Children as young as 4 allowed to choose gender identity

Thanks rogd AM has been good on this & whilst the wholesale destruction of safeguarding & women's rights are my focus he is absolutely right to look at the bigger picture. I really worry about how such absolutely wrong information is being endorsed by our government.

That's a fine article to share, rogdmum - thank you.

I am strongly supportive of Alex Massie's summary here - it's almost irrelevant what the policy or topic is, bad data and flawed reasoning will always be shoddy foundations.

this is a column about how the Scottish government thinks, the way it develops policy, and then the way it attempts to persuade voters this policy is appropriate, proportionate and wise.

MBMPolicy had an excellent tweet thread on similar matters to do with evidence-based policy making but I can't find it.

And a comment piece by Alex Massie in The Times

(Archived as share tokens aren’t working)

“Alex Massie: Bad data can never form the basis of good policy”

“ Even if you accept the Scottish government’s policy, it is plain it is, in large and frightening part, built upon unreliable data that has been reinterpreted as holy writ. At best, this is good policy that is the fruit of bad thinking.
It is much more probable, however, that it is actually the product of back-to-front policymaking. The conclusion is established first and a search is then conducted to provide the evidence necessary to support the required conclusion. This is revealing. A better, more honest administration would draw conclusions from evidence but we have one which prefers to arrange these things precisely the other way round.”

<a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/2021.08.16-170615/www.thetimes.co.uk/article/alex-massie-bad-data-can-never-form-the-basis-of-good-policy-p08pwr6h9" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">archive.ph/2021.08.16-170615/www.thetimes.co.uk/article/alex-massie-bad-data-can-never-form-the-basis-of-good-policy-p08pwr6h9

They flat out refused to listen to experienced voices with a wide knowledge base. I was told in Feb 2020 that “ the opportunity to participate in the guidance’s development has passed.” (And I’m not putting myself in that category- I mean others I suggested!)

Yet it wasn’t published for another 18 months.

With apologies to Isaiah Berlin's Two Concepts of Liberty it is as if the govt. in Scotland has determined that the ends for this topic have been agreed and all that remains to be determined are the precise forms of political engineering by which these ends are to be achieved (Oakeshott's "rationalism in politics").

The public is not to be allowed a voice in the necessary discussion about social and political order and how they intersect with what the Scots govt is implementing in their Utopia.

This is dangerous and ignorant (Berlin described it as "surprising"). Berlin delivered his lecture in 1958 but we are still grappling with familiar manipulations and a lack of engagement with the general populace. We're currently watching parts of Europe burn, Afghanistan is a metaphorical tinder box, and much of the world is still grappling with a pandemic, and a major democratic govt. has not been able to deal with an assault on its Capitol.

Dangerous, because when ideas are neglected by those who ought to attend to them – that is to say, those who have been trained to think critically about ideas – they sometimes acquire an unchecked momentum and an irresistible power over multitudes of men that may grow too violent to be affected by rational criticism.

Robert Conquest's Reflections on a Ravaged Century (2000) elaborated on this danger when he named the phenomenon of mindslaughter - he described the destruction of intellect by ideas grown too violent to be affected by rational criticism

The govt. of Scotland is perpetrating this on various topics of interest to the public. It feels as if they are abusing powers in a way that resembles political systems they would otherwise deplore - and, here they are, actively misleading the public and refusing to be accountable for their misrepresentation.

"it doesn't matter if we totally misrepresent a study as people can always follow the reference - even though our guidance is only justified by that misrepresentation"

“ A Scottish government spokesman said: “The infographic contained within the guidance is intended to be illustrative of the concerns which transgender young people may face. The infographic clearly contains the reference to the study as the source, and therefore is appropriate.”

Giving the reference to the source makes it appropriate?!??!?!? You mean you can stick any old survey into guidance and just by referencing the source you are fine?

You couldn’t make it up.

They really are appalling.

If you were feeling depressed and suicidal then would you consider your parents supportive? Even if were doing everything they can?

Sorry, my “unsupportive” parents in above should read “supportive”

In The Times: Transgender guidance for schools ‘based on flawed data’

archive.ph/Dakuk

Lucy Hunter-Blackburn is blistering in her quotes:

“ You have got this incredibly unsound base for presenting something as being a fact that applies to the whole population. It is technically incompetent and completely irresponsible to use that kind of data to draw conclusions about what would be true for an entire population.”
“All of that put together means this is not a sound basis for promulgating such an alarming statistic. They should withdraw the document and take out this graphic . . . This is too important to get wrong. These children matter and they, and their parents, desperately need good advice.”

The graphics in the guidance come from this report:

transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Impacts-of-Strong-Parental-Support-for-Trans-Youth-vFINAL.pdf

Which comes from a subset of this study:

www.cjcmh.com/doi/pdf/10.7870/cjcmh-2011-0021

You can see the full survey (all 87 pages of it!) here: transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Trans-PULSE-survey-information-only-copy-2012.pdf

And for an additional piece, this presentation seems to show different numbers for the % of young people with unsupportive parents who attempted suicide in the past year:

transpulseproject.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Trans-Health-Advocacy-Summit-2012-Results-vFINAL.pdf

It’s not fit for purpose. ScotGov have lifted it from the old LGBTYS guidance and don’t appear to have done any doublechecking.

And the ScotGov quote in the article!

“ A Scottish government spokesman said: “The infographic contained within the guidance is intended to be illustrative of the concerns which transgender young people may face. The infographic clearly contains the reference to the study as the source, and therefore is appropriate.”

Giving the reference to the source makes it appropriate?!??!?!? You mean you can stick any old survey into guidance and just by referencing the source you are fine?

You couldn’t make it up.

Article in the Times today about the suicide data used in the SG document, my sharetokens still don't work:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-guidance-for-schools-based-on-flawed-data-rp8scscll

What are the series of tragedies at UK universities and colleges ? I work in that sector and would like to know?

good example of general levels of engagement with this topic.

Do you feel that when people write articles they've tended to read around from one perspective because the others are bruited as bigots, *phobes etc. - despite the reality, and despite which perspective is the more evidence-informed one?

However I think it is a good example of general levels of engagement with this topic.

I could probably write a similarly informed article on Scottish Independence.

Not a safeguarding issue but the kids might commit suicide and you mustn't tell the people who look after the child 87% of the time that they are this supposed very high risk of suicide (which we know is false but is their basis for action)?

Schools simply do not have the agency or resources to help children without parents

This is what pisses me off the most. Schools cannot garuntee our kids safety. It takes several phone calls or emails to even get an acknowledgement there's a problem. The solutions are nearly all extremely temporary. Once the initial day/week of isolation is iver its back to the victim of the bullying to try and keep themselves safe by avoiding people and hoping to god the teachers in the class are prepared to listen when they are told something as opposed to just telling the kid to sit down and get on with their work.

And yet there's time space and energy ti have some log of all the kids egi have changed their names, who can have letters sent home in the new name and who can't, etc

No wonder so many kids just come out as something it's the only way anyone gives a shit about you.

The Bowditch article even mentions that any support received at school vanishes when a child leaves school (and I would add sometimes when a child changes class or a teacher leaves or resources are reallocated).

Schools simply do not have the agency or resources to help children without parents.

I can’t think of any other similar issue that a teacher would be expected to tackle alone by simply ‘being kind’.

the guidance leaves it up to schools and teachers to navigate the most sensitive issues

What's the point of 'guidance' which doesn't give any guidance? Surely the most sensitive issues are the ones which it's most important to handle in the right way, so teachers will be more in need of guidance for.

And

“ Any major shift in societal thinking is always preceded by a period of moral panic when perceived threats become exaggerated”

Exaggerated? Seriously? Gillian Bowditch doesn’t have a clue as to what is happening in schools.

It's bizarre. If my four year old asked to be called John instead of Lewis, I'd expect most teachers to want to speak to me about that. Yet if he wanted to be called Jemima instead, there's a question as to whether or not I should even be made aware of it?

Little in it still means there's something we should be concerned about.

Of its all so.legit why so many secrets ?

You cant view something as so important you can go behind parents backs then treat it as something trivial

“Read as a whole, however, there is little in the guidance that should worry sensible parents. Some women’s rights groups have raised concerns about young children being pushed onto a medicalised pathway and a removal of parental rights, but the guidance leaves it up to schools and teachers to navigate the most sensitive issues.”

That is an utterly utterly appalling column by Gillian Bowditch. I’m quite speechless at her naivety.

[quote Igneococcus]Two articles in the ST today, alas my sharetokens don't work:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ditch-the-gender-books-for-four-year-olds-say-womens-group-5gxv9bs6v

and a muddled comment by Gillian Bowditch:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gillian-bowditch-quality-in-education-shouldnt-be-a-casualty-of-equality-in-schools-03wkptk92[/quote]
Bowditch – Gillian Bowditch: Quality in education shouldn’t be a casualty of equality in schools
Academic standards in schools are neglected while focus is on trans children

archive.is/lZdlN

Ditch the gender books for four-year-olds, say women’s group

archive.ph/qEBcK