DfE settles in Cornwall case

Thanks - shocked, but not surprised, by that Telegraph article.

It isn’t. But I wouldn’t attempt the explain here.

I agree that 'trans' is poorly understood. The explanations never seem to make any sense, other than that it is all about reinforcing regressive gender stereotypes.

😆

Now that’s quite funny…

I should have put, thanks a bundle!

You are welcome.

I’m happy to talk about my personal experiences in suitable venues and often do as ‘trans’ is poorly understood. But‘Mumsnet’ is no longer a suitable space for mature discussion as is is shown by the last few posts.

That’s generally why I stick to correcting misinformation.

I was so surprised to get an kind of answer to 'is it okay to trans six year olds?', I failed to notice that the answer is, apparently, 'yes'.

Hear, hear, Boudica.

Genderism is all about subjugation of women - I can only presume it's borne out of a hatred of women. Pure indifference wouldn't be so cruel.

There is always a way to make this work. Peacefully. For everyone.

It involves having, for example, a mixed sex service for women by which is meant, politely, biologically female people and male people who identify as women, plus an additional service for female only people who cannot access a mixed sex service or surrender to a more powerful group's demand that they pretend that sex does not exist or affect them.

A rape crisis service for shattered women for example.

There can be male centred ones, LGBT+ centred ones, women's mixed sex ones, who does it harm that there is a female one too? Other than the vanity of those who wish to be more important and to have more than others, and to see raped women excluded and punished for failing to put servicing their needs first.

Or school girls unable to use toilets.
Women unable to use changing rooms.
Women who can't swim.

There are answers to all of this, really easy ones, and then everyone could co exist in peace and harmy. Why is this not happening?

Well the TQ+ political lobby would tell you it's because mean and evil witches keep saying no and refusing to obey and surrender.

The women would tell you to look at the group with all the power, all the control, and then to note the biological sexes involved. And there it is, plain as day. Males have the power to exclude and harm women if they want to by denying females access to services. Even services in other buildings, in the dark of night, miles away from any male person affected. Just knowing those disobedient women are getting their needs met makes male people angry.

Meet the 21st century. Really not that different to the 1st Century when the Romans walked in and introduced patriarchial dominance to the UK. Hi women, we own you, we own everything you own, you get nothing but what we choose to permit you after we've met our own needs.

I don't understand how anyone can be surprised that women are not responding to this with cries of joy and co operation.

This is so very easy to fix. It just takes male people coping with giving female people equality of access and consideration, and freedom of belief instead of demanding unconditional surrender.

I am not sure that 'ideology' and TQ+ people are one and the same, since a number of TW are quite clear and quite annoyed that they know exactly what their sex is and they do not agree with the colonisation and destruction of female spaces for example, or excluding females from female only services so that male people have freedom of choice of all the services, or child safeguarding.

I have absolutely no doubt that people of both sexes experience a very wide range of development and expression and sense of self. But it widens and develops the 'bandwidth' to borrow a word from Sharpe, of their birth sex. It does not make them the other sex. Everything they do will always be an expression of their sex, and that is something to be celebrated.

Excluding and punishing women to express biological power while requiring that women deny it is happening? That is not something to be celebrated. That's just bloody awful behaviour.

I CAN say that I knew I felt differently about myself from age 7/8 and was able to label that - as trans - at 11 or 12 when I understood what that was.

Interesting... the weakness in that argument is that human beings fabulate. We make narratives and connections and it's very hard to understand or predict why one narrative "makes sense" to us and another doesn't. I don't have a complete memory of my childhood or myself within my own childfhood; it would be easy for me to focus on some particular periods and incidents and to pass over or forget or suppress others, to create a narrative in which I know I have "always" felt this or that about myself.

For me this is good evidence to show up the ‘ideology’ analysis as nonsense, because that would mean that I had invented my own ‘ideology’ all for myself between age 7 and 12. Seems unlikely?

And yes if you are intelligent and thoughtful and self reflective you could easily invent an ideology of your own at 7 or 8 that still makes sense as an adult and that fits with some adult narratives that you would only discover later.

Some early elements of my feminist awareness started at that age, or earlier.
I am not saying my feminism was inevitable or innate, that I was consistently feminist (I wasn't!) but some of the experiences and perceptions and feelings and understandings started there. Like you, the label came a little later. And (r but?) I might have made something else out of them if I had been offered a different label and a different framework to fit my exisiting ideas and feelings into and to develop them further.

'It can only be based on a fantasy of what it would be like to be the opposite sex.'

Absolutely!

It's odd, isn't it? What makes someone think that they are more like the opposite sex, or should be the opposite sex? Children learn in early childhood that they can't actually change sex, and nobody can know what it's like to be the opposite sex, so it's odd that some people think that altering their bodies to resemble one of the opposite sex will somehow make them happier or more complete. It can only be based on a fantasy of what it would be like to be the opposite sex.

What do they imagine to be so different about life as the opposite sex?

I've read Robin's blog, and I understand that Robin is very interested in female clothing. Perhaps I just don't understand because I'm not interested in clothes. I've never thought that makes me a man, though. And surely someone wouldn't go through all that just so that they can wear women's clothes, would they?

Just musing really, as Robin doesn't answer questions, but if anyone else has any insights I'd be interested.

Don’t let the door hit you on the arse & remember to take your shoes

Hey Robin, you didn't seem to amused when you were on these boards at 3.30 and 4 am......
👀
I suggest a nice milky drink as an alternative. Screen time isn't helpful in relaxation.

Well that's at least part of an answer, so thank you for that.

For me this is good evidence to show up the ‘ideology’ analysis as nonsense, because that would mean that I had invented my own ‘ideology’ all for myself between age 7 and 12. Seems unlikely?

The ideology is that a male child who feel uncomfortable in their own skin somehow is more like a female child.

Different from what?

Interesting to see the "it happened to me so it must be fine for everyone else's children" played out on this thread.
We are in this mess because self invested adults have been allowed to influence medical practice, ethics, education policy and practice and safeguarding relating to children on the basis of their personal desires and beliefs. Those of us with qualifications and experience know to be cautious of all the self interested groups wanting to use schools as platforms to promote their ideas to children. It's only since the capture of politicians and the DfE by the trans lobby that this has ever happened. Previously political activists (of any type) have been firmly kept outside schools or invited in only as part of a balanced curriculum looking at different views /issues.
This government have presided over removing these safeguards and now are faced with the task of reversing what they've allowed to happen.

I'd have thought that that had limited applicability even in the context of a courtroom, otherwise, you have the same rights and responsibilities as other citizens.

Returning to the experience of children in schools and the status of some lobby groups that valorise the testimony and advocacy of of adults, I see that I omitted to post this discussion earlier. It's a useful commentary on why lived experience might not live up to the hagiographic status awarded to those who prize it above all other indications of expertise and knowledge.

johnradoux.medium.com/the-fetishisation-of-lived-experience-c431bbffa3e1

This is, of course, distinct from concerns about recasting and unreliable narratives that may be (unconsciously or not) edited to fit with a narrative that suits later circumstances.

Or perhaps my experience is just part of life’s rich tapestry for a few of us, and you might consider not spending time telling trans people that they don’t know their own minds, rather working out how to rub along together. That’s my approach, on a personal level.

Well, it certainly seems that you developed an ideology at that age, and stuck with it.

I’m not qualified to draw lines. And I’m not sure it is right to do so as individual experiences vary.

I CAN say that I knew I felt differently about myself from age 7/8 and was able to label that - as trans - at 11 or 12 when I understood what that was.

For me this is good evidence to show up the ‘ideology’ analysis as nonsense, because that would mean that I had invented my own ‘ideology’ all for myself between age 7 and 12. Seems unlikely?