Non Binary Teachers

So many excellent points. It's worth unpicking a bit the presentation of "the most marginalised & vulnerable group in society" status as promoted by politicians like Starmer & Ed Davey. That prompts so many people to abandon all critical thinking and accept all the narrative and demands, no matter how predatory or dangerous.
This is an immensely powerful lobby with the capacity to upturn the social contract, erode fundamental medical principles - (first do no harm and don't medically experiment on children). It's got schools to abandon safeguarding for certain children and been able to wholesale gaslight girls that they have no rights to boundaries from males who require them to be undressed for validation purposes And that women's sport is open to men for the taking. This ideology is dripping with power.

There is an immensely vulnerable group - and it's the mentally unwell children (so many teenage girls) who have been abandoned to these powerful organisations and are currently engaged in the saddest of personal situations as they try to "change sex" . They're the vulnerable ones with the supposedly responsible or "trusted adults" standing watching and wibbling on about being kind and respectful.

It's not kind or respectful to watch children below the age of consent being socially groomed into taking catastrophic actions that result in future infertility, being a medical patient and life long mental health & physical problems.
The notion that our personal lives or our capture by a political lobby is something that should be visited on the children we teach is just wrong and (as pointed out upthread) in many cases breaches the Teachers' Standards, let alone the Nolan Principles of Public life.

There's so much wrong with the capture of schools by Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids, GIRES, Global Butterflies & countless other powerful groups.

It would be an interesting analysis, gender washed schools and their SAT results. I'd bet good money they'd be worse than schools retaining normal English usage.

For example, (and no offense to said poster, I'm just interested in the dynamics) we see someone immediately reacting to this thread with censure, reporting it, demanding nobody discuss the issues. Possibly the person doing this sees themself as defending the underdog. In reality, though, there is no 'underdog' here. As posters we are all anonymous and therefore roughly equal.

I see gender ideology as a way of claiming victimhood for people with power, so they can continue shitting on the truly marginalised. The way it's entered all institutions - that speaks of power.

Marginalised women - like the women prisoner who spoke at Let Women Speak about how scared she was of state sanctioned rape by a male bodied rapist who had been put in the same prison, and who taunted women daily that he was going to rape them. So scared that she had a coil fitted. She's the person without the voice here, the only place she COULD speak was at LWS. Where are the articles, training and awards about HER experience? Non-existent, that's where.

As a SPAG pedant, I object to the mangling of English and I suspect children brainwashed with individual pronoun usage some of the time but not all of the time are likely to do less well in SATs etc because English is hard enough to grasp without upending all the rules for a key element of language but not always, oh no, only for special people, but you can't tell who. Pronouns are NOT individualistic, if they are they're serving the same purpose as names they are redundant. All it does is confuse children at key stages in their development.

If you're going the individual pronouns route then the only fair thing to do is to have this option available for all - and good luck with getting any teaching done whilst remember 30+ names and 30+ pronouns per class or 300+ for each for secondary school teachers (probably a conservative estimate - happy to be corrected).

If ONE person has special pronouns, that's saying all those who don't are happy to be reduced to sex-based stereotypes (under messed up GI thinking) - how sexist is that? How DARE they assume that of all the children in their care.

I'd rather get rid of pronouns altogether than have children confused in this abusive way.

Ps note to MNHQ... as she calls herself a non-binary woman I've used "woman" and "she" above. I hope that's within the talk guidelines on pronouns. I'd welcome the chance to rephrase before deletion if I've misunderstood. Normally I either use preferred pronouns or avoid pronouns altogether, depending on the circumstances 🤞🙏

For anyone on X (apologies to those that aren't as I have no idea how to extract the video), this is an interesting, angry viewpoint from a woman who identifes as non-binary. It's notable that she calls herself a non-binary woman, not a non-binary person in her rant....

https://twitter.com/bee_kay/status/1750248852504859089?t=aZKwh4tbKu4EBuI0Njk7uA&s=19

The parallel with the teachers here is that any teacher who insists on children adopting their (the teacher's) belief, through pronouns like they/them for example, is performing a hostile takeover of someone else's "lived reality", in new-speak. In the case of the woman in the video, it's her husband. She demands that he accepts he's not straight, he's queer. In the case of the school environment, it's some, but thankfully not all, teachers demanding that their pupils don't see them as men or women but as neither.

And her constant references to being a vagina owner... well.... I'm not about to start fighting the inevitable sexist expectations and limitations that come my way in life by reducing myself to this description. If I lose the word woman, that's what would happen. Her anger is also a great example of what ArabellaScott says above about being marginalised and a victim in a self-created way.

I suppose this is inherent in a society attempting to address inequalities. Attempts to redress power balances by enabling 'equity' mean some groups are given more support/power to try to address the imbalance. This creates an opportunity for some people to exploit the process and gain power. Especially, of course, if its a group that one can merely 'identify' into.

Yes, lots of good people have been taken advantage of because people have claimed to be marginalised and victimised.

Some people will claim victim status as a way to gain power.

As repeated often, people may or may not be marginalised, but this does not mean that other people's rights, views, and wishes are to be dismissed.

For example, (and no offense to said poster, I'm just interested in the dynamics) we see someone immediately reacting to this thread with censure, reporting it, demanding nobody discuss the issues. Possibly the person doing this sees themself as defending the underdog. In reality, though, there is no 'underdog' here. As posters we are all anonymous and therefore roughly equal.

The championing of the underdog is what motivates a lot of good people to fight hard for others. Hopefully, civilised conversation (wherever it can be effected) can explore this further. Specifically in to the harms being done to children under the status quo. Yes, I'm angry. I'm so so so angry. But that doesn't stop me listening while I also challenge. I don't need to shut down my opponents as a first recourse and I would expect the same in return. I'm glad that this thread stayed up (to be fair, I don't think it was in danger) and it's helpful that there is a whole range of voices on it.

As is so often the case, though, the 'identity' isn't really the crux. The crux is people manipulating or attempting to bully (cry bully is very relevant here) others. We see this again and again in 'gender' adherents. The 'identity' is the vehicle for authoritarianism and bad behaviour. People attack while claiming victimhood. The whole movement seems based on this power inversion - people claim a 'marginalised' victim status and then use that to bully other people.

In this example, a teacher, who holds the majority of the power in a student-teacher relationship, uses their NB identity to coerce children, to claim 'transphobia' and to sanction the children for their non-compliance.

Yes. It's stark how often this happens.

I have no major issue with 'non binary' identities or whatever. Some of the theory makes a kind of sense, although I disagree that they are effective in practical application.

As is so often the case, though, the 'identity' isn't really the crux. The crux is people manipulating or attempting to bully (cry bully is very relevant here) others. We see this again and again in 'gender' adherents. The 'identity' is the vehicle for authoritarianism and bad behaviour. People attack while claiming victimhood. The whole movement seems based on this power inversion - people claim a 'marginalised' victim status and then use that to bully other people.

In this example, a teacher, who holds the majority of the power in a student-teacher relationship, uses their NB identity to coerce children, to claim 'transphobia' and to sanction the children for their non-compliance.

For example, (and no offense to said poster, I'm just interested in the dynamics) we see someone immediately reacting to this thread with censure, reporting it, demanding nobody discuss the issues. Possibly the person doing this sees themself as defending the underdog. In reality, though, there is no 'underdog' here. As posters we are all anonymous and therefore roughly equal.

Children will discuss their teachers. And yes, even mock them. This is the nature of teenagers and I'm surprised a teacher would find this surprising. Parents will also discuss their children's teachers. People will talk. People will have different views. People will disagree.

The problem as I see it is the culture that has been created whereby normal discourse has been stifled and forbidden due to the belief held by one special type of person. In this instance, not even on the thread or named! Comparisons with the Stasi, the Red Guard and McCarthyism are absolutely accurate.

If I have a Catholic priest as a teacher, in a mainstream school, I expect my lack of belief in god to be respected equally to his belief in god, and not to have to perform obeisance to the Catholic faith on a daily basis. What is the difference?

Maybe these teachers need to focus on teaching the children maths, science, English, art… and stop thinking the world revolves around them and their new found ‘truth’ that the rest of humanity has managed to miss since we crawled out of the swamp onto dry(ish) land and thought menus is nice’.

The right these "non binary" people want is to compel other people's speech, make them jump through hoops, and make them unable to refer to "women" or "girls" as a coherent group based on their female bodies. It's not a healthy or fair thing for society to indulge, even (especially) in children.

As always the question is, what rights do trans people not have?

And I think you are missing significant elements of what is going on in the trans "rights" movement.

Or, actually, just blatantly being snarky and making fun of them (for example that whole bizarre Spanish tweet - I speak Spanish, I don’t see the humour)

It's from a major court case at the moment, where women have been hurt because someone with a non binary identity used their workplace as a vehicle for their identity issues, regardless of the needs and rights of others. So it is relevant.

I think non binary identity makes no sense whatsoever. I think it's a power trip over others. You can disagree, but you have yourself been pretty rude and dismissive to people,.

Also as teachers mostly teach facts it would be good if they taught English law too about the trans issue - the process to change gender (not sex) in the law which is fairly complex and set out in legislation and the provisions in the Equality Act 2010 which use "sex" and also "gender" too.

It is not teacher bashing. We all know plenty of teachers do not have these same views. I don't mind if teachers have any kinds of views on this but they need to listen with respect and humility to pupils who might hold a different view whether that be a pupil who supports Tory policies or believes or does not believe in God. The interesting point is facts and belief. Biology is a fact. How women ought to behave is a view. How women usually behave and what they usually wear can be a fact.

I'm sorry to hear about the painkillers; I hope you are okay and feel better soon.

That article is infuriating. Gender identity ideology is Anglocentric and colonialist. It's an incoherent belief system that demands incoherent language and it's taken hold most powerfully in the English-speaking world. Sadly there'll be some Welsh speakers so concerned about being kind and inclusive that they take the special pleading to mangle our language seriously.

It's not easy being on a thread when lots of people are disagreeing with you. I've experienced it a couple of times and it's intense.

There is a lot of concern amongst many posters here about the harm that is currently being done in association with non-binary and transgender identities. I used to think that non-binary was a harmless way of embracing "gender non-conformity", having been introduced to it via my work when I made contact with the LGBT network to learn more. I have written on previous threads about how helpful and considerate I found one person in particular. I still think about this now, even though my views have changed. Ultimately, it was through listening more, reading more (the Cass Review being an early game changer) and debating on here that I came to understand the full extent of the harm that is happening in both the pathway from social transition to sterilisation and mastectomy/castration and the wider issues around women's spaces and sports etc. I am now incensed about what is happening to girls like my autistic daughter. It's been over a year since her mental health crisis but she remains vulnerable to being pulled in to making irreversible changes to her body.
The Cass Review Interim Report and the very balanced and carefully written book Time to Think by Hannah Barnes give a well-rounded view that I would urge all teachers to read before they consider responding to the draft government guidance. The book is an excellent example of investigative journalism and gives space to children who are currently happy with their transition as well as those who aren't, whilst also exposing the failings of the Tavistock Centre and the direct influence that Mermaids had on the care that was delivered there.

@Coffee473 "it is hard not to take it personally when I have been accused of being a TRA and silencing women., when I am a woman"

TRA is trans rights activist, not necessarily a trans person. They can be either sex and any gender whatsoever, not sure how many there are this week. As for "I am a woman" no one knows what those words mean any more.

I was teaching under Section 28 and don't recognise a lot of the hyperbole from current trans activists who have no direct experience of that time. Maybe there were individuals, or educational settings, or local authorities where its existence was seen as permission to be homophobic; but it certainly wasn't the case anywhere I worked. I've talked about this exaggeration of the impact of what was undoubtedly an absolutely abhorrent law with friends who taught or worked with young people in various parts of Wales and in some parts of England as well. Day-to-day we just ignored it. We were there to teach and support children and young people regardless, not to 'promote' any sexual orientation, so why should we be concerned about a prohibition on something we weren't doing.

It should never have been on the statute books, but there were no prosecutions whatsoever under Section 28 and it applied only to local authorities and their services, not to the whole of society or to commerce or broadcasting or anything else. It definitely would have had an impact on resources; but social attitudes continued to change while it was in force, with much greater acceptance of LGB people by the time it was repealed. In fact most had forgotten all about it by that point.

@ArabellaScott It is hard not to take it personally when I have been accused of being a TRA and silencing women., when I am a woman.

I was trying, perhaps badly as I’m dosed up on painkillers to express my frustration that some people on the thread, whatever the discussion, revert back to the argument that ‘it’s biology’. I am not denying, and never have, that there are biologically 2 sexes. But people who feel that they are transgender or non binary do exist. You can’t wish them away by saying “it’s not true” Or making sweeping statements about what they “all” believe. Or presenting them as a safeguarding risk. Or, actually, just blatantly being snarky and making fun of them (for example that whole bizarre Spanish tweet - I speak Spanish, I don’t see the humour)

I was drawn to the thread because of the blatant teacher bashing but stayed because I think it is a really important discussion to be had. I don’t agree with the erosion of women only spaces, and I don’t agree with transgender people in women’s sport. The rise in young adolescent girls rejecting their bodies and saying they are trans/non binary does worry me. But then I have also taught some wonderful well-rounded young people who express themselves very eloquently and are happy in their choice. Who happily use the unisex toilets and say they wish there were more because they feel uncomfortable going into male or female toilets.

The ‘stop wailing about biology’ argument is such an odd one. In a way it shows that the person saying it is actually well aware of the importance of biology, because otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to exclude it from the discussion.