Joan of Arc was trans????

If a woman didn't like the strict gender roles imposed on her, and refused to stay within them, that makes her an individual, not someone who really has a male "gender". It is because of women like this that we have managed to break gender down – for example it's now normal in most of the world for women to wear trousers, go to university, work as a surgeon, fight in battle, etc etc etc.

Exactly. We have these women to thank for the fact that women are so much freer today than in the past.

How can anyone not see the misogyny in saying that they weren't really women? And how regressive it is to say that all those brave, strong, pioneering women were 'really' men?

It's just another way of saying the only role available for women should be having babies and looking after men.

Just because the patriarchy has tried to stop women from doing things, doesn't mean they stop being a woman if they do those things. Standing up to sexism doesn't make you male. As should be quite obvious.

I agree it’s quite ill-making to see this idea in op pushed anywhere esp in schools.

If she had had access to hormones and surgery back then, she would still have been a woman. There is literally nothing she could do to stop being a woman.

At best, she could have been a woman who wished she was a man...

It's possible to be sympathetic to people wishing they were the opposite sex, without pandering to magical thinking that has them believe they can change sex. There are many hard realities in life and #beingkind is helping people to face up to those realities, not distorting facts to make them feel comfortable.

As should be quite obvious
Indeed. The idiocy of historical transing never ceases to amaze me.

I'm not sure what else a Trans person could do in the 1400's other than adopt the style of their true gender.

People don't have a true gender - gender has always been a spectrum and a moveable feast, which changes massively over time and from place to place. Many people have stepped outside of strict sexist gender roles to some extent, and certain people to a great extent, and that goes far back in history.

If a woman didn't like the strict gender roles imposed on her, and refused to stay within them, that makes her an individual, not someone who really has a male "gender". It is because of women like this that we have managed to break gender down – for example it's now normal in most of the world for women to wear trousers, go to university, work as a surgeon, fight in battle, etc etc etc. These things don't make them male - it's gender that has been challenged and defied. Just because the patriarchy has tried to stop women from doing things, doesn't mean they stop being a woman if they do those things. Standing up to sexism doesn't make you male. As should be quite obvious.

Rewriting history is a very old and effective strategy used by tyrannical regimes or invaders to invalidate dissent among the people they’re ruling. It’s a bit weird to invite people into your school to do it.

I'm not sure what else a Trans person could do in the 1400's other than adopt the style of their true gender.
It's not like hormones and surgery were an option.

Ok. Harley has fucked up.

Someone sensible needs to buy enough water for all the runners.

Harley possibly needs to concentrate on the job in hand and could do with understanding that runners don’t like being dehydrated and strongly feel that someone had one job and failed miserably.

Do I pass itsallgoingtobefine?

[quote Hazycoffeek]Are any teachers to able to share screenshots of the materials schools are being provided with this week for Schools Diversity week? This Joan of Arc wording for example?

Googling seems to indicate that this an initiative from Just Like Us but only schools that have signed up can access the materials.

www.justlikeus.org/schools[/quote]
Given some of their other materials this would not surprise me...

The attached is for KS1...

The trans-ing of historic women is interesting. If one genuinely believes that woman-ness and man-ness are attributes of the mind and behaviour not the body, then yes, Joan of Arc is a man by that definition. And the fact she would have considered herself a woman is just because the definition of woman she was working from was wrong, and if she’d had the right definition she’d have recognised herself to be a man.

I mean, it’s sexist, reductive bollocks obviously, but it is a consistent argument. And it would even work OK alongside Feminism IF we all agreed that femaleness also exists, it’s the state of being female-bodied, and shifted all the single-sex stuff out of Woman and into Female, leaving Woman a simple self identity label like goth or cricket fan.

It’s when the ideology tries to claim simultaneously that woman-ness and man-ness are attributes of the mind and behaviour AND it’s got nothing to do with stereotypes that it moves from “just utterly wrong” to “not even a coherent position”.

If you google "Joan of Arc trans" plenty of stuff comes up, including a book on the subject. It's hardly surprising if it's filtering down into schools.

Here's a book discussing whether Joan of Arc was transgender.
www.joan-of-arc-book.com/transgender.html

The entire argument seems to be that she preferred wearing men's clothes to women's clothes. Is transgenderism really about nothing but clothing choices?

Kick off. Massively. This is so bloody insulting. It's anachronistic, not borne out by any of the evidence, and reinforces stereotypes.

Worth telling the school that gender-critical beliefs are legally on the same footing as any other set of beliefs. That wouldn't, of itself, make it illegal to plug genderism, if that were the school's mission; but the sort of people who organise Diversity Weeks are sometimes swayed by people telling them they're discriminating against a protected belief.

It is really upsetting to me that one of my grown-up daughters prioritises trans rights over women's rights, and won't even concede that it is unfair for transwomen to compete with born women (I refuse to say cis). I bought her a Ladybird book about Joan of Arc when she was little and I wonder what she'd make of this (but, of course, I don't dare ask)! Why do women have to be afraid of expressing themselves all of a sudden, even to their own children? It makes me want to cry.....

@gcacademic Asking for a link is not unreasonable, and I'd expect something like this to come up on a search, which it doesn't. The Schools Diversity Week website doesn't mention Joan of Arc at all. The OP suggested it was attached to Schools Diversity week.

There is a big difference between the organisers doing this and a random school or reddit.

Are any teachers to able to share screenshots of the materials schools are being provided with this week for Schools Diversity week? This Joan of Arc wording for example?

Googling seems to indicate that this an initiative from Just Like Us but only schools that have signed up can access the materials.

www.justlikeus.org/schools

[quote DadJoke]@Greenandcabbagelooking would you mind linking the evidence for your assertion? i can't find it anywhere.[/quote]
I don't see why this is so hard to believe. I wouldn't say that universities are full of this kind of thing, but there are certainly some vociferous individuals in history and literature departments who are trying to retrospectively trans historical female figures. I know this because I encounter them in my job. If you google "Joan of Arc trans" plenty of stuff comes up, including a book on the subject. It's hardly surprising if it's filtering down into schools.

nobody has the right to assume and run with their assumptions as if they were fact.

It seems that you are who you say you are, as long as you're not actually who you say you are. But if you are a woman and say you're a woman, like Joan, well that's open to question.

🙄

Haven't read previous messages as i'm on my lunch break and have very little time on my hands now BUT...

I'm a lesbian and married to my very sexy and extremely butch wife who is 90% of the time seen as trans by other people. She is not trans at all, she just like to dress in what society has decided are men's clothes. She believes people should be able to dress and act how they want and is very and i mean VERY apalled by the fact some people just assume she is trans.

@Greenandcabbagelooking would you mind linking the evidence for your assertion? i can't find it anywhere.

I should imagine, that unless she specifically stated that she was really a man, that nobody has the right to assume and run with their assumptions as if they were fact. What next? Queen Elizabeth the first was trans because she made reference to having the heart and stomach of a man? All the children born before about 1850 were non binary because they were kept in dresses with longer hair and bonnets until they were about two? Ridiculous.

*challenging slurs, not defending them.

Are we going to have to start defending slurs against radical feminism now as well as protest the transing of historical women?

This isnt debate, its just propaganda 101.

In fact, if the average transman insisted on being in a male space, such as a male changing room, prison ward etc, the transman would be the one who was more at risk. Because of the differences between the sexes.