Tougher transgender guidance for schools is unlawful, Sunak told

This is crucial for me in terms of protecting children

There are dc who do not conform at dc’ school

Thankfully they are still referred to with correct sex pronouns and also use own spaces. That’s important for those dc not forced to take on a lie but also incredibly vital for the dc. They are happy and no adult has intervened to say you are ‘presenting’ as another sex.

A poster once mentioned that she has protections written into the ECHP for her autistic daughter, who likes short hair and comfortable clothes for sensory reasons, that no teacher or health care person is to approach her with any hint/suggestion of the idea she is transgender because of this.

Hi @ScrollingLeaves that was me 😊

I'm reading this thread with great interest. Lots of really good analysis from multiple angles. I really hope Gillian Keegan has stumbled upon it 🤞🤞

We use the safeguarding wording that got put in the EHCP in all settings with my daughter. The document itself only covers school, so our offline copy of that section is how we engage elsewhere e.g. health appointments, clubs.

It is almost impossible to express how difficult it is to keep bias away from my daughter. Out of a sense of kindness and inclusivity (and presumably in part to show how modern they are), so many adults on hearing the "gender neutral sounding" (nick)name that she uses to introduce herself and seeing her short hair automatically jump to the question "What are your pronouns?".

This question is problematic. It is a signpost towards a social transition approach because it's really saying "I can see you're female, but are you happy with that? Would you prefer me to think of you differently?". It's step 1 on the ladder of affirmation.

rogdmum· Today 08:30
While social transitioning is something carried out by others to validate the child’s identity you also need to recognise the impact it has on the child. It embeds disassociation with their body which then leads to further dysphoria where it hadn’t existed previously- eg a girl might not have had issues with her breasts but as she wears stereotypical boys clothes, she realises her breasts make her stand out so she develops a need to flatten them.

Having others validate their identity serves to embed their belief they are right to believe they are actually the opposite sex- it’s extremely powerful,
particularly on the developing adolescent mind.

It is a psycho-social intervention and it’s important that we are able to name it. Yes, it has massive wider ramifications on society, particularly other children and if you want to give those ramifications a new name, by all means do so, but we need the term to accurately describe the intervention that individual child is undergoing.

Yes, absolutely.

This is interesting in referring to the word self ID related to children, as well as explaining the harm of affirming them.

This is what the expert Finnish Adolescent Dr Kaltiala said who is
”the top expert on pediatric gender medicine in Finland and the chief psychiatrist at one of its two government-approved pediatric gender clinics, at Tampere University, where she has presided over youth gender transition treatments since 2011”

I wish she were cited more here. Finland adopted the Dutch protocol and is now back tracking like England with the Tavistock and Sweden. She absolutely knows what she is talking about.

www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/finland-youth-gender-medicine

“Asked by Helsingin Sanomat what she thought of gender self-identification for minors—a proposed element of the new Finnish law that did not ultimately pass—Kaltiala emphasized that it is “important to accept [children] as they are,” but this means neither pressuring a child to conform to behaviors traditionally associated with the child’s sex nor “negating the body” by confirming that the child’s gender self-identification is real. “In either case,” said the psychiatrist, “the child gets a message that there is something wrong with him or her.” Evidence from a combined 12 studies to date demonstrates that when children with cross-gender or gender variant behavior are left to develop naturally, the vast majority—“four out of five,” according to Kaltiala—come to terms with their bodies and learn to accept their sex. When they are socially transitioned, virtually none do.”

Dissidente · Today 07:53
The discussion about what social transition is seems to touch on a point that's been bugging me. It's that when a girl asks to be regarded as a boy, she is defining short hair, trousers, sturdy shoes as "boy stuff". (I provide the girls' side of a sex-segregated service.) All the girls who prefer short hair, trousers and practical shoes may then feel that their look is more boyish than it used to be.
In his way, stereotypes that we were rejecting throughout the 20th century are becoming entrenched again.
The reverse doesn't actually have a similar effect, because when boys put on dresses and makeup, there is no group of boys who wear dresses and makeup on an everyday basis. The only thing is long hair, but there are distinct masculine longhair styles. (Which, oddly, I have not seen any girls adopt in their bid to be regarded as a boy.)
So I do get @literalviolence when she asks what is social transition. It's a concept that requires us to reframe our social norms. It seems important to me to see it as an intervention which acts on the whole group, not only on the target individual.

I think you put this well about girls now feeling that short hair and comfortable boys’ clothes may be perceived as being more masculine than they once would have been.

A poster once mentioned that she has protections written into the ECHP for her autistic daughter, who likes short hair and comfortable clothes for sensory reasons, that no teacher or health care person is to approach her with any hint/suggestion of the idea she is transgender because of this.

The need to put this safeguard in place shows how extreme the effects of all this gender identity campaign/PR/Spin/Lie has worked into the consciousness of society.

It is odd to think how once it was perfectly common for girls of all ages to have short haircuts or wear boys’ jeans or even suits, whether for comfort or chic, without any sense that it could signal a change of gender.

Schools have been breaching the law about impartiality ever since the DfE allowed Stonewall to move away from their very good work on homophobic bullying and to weaponise schools in their bid to remove single sex spaces for women and girls. The government have openly funded all this to the cost of ££ millions via the DfE and numerous other sources of government funding.

That’s the problem it only works if everyone is compelled to lie.

Well the teachers can't be compelled to lie and tell children that Billy has changed sex as that contravenes the Education Act around political impartiality.

While social transitioning is something carried out by others to validate the child’s identity you also need to recognise the impact it has on the child. It embeds disassociation with their body which then leads to further dysphoria where it hadn’t existed previously- eg a girl might not have had issues with her breasts but as she wears stereotypical boys clothes, she realises her breasts make her stand out so she develops a need to flatten them.

Having others validate their identity serves to embed their belief they are right to believe they are actually the opposite sex- it’s extremely powerful,
particularly on the developing adolescent mind.

It is a psycho-social intervention and it’s important that we are able to name it. Yes, it has massive wider ramifications on society, particularly other children and if you want to give those ramifications a new name, by all means do so, but we need the term to accurately describe the intervention that individual child is undergoing.

Exactly

That’s the problem it only works if everyone is compelled to lie.

And that’s a society not far off 1984. It takes male violence and sanctions to get there.

It doesn’t work

So now what?

I agree with pp we’ve been talking about this for ages.

"Miss, why do Billy's perceptions and feelings and wishes matter, and mine don't?"

"Miss, I like Billy and I want him to be happy, but don't believe Billy is a girl, why do I have to lie and pretend or get in trouble?"

@HipTightOnions

"Don't believe your lying eyes, kids. Billy has always been a girl"

As someone pointed out above, the softening of language hides what's really happening so for that reason I won't use the term. Same as I won't pretend a man is a woman or use the term gender affirming surgery to describe surgically altering a body to superficially mock up the body of the opposite sex. The control of others starts with the control of language. If we need to dress this up to justify it, it's not just. If we can't call a spade a spade, people should stop digging. We all need to resist toilets marketing spin which the dangerous ideology is reliant upon.

Should children and staff be compelled to use a pronoun. And what happens if they do not?

Yes. And what are staff supposed to say when children ask "Is Billy a girl now, Miss?"

Very good point. And we have twits like Willoughby posting pictures of short haired women in trousers on social media, saying that how is that person more a woman than a man with long hair in a skirt.

And yes, certainly it is a case that it is framed as mattering only to the individual and caring for the individual - it is not. It has a massive society wide impact, and it's not a positive one.

The discussion about what social transition is seems to touch on a point that's been bugging me. It's that when a girl asks to be regarded as a boy, she is defining short hair, trousers, sturdy shoes as "boy stuff". (I provide the girls' side of a sex-segregated service.) All the girls who prefer short hair, trousers and practical shoes may then feel that their look is more boyish than it used to be.
In his way, stereotypes that we were rejecting throughout the 20th century are becoming entrenched again.
The reverse doesn't actually have a similar effect, because when boys put on dresses and makeup, there is no group of boys who wear dresses and makeup on an everyday basis. The only thing is long hair, but there are distinct masculine longhair styles. (Which, oddly, I have not seen any girls adopt in their bid to be regarded as a boy.)
So I do get @literalviolence when she asks what is social transition. It's a concept that requires us to reframe our social norms. It seems important to me to see it as an intervention which acts on the whole group, not only on the target individual.

Yes agree

Should children and staff be compelled to use a pronoun. And what happens if they do not?

It should be a no

Then safeguarding spaces but also informing parents

To put it another way, literalviolence, obviously no-one can change sex, but there are several ways a person might try to make changes to their life to get closer to feeling like the sex they want to be:

• medical transition: using medicines (hormones, etc)

• surgical transition: using surgery

• social transition: using other people

I think the 'social transition' issue for schools is going to boil down to pronouns and compelled speech.

Everything else is covered by just accepting gender non conformity, then safeguarding for single sex spaces agreed, then the issue left is pronouns and whether you can compell others to use language which supports your view of yourself.

Thank you!!

As far as I can tell from others explanations, social transition is just pretend pronouns and forcing boys into girls spaces. So let's call it that.

It’s similar to ‘gender affirming care’ the mangling and softening of language is part of the activism

If we can’t just say what is happening it disarms

That adults created the term is a massive failing for children.

Perhaps it's the words. What's happening is not social transition. It's abuse. It's silencing women. It's erosion of women's rights. It's the abolishing of female only spaces. Calling it late social transition is like calling murder a facilitation of afterlife transition. But in the case of murder it actually means the same thing to everyone. As far as I can tell from others explanations, social transition is just pretend pronouns and forcing boys into girls spaces. So let's call it that.

I see what you're saying, and I appreciate that it sounds like a euphemism for what is actually happening (e.g. I wouldn't refer to someone having a double mastectomy for gender identify ideology-related cosmetic reasons as having "gender-affirming" surgery).

I find social transition to be a very helpful term personally, though, as it makes it quite clear that the thing providing the changes that person is demanding is other people. It's right there in the name, and there is no social transition without manipulating other people to comply with the demands.

To my mind, the words "social transition" do describe what's happening accurately, because (1) the only thing that's changing is how other people are treating the person (in that we all have to pretend for their benefit) and (2) the transition is required to be implemented by that person's social circle transitioning the way they behave, and without those other people providing that service to the person demanding it, there is no social transition.

Social transition is a service that other people provide to the person demanding it - parents might be willing to do that, and a school might (if it's been Stonewalled). But it shouldn't be the case that other people around that child, including the child's teachers and other children who have no duty to centre that child's needs to their own detriment, should be required to provide that service to that child.

Yes, the child might feel better if everyone bends to their will around them. That's the case for lots of things in life. But demanding it is not fair on others. And social transition without other people doesn't exist, hence the name. Which is why it is so problematic, because it only means anything if other people (including other children) are dragged into it, often to their own detriment.

One of the key arguments that trans people make around modifying pronouns is "it's not that hard", as if people's objection is because of the difficulty of the task. But what they don't seem to realise is that this comment reveals that regardless of whether it's hard or not, it is a task that takes at least some effort and it is an accommodation being asked of other people who don't necessarily want to support a movement they're fundamentally opposed to, or adapt their language or give up their own rights, just to make some random person feel better about their own life. The fact that "it's not that hard" is the best argument people can come up with for complying with social transition is the reason it should always be viewed (legally and otherwise, IMO) as a request as opposed to a demand. People need to be free to decline otherwise we are all just props in some random child's life.

I find it helpful to ask people pushing for it whether social transition exists without other people playing along, as it's the social element and the fact other people are having to transition their behaviour that gets to the crux of the issue.

Fundamental principle of the 1989 Children Act - that children are best cared for in their families and professionals should aim to work in partnership with parents. Therefore, only the courts can remove parental responsibilities.
Parents retain these rights, even when their children are in care of the state unless the courts decide otherwise.
The police / social services can only remove a child from their home as a temporary measure - they have to go to court to get their emergency decisions ratified.
A school that refers a family to social services for physical abuse is often (not always) told to advise the parents that they have referred - a tough phone call for a teacher to make but again, based on working in partnership with parents

Working in partnership with parents has been baked into our child welfare / safeguarding legislation since the 1989 Children Act.

I agree with your description of what social transition is and its effects, but I think we're stuck with the term itself. I would suggest this definition of social transition: masquerading as the opposite sex and coercing everyone else to pretend that the person has changed sex.

We do need a term with this definition because it is happening frequently, and this is the term in common usage.

What is the legislation that states that parents should be involved in all decisions about their child and is crucial for safeguarding?

I'm in a discussion with a teacher who is now stating that because this guidance didn't come out schools don't have to tell parents.

Yes, I was maybe too obscure, my point is rather that what you have is an international body which can potentially block legislative processes in a democratic nation state, and there is not really any clear way for the citizens of that nation state to affect the things that body mandates.

Perhaps it's the words. What's happening is not social transition. It's abuse. It's silencing women. It's erosion of women's rights. It's the abolishing of female only spaces. Calling it late social transition is like calling murder a facilitation of afterlife transition. But in the case of murder it actually means the same thing to everyone. As far as I can tell from others explanations, social transition is just pretend pronouns and forcing boys into girls spaces. So let's call it that.