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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Children's Social Transition

95 replies

MalagaNights · 31/07/2022 12:28

Given the closing of the Tavi and the conservative leadership candidates both speaking about concerns about puberty blockers, I've started to think more about social transition and how we challenge and change the assumption that this must be supported.

It is now totally assumed and supported by all professional organisations who work with young people that the correct practice is to use the pronouns young people request and to refer to them as the sex or gender identity they choose.

These assumptions of practice are now deeply ingrained.

They are shared by teachers, psychologists, social workers, mental health professionals. It is just stated as fact mostly now, without comment or challenge.

The assumption is underpinned by principles, or slogans, such as 'lived experience' 'young person's voice' and the idea that your identity is central and must be protected.

Understandably the focus has been on the devastating impact of medicalisation, but I'm wondering how we are going to change the embedded assumptions and practice around social transition which now exist within schools and all professions who work with young people.

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ScrollingLeaves · 03/08/2022 16:38

WarriorN · Today 16:08
Teachers guide to the Cass review which may be useful for any teacher trying to challenge this.
teachersguidetosexandgender.org/2022/07/06/a-teachers-guide-to-the-cass-review-interim-report/

Thank you WarriorN, that guide is clear and well written.

I noticed this:

Teachers may not, for example, present, as fact, childhood gender incongruence as an inherent and immutable phenomenon as this is a contested idea rather than an established evidence-based fact.

Yet this is effectively what is being taught when ‘gender identity’ is made part of RSE
lessons. If you are no longer just your sex, but also have a ‘gender identity’ this implies the identity could be different.

There is a petition to the Government to remove references to gender identity from RSE teaching, but it doesn’t seem to be getting all that much support.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 03/08/2022 16:37

Thank you WarriorN.
That review from Teachers for Evidence-Based Education is very helpful. Somehow we need to ensure that these resources get into schools and to teachers that we know.

WarriorN · 03/08/2022 16:08

Teachers guide to the Cass review which may be useful for any teacher trying to challenge this.

teachersguidetosexandgender.org/2022/07/06/a-teachers-guide-to-the-cass-review-interim-report/

WarriorN · 03/08/2022 16:07

According to this telegraph article, there were ideas to get guidance into schools soon but the new Ed secretary is dragging heels...?

archive.ph/r5DzX

MrsOvertonsWindow · 03/08/2022 15:28

Such an interesting discussion.
I wonder if the Sex Matters / Transgender Trend guidance for schools is a useful way in to this? It focuses on ensuring that equality / anti-bullying policies don't inadvertently undermine safeguarding, isolate children from their parents or put them at risk while ensuring that gender dysphoric children are not treated less favourably in education:

sex-matters.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Boys-and-Girls-and-the-Equality-Act-May-2021-England-and-Wales.pdf

SeasideRock · 03/08/2022 15:06

Oh this staggers me!
I’m a serving Head (special school) and I would hit the roof if I saw an email like this! We have dealt with these issues in school, and it has been on a case by case basis with the family.
If I’m honest it has taken a couple of courageous conversations with external professionals wanting to ‘assist’ us in being inclusive (we are a special school, inclusion is what we do), but I am horrified that fellow professionals feel under pressure to take steps like the above. Totally crossing the line in our role as educators.

JellySaurus · 03/08/2022 11:49

hedgehogger1 · 03/08/2022 10:16

As a teacher the scenario I hate the most is "x is now known as Y. Y's parents are not aware so please call them X should you need to contact home"

Completely ridiculous. Schools won't let children change their names without parental permission for any other reason.

One of my dc had two Alex-s in their class. They were both registered as Alexander known as Alex, and the short name was on the registers. One wanted to change from Alex to Xander, but school refused until his parents made the request.

hedgehogger1 · 03/08/2022 10:16

As a teacher the scenario I hate the most is "x is now known as Y. Y's parents are not aware so please call them X should you need to contact home"

MalagaNights · 02/08/2022 22:09

I agree with you.
All children's professionals will only feel confident to take a line on this when they've had the guidance on clinicians that this is their advice.

The mental health professionals have been hugely cowardly in avoiding taking this role. They've either colluded or gone into hiding till it's all over.

The Cass report needs to give some leadership in the treatment and guidance to other professionals.
There's a lot hanging on that report.

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WarriorN · 02/08/2022 22:01

MalagaNights · 02/08/2022 21:43

"The dfe really can't issue guidance until the nhs guidance is established and evidence based."
I think this is what is bothering me @WarriorN

Whilst the Tavi closing and the mood music from the Cass report is positive in terms of medicalisation, we're still a long way from being able to clearly challenge the ideology in schools.

Although nearer than we were maybe.

It bothers me too but I can't see how it can happen otherwise? It may be able to evolve hand in hand but there's a lot of erroneous beliefs and training and books and research that slt/ teachers will look at and not understand how the guidance fits - and dismiss it. Ofsted need to be clued up asap too. If they look for something, schools do it.

If being gender critical is classed as a belief then isn't believing in trans identity? We can't have this being about beliefs. Beliefs are protected (bar fgm). It has to be evidenced. All safeguarding rules have sadly occurred as a direct result of lessons learned in awful situations. I started teaching right at the beginning of the introduction of formal education safeguarding training, sadly seeing the examples and key guidance being added to as the years have gone by.

All the stuff around sexual assaults and misogynistic attitudes was whipped into KCSIE very quickly though, and we've been told Ofsted will be asking questions about this. So we can but hope...

WarriorN · 02/08/2022 21:50

At the Tavi - would it be a child that started puberty blockers? But they were supposed to be a a pause to allow time to think? However, clearly they nearly alway led to cross sex hormones and I doubt that parents denied the child was trans to school?

Is it the child referred to a GIDs? The child I taught was not diagnosed with GD.

As soon as you're in the adult services you get what you want.

Now, it's before any referral.

It's all self ID and suggest selling as H Joyce described Charlie Bentley Astor's experience. twitter.com/gbnews/status/1553452070610636806?s=21&t=eoE1nPCjz0hYTRo-cmUJyQ

MalagaNights · 02/08/2022 21:43

"The dfe really can't issue guidance until the nhs guidance is established and evidence based."
I think this is what is bothering me @WarriorN

Whilst the Tavi closing and the mood music from the Cass report is positive in terms of medicalisation, we're still a long way from being able to clearly challenge the ideology in schools.

Although nearer than we were maybe.

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WarriorN · 02/08/2022 21:38

Clearly @OldCrone, everyone needs to establish what a "trans child" is. And urgently.

WarriorN · 02/08/2022 21:36

The dfe really can't issue guidance until the nhs guidance is established and evidence based.

It will be seen as 'transphobic' otherwise.

The other issue is the strangle hold that Universities have on research that breaks the current status quo. Obviously and often only affirmative research has been encouraged and allowed.

For example, Shereen Benjamin, an experienced teacher and eyfs trainer was stopped for delivering certain courses as they weren't trans inclusive enough. That doesn't sound like a climate where watchful waiting observational research articles are encouraged. We know about James Esse. Stock.

Cass is so important.

OldCrone · 02/08/2022 21:29

I think that's when they twist it to the "intending to" transition is a protected bit?

I don't know what legal standing a HoC briefing paper has, but the idea of a 'trans child' is firmly embedded in this one.

commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9078/

In England, Wales and Scotland, the Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination against transgender children in all schools. The UK Department for Education (DfE) guidance on the Act says protections apply to those who are undergoing, have undergone, or are proposing to undergo, a process (or part of a process) of reassigning their sex by changing physiological or other attributes.

WarriorN · 02/08/2022 21:21

I queried that too. I think that's when they twist it to the "intending to" transition is a protected bit?

Children have good equal rights under the UN and also KCSIE in school. (The latest version has emphasised issues around county lines, extremism and also sexual assaults and sexual attitudes as a result of everyone's invited.)

So basically it's affirmation for a child, which is outside U.K. practise.

This is what I mean; they're inventing a narrow rigid concept of a 'trans child' (which Prof M Moore et Al have demonstrated tirelessly in their book of the same name) from
which everything, research, policy suggestions, hyperbole is then based.

That self / parental ID concept needs to be challenged in terms of open ended questioning for the child, appropriate MH support and as Cass says, a more rounded holistic approach.

ScrollingLeaves · 02/08/2022 20:36

WarriorN · Today 14:28
@OldCrone here's one example.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/26895269.2022.2081645

I started to read that. Is this statement below legally correct?

Trans children’s rights in England, Scotland and Wales are protected under the Equality Act 2010, with “gender reassignment” one of nine protected characteristics (Wadham et al., 2016).

Datun · 02/08/2022 19:17

Hopefully once this has ceased being taught in schools as a civil rights issue, akin to gay rights, there will be far fewer of these confused children.

And given that most of them are girls, I would really like to see feminism taught under the civil rights banner. Because females make up over half the population, and historically haven't been able to vote, manage their own money, have mortgages, professions or education. It's a massive civil rights issue.

Girls (and boys) who understand why gender stereotypes are imposed upon females will have a far greater understanding of why transgenderism has been allowed to thrive.

CatSpeakForDummies · 02/08/2022 18:08

OldCrone · 02/08/2022 16:28

The two families I know well seem to have stopped asking once they got the opposite sex answer.

What happened then? Did they decide the child was trans or did they realise that they were confusing them?

They were socially transitioned, parents re-wrote history as if it had come as a bolt out of the blue, entirely unprompted. The mum had spent 6 months telling me how the answers changed and evolved, when I suggested that maybe 6 months of "I'm a girl, I don't know, I like dressing up, I'm a girl, I'm a girl who likes boy things..." should count for more than one "I'm a boy" the mum cut me off and I found myself here!

MalagaNights · 02/08/2022 17:50

MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/08/2022 17:41

Also that schools should only take advice about individuals / groups from properly qualified experts in child development / psychology / safeguarding? Self interested political lobby groups have no business weighing on on individual children or aspects of the school organisation.

Yes. I hadn't read this before my second post, but this is what I was then thinking was needed a an overarching agreement within guidelines.

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MalagaNights · 02/08/2022 17:49

This would result in some cases parents supporting social transition at home, but schools refusing to use preferred pronouns in schools, which would be very difficult.

I guess what the guidance should probably say is:

Schools should not support social transition unless receommended by a clinician attached to one of the new regulated clinics.
Until then the type of practice I wrote above should be used.

If this was school guidance, it would begin to filter to parents and other professionals that social transition is not something to undertake themseleves but something which happens only after assessment at one of the clinics following guidance.

I'm trying to think through how these types of chnages can come about.

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MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/08/2022 17:41

Also that schools should only take advice about individuals / groups from properly qualified experts in child development / psychology / safeguarding? Self interested political lobby groups have no business weighing on on individual children or aspects of the school organisation.

MalagaNights · 02/08/2022 17:30

WarriorN · 02/08/2022 14:44

The current government need to 1. create the guidelines for the new Cass review led GIDS and then 2. generate the guidance for schools.

Yes these both need to happen.

It would be good to know what guidance is going to be given for the new gender clinics? Will they give guidance on social transitioning?

The school guidance will need to be based on the clinical guidance, and if it recommends against social tranistion this will be hugely controversial, as schools and children's professsionals, including psychologists, are so captured by this ideology. Lived experience, personal identity and the 'child's voice' are sacroscant principles.

If schools where told best practice is:

Pronoun use across the school should be in line with children's biological sex.

In cases where children are known to be experiencing gender dysphoria staff should aim to minimise use of gendered pronouns in direct reference to them, as much as possible, to reduce distress.

Consistent and accurate language to describe biological sex should be used to avoid confusion: all male children should be referred to as boys, and all female children as girls.

In cases where children are known to be experiencing gender dysphoria staff should minimise and avoid where possible referring directly to the child's sex to reduce distress.

All children should be referred to by their preferred name following consultation and agreement with parents.

All children have the option of a trousers, skirts and dresses from a school uniform list.

All children should use the toilet and changing facilies for their biological sex.

In cases where children are known to be expereincing geneder dysphoria adaptations to meet thier needs such as finding a private space or seperate toilet should be discussed and agreed.

Gender stereotypes which suggest that any activity or preference is limited to or linked with biological sex should be avoided.

Just typing this makes me thing about all the heads that would explode...

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MrsOvertonsWindow · 02/08/2022 17:25

Insightful post MalagaNights.
Maybe I could add the point that it's also harmful as it renders teachers / schools "professionally dangerous". They have no qualifications in gender ideology. Their professional expertise in dealing with vulnerable / mentally unwell children has been undermined by trans activists attempting to change all aspects of the school in pursuit of their queer theory agenda.
Teachers are encouraged to repeatedly breach their professional / safeguarding boundaries and with the support of the useful idiots in the unions / the DfE civil servants, are socially transitioning other people's children solely as a political act.

MalagaNights · 02/08/2022 17:07

The Cass review states social transition is not neutral, but I think the case needs to be made it is harmful and schools should not engage with it.

Its is harmful because it confuses all children asked to support it, and therefore leads to a potential increase in trans identity across schools or communities (as is seen), and it reinforces gender stereotypes.

It's harmful because it places a child in trying to be percieved as one sex when their body is another, thereby increasing the dysphoria with the reality of their body which doesn't match their presentation. It is this dissonanace whihc leads to the desperation for puberty blockers as the reality of a devloping body whihc can no longer be hidden whilsts trying to present as the other sex is now unbearable. It blows the whole lie out the water.

It places young people in the position where their sense of self is so fragile it relies on the compliance of everyone they intrecat with to state the lie they are trying to present. Such a fragile sense of self will enevitably lead to deeper mental helath issues.

It suggets to young people that they can enforce the compliance of the outside wrl with their inner world view and they shuold expect this. This is not the case, and never can be and shouldn't be, and leading them to expect this will impact mental health.

It's harmful because it leads to a much higher rate of persistance, thereby lowering the rate of desistance whihc would represent a positive integration between body and identity. Surely the best outcome?

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