm sure the majority of us have experienced our boundaries being chipped away at over the years, but this, this is boundary chipping on steroids.

I hadn’t previously clicked on the link given for the definition of “Friends of Dorothy”. An odd choice for a newsletter aimed at girls, given that the origin of the phrase is a reference to gay men.

But given that the same link (foddefinition.carrd.co/) has the definition of “lesbian” as “non-man attracted to non-men”, I don’t suppose there’s much focus on girls at all from go to whoa. Why is “man” the default? What is a “non man”? Are gay men “non women attracted to non women.”?

You’ll not be the least surprised to learn, that according to that link gay is defined as “Refers to a man who has a romantic and/or sexual orientation towards men” and if you really don’t see that that’s howlingly lesbophobic and misogynistic, then I cannot help you. This newsletter is aimed at girls! And right off the bat, they’re disappeared.

I’m not focusing on this to rain down opprobrium just on this particular school. I’m focusing on it so we can have the discussion about how things like this happen why they happen, what parents/teachers/school governors might want to do about them if they come across similar things in their children’s schools, and how we want to talk about these things as a society.

It is hard to miss it once you see it hecatescatinfancyhats.

It is quite clear once you start to notice it.

Absolutely, hecates

Its good to know that DSL training now includes awareness of the potential harms/risks to girls from both breast ironing and binding

This IS good to hear, because in terms of the damage to healthy bodies, these two practices are very similar.

Young girls are being groomed in order to bolster a movement which demands the erosion of boundaries. I wonder why?

You will probably have noticed that article comments section has been swarmed...with comments removed even after initial approval.

This will certainly alert some who have previously been unaware of the censorious nature of discussion that anywhere near approaches this topic. That young girls are actively being instructed o how to bind their emerging breasts is seen as good news for the committed apologists.

an absolute festival of fisting, orgies, drugs and sex toys. The guides simulateously have too much information in terms of lavish descriptions of a smorgasbord of sexual practices, and too little information in terms of clearly explaining what kind of “people with a vagina” might reasonably expect to get pregnant from a sexual encounter, or which kinds of vagina might need dilation on a regular basis.

I agree this would be terrifying for a pre-teen Sophocles. I also don't feel like a prude when I say I'm sure this is not the sort of sex the average 16+ teenage girl would choose for herself. I know plenty of them and the only thing that would compel the ones I know to get involved in this sort of sexual activity would be peer pressure, pressure from boys and messaging from wider society that this is acceptable (rather than really bloody dangerous for girls). Wtf are the school thinking not being really clear that this isn't the sort of thing they want pupils directed towards?

Decades ago lesbians, gay men and bisexual people stood to lose their jobs if their sexuality was discovered. Gay men could be prosecuted, families torn apart, lesbians might lose custody of their children. No wonder people kept their sexuality very quiet.

However, since social attitudes have changed, nowadays people of all ages who are same-sex attracted mostly feel able to be open about that, thank goodness. Elderly people are coming out.

The same isn't happening with transmen. There's been a sudden huge increase of the number of young female to male transitioners but almost no female to male transitioners over the age of 30 or so. Why not? Where are they? There's less stigma than ever before and the number of male to female transitioners in older age groups is rising fast. Where are their ftm counterparts?

Adolescence is such an extreme time, so many highs and lows, such intensity of emotion, so little insight into how life will change once one is fully adult with greater impulse control and more responsibilities, but also far more choice over how one's life will go. It's no real surprise that many very young people end up engaging in self-destructive behaviour, and I would put breast binding in that category.

Words fail me over the idea of distributing a newsletter of this type to 11yo girls. I'm sure very few of them read it when it arrived, but that's not the point. As so many others have said, the school has been far too lax in letting this go out unchecked. It only needs one curious 11yo to follow those links and not discuss what she saw with supportive loving parents for harm to be done.

I followed the link to the LGBT foundation, and read through the material.

I’m in my mid forties and no prude, and I was a very....outgoing....young person, so this is not coming from a place of pearl clutching or naivety. But the guides that I read there have made me feel anxious and afraid of the sex described there- an absolute festival of fisting, orgies, drugs and sex toys. The guides simulateously have too much information in terms of lavish descriptions of a smorgasbord of sexual practices, and too little information in terms of clearly explaining what kind of “people with a vagina” might reasonably expect to get pregnant from a sexual encounter, or which kinds of vagina might need dilation on a regular basis.

This would be terrifying for a pre teen. Had I read this at 12, I would propbably have decided never to have sex at all. I’m not even sure this information is helpful for adults.

This year breast binding was mentioned as well. We were reminded to be sensitive to the distress that young people with gender dysphoria feel but it was also made clear that breast binding can harm developing tissue.

Its good to know that DSL training now includes awareness of the potential harms/risks to girls from both breast ironing and binding.

Can anyone confirm that the newsletter was not titled FoD previously? Seems like more than coincidence.

This was the first edition of the newletter and it included reference to why it was called 'Friends of Dorothy' albeit failing to recognise that the expression was specific to US gay men's history (and not LGTQI+)

Safeguarding around the area of breast binding is changing. I am a DSL (designated safeguarding lead) of a primary school and I had to refresh my training last month. Two years ago, my training mentioned breast ironing as something to watch out for as it damages the healthy tissue of growing girls.

This year breast binding was mentioned as well. We were reminded to be sensitive to the distress that young people with gender dysphoria feel but it was also made clear that breast binding can harm developing tissue.

The school here need to be careful with their safeguarding.

(name changed for this post)

All this blether upthread about '"Friends of Dorothy" meaning gay men, why call it that? how weird' obscures something that ought to be obvious. Judy Garland famously had corsetry and her breasts bound flat with tape to film TWOO.

Can anyone confirm that the newsletter was not titled FoD previously? Seems like more than coincidence.

I must say I have never heard the term 'omnisexuality' until reading that newsletter. No wonder they didn't sent it out to parents - we really can't keep up. It's like a new word a week...

Full horror documented here

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2021/05/09/breast-binding-at-nonsuch-high/

Bloody hell! I had to google breast binding as had never heard of it! Absolutely awful, as if an 11 needs to know about such things, or an 18 year old for that matter.....

When I was in year 11 (age 15 to 16), a friend's mother raised the issue of the school participating in the Sun newspaper's tokens for schools scheme, on account of page 3, and its objectification of women.

As I remember, our main tutor (when we asked) indicated that she was broadly sympathetic to this point of view, and said she didn't want us to feel obliged to start buying the Sun over another paper, for the school. Just to cut out and grab the tokens if someone in the family already bought it.

Our school (like many others) wasn't in the financial position to make a stand for women and girls and snub the Sun's school token scheme, though.

15 years ago this was not a thing. Probably 10 even. So what changed? Why are there not middle aged women doing this? If all of a sudden girls and women know more about their gender and it is more safe to do this, why is it only kids? Where are all the middle aged women who can finally be themselves?