How much longer is this going to take?!

TimeforNowt, FemaleAndLearning, EndlessTea and ValancyRedfern, I know it's really hard but please keep being "that parent".

I am "that teacher", which is crap too, but the powers that be are more likely to listen to "that parent" than "that teacher".

Thank you I will.

I bought Rachel Rooney’s book ‘my body is me’ just a couple of days ago, I will look out the transgender trend book and buy that too - thank you!

@vinoandbrie

Transgender Trend sell a brilliant and cheap book on defying sex stereotypes. Inoculate your child now to avoid problems now or in the future.

The conservatives are making themselves unelectable and labour will enact a lot of damage in this area and plain won't listen to women

This is a seriously worrying possibility.

The only hope I think is that the public awareness will be great enough by the time it happens that their hands will be largely tied.

I do hope you're right. This is the long game with evidence being needed rather than obvious forewarnings.

The conservatives are making themselves unelectable and labour will enact a lot of damage in this area and plain won't listen to women.

It just seems so simple to me. Listen to women, safeguard them, girls and children. State that TWATW and TMATM. Be real about AGP. Get this rubbish out of schools. This is not rocket science or extreme.

Things are changing.... they are....

www.theguardian.com/society/2022/oct/14/young-trans-people-accessing-treatment-outside-nhs-may-get-safeguarding-referral

I am 'that parent' and 'that teacher' in my own school. I'm also struggling with cfs and it's just an extra job I could do without. As a teen anorexic it is so important to me. I see myself so clearly in the teen girls caught up in this.

And that's the key - these are children and the number of organisations and individuals who stand by or actually participate in the gaslighting of children about changing sex and having wrong bodies is shameful.

"I am a child".

Whichever poster that was upthread who taught their child to say this, thank you, I'm stealing it and teaching it to mine.

Whatever they grow up to be is fine by me but right now so they are, are children.

Enough already with the "you don't want us to exist" bollocks.
Biological women exist and they are discriminated against as a sex class. They have sex based rights. If whatever the TRAs want doesn't threaten our sex based rights AND doesn't threaten the safeguarding of children, knock yourself out. Tell men to make room for you in their spaces or lobby for third spaces (not disabled spaces).
And trans identified women ("transmen") are welcome in our sports if they haven't doped. And are welcome in our spaces and healthcare. I'm happy to have literature that says "women and transmen" about women's healthcare. Non-binary is just narcissistic bullshit

I feel like this too, OP. I've been engaged in this battle for years now, and it keeps looking as if the tide is turning. Every time some new mad thing reaches public attention (like the Mermaids trustee), I think, Oh, this is it. This is the end. This will peak trans everyone. But nope, it just carries on rolling along. There was a piece in the Metro today by some handmaiden headed "I’m a proud feminist – the transphobic bullying of Eddie Izzard is not in my name". It's had 2,000 shares. I'm just staggered at how it's possible to be that stupid. How can you possibly even begin to have a rational argument with someone like that?

@WandaWomblesaurus She has a stock response for anyone who asks her about her sexuality.
"I am a child." she says.

This is a genius response. It needs to go on AIBU to reach more or the Staffroom. Totally chucks the question back at questioner with an inbuilt safeguarding challenge.

It would lovely to have a ‘That Parent’ support thread. It’s really starting to wear me down.

I don’t think the statement you are responding to itself makes sense @nauticant, which means that your response seems a bit incoherent.

’Trans’ needs to be defined- are you talking about the umbrella that is so wide it even includes people such as me, who would never use the label? Is it a much smaller group? If it is a smaller group, how are the members defined?

The umbrella itself is a pretty modern invention as is the catch-all label ‘trans’ that is used for it. Also being able to ‘identify as’ anything according to how you feel, rather than as something which is objectively verifiable, is an even more recent modern invention too.

At the end of the day, human beings are not Tinkerbell and they will not cease to exist if others do not validate them.

I'm that parent too OP. School must think I'm mad, one daughter diagnosed autistic the other waiting for assessment and has not been in school nearly three years. Yet there I am sending them alternative guidance, checking their policies, asking questions and about to write again because two teachers introduced themselves with pronouns. I respect their belief in gender identity ideology just as I would a Christian, but I wouldn't expect a Christian teacher to introduce themselves and then say a prayer. Equally a teacher who believed in astrology is fine but I wouldn't expect them to say Hi I'm Ms Learning and my horoscope is ....
I was browsing another school in my area and am trying to find a parent who goes there because in their trans policy they state "we do not seek permission to change a child's name or pronouns", massive safeguarding issue.

Agree with other posters educate her now, instill the facts. No human can change sex, sterotypes are sexist. You don't need to give her a lecture just call it out when you see it.

Trans people existed long before the gender identity ideology that's emerged in maybe the last decade or two.

Many on the gender critical side acknowledge this and the fact that trans people are not the same as the gender identity ideology. Trans activists argue differently, that gender identity ideology and trans people are effectively the same thing. An example of this can be seen in this thread. This means that in their view the existence of trans people has to fit within the context of the gender identity ideology. Where does that leave trans people who disagree with the gender identity ideology? If social media is a guide, as outcasts and subject to abuse by trans activists.

In other words, trans activism uses trans people as a tool for its own political purposes. You can get the impression that if trans people weren't available, then another group would be used. Once you see it in these terms you realise that what we're seeing a manifestation of something broader.

No one here wants anyone to stop existing. We’d just like them to stop pushing into our spaces and lying to our children. Not a lot to ask, is it?

I sympathise, OP. I can’t believe how many people are still saying it’s about being kind to a tiny number of men who are suffering terribly from unhappiness about their bodies. Even if that was true, what about the totally unnecessary suffering being inflicted on children being encouraged to believe they need body-changing drugs and surgery?

Thanks @ArabellaScott i am feeling down because I already am aware of being ‘that parent’ and yesterday my daughter came home from school saying that her teacher emphatically said it was “essential” that she refer to this semi-famous person, who is unlikely to ever meet any of the kids, as “they/them”.
This teacher is ‘really nice’ (this seems to be case with all the teachers who push this BS - sweet, sympathetic, kindly teachers) and my daughter doesn’t want me to say anything and get her in trouble.

I am in a dilemma now. I’d really not have to think about it, but I do not want my children to be told how it is ‘essential’ to refer to someone who won’t even hear or read anything they say. I’d be annoyed and would complain if they told the kids they had to say ‘His Majesty’ or ‘His Royal Highness’ when they were talking about King Charles. I am even more annoyed they are being told how to speak about attention-seeking, self-absorbed semi-famous people who have even less grounds to dictate how they’re spoken about.

I wish it would all go away and I could just enjoy my weekend without it niggling.

Write to your school. Ask questions. Write to your MP. Write to local paper, councillors. Talk to other parents. Don't get exhausted: get active.

End game: The single sex exceptions in the Equality Act are rigorously upheld and implemented everywhere. 'Gender' is recognised to be a collection of stereotypes that are roughly as meaningful as horoscopes and treated accordingly. Children are taught solid scientific facts about biology. Anyone suffering dysphoria or dysmorphia has swift access to high quality support, including therapeutic help.

Mermaids have done a fantastic service by taking the LGB Alliance to court. All eyes on Mermaids. Even if this ideology is still pushed on children, it will come with more sunlight. Mermaids opened that particular pandora's box and they can't put it all back in again. The truth is pouring out.

I’m finding it exhausting. It seems like barely a week goes by without my kids telling me something indoctrinating they are being taught at school. I wish it would all just go away. The teachers are so bloody obedient, thinking they are doing the right thing by forcing this obedience upon my children. I did not agree to it and I am sick of it.

Labour will win the next election and then claim they have a mandate for the mad shit. Fight goes on.

I don't think much will change yet - especially as this awful government will crash before they have a chance to right the wrongs that have happened on their watch. It won't be until the detranstioners sue those facilitating their sterilisation etc before they were competent to give informed consent. Also the court cases that will emerge where predators have been able to use self ID and the dilution of safeguarding to access children as well as women when vulnerable. Then things will screech to a halt.

More optimistically, there is a lot of push back and growing sunlight / statistics demonstrating where the problems are (eg the Mermaids scandal). With so many responsible adults now aware of what's going on, it will shortly become more difficult for the adult lobby groups to retain the freedom to access children and schools in the manner that they've been used to.