7 year old pronouns

I know of a handful of children with ehpcs that currently have it included that they do not have to participate in lessons about gender identity/ ideology nor will be forced to use incorrect pronouns (particularly as it's sometimes taken them longer to learn appropriately sexed pronouns in the first place) and I would urge parents of children with sp and Lang difficulties to consider doing the same.

I think the guidelines will still be non statutory but an EHPC is statutory.

For children with speech and language difficulties it's going to be an exclusionary nightmare of more kids demand they them pronouns.

There was no need to explain that. People are generally aware that "they" can be used to refer to someone whose sex is not known. But that's not the situation here, is it? The teachers and many children will know what sex this child is and are being asked to pretend that they don't.

??? Of course people at the school will know the sex of the child. I was explaining the history of singular 'they' to the pp.

@hellsBells246 why do you assume that no one knows the sex of this child?

'They' isn't just a plural pronoun. You must know this. It's been used to refer to a person when you don't know their sex since Shakespeare's time.

The 7yo is clearly identifying as non-binary, so has asked to be called they.

They're going to be brought in.

Labour Ed sec welcomed them too.

<picks up a Sophie giraffe>

I can't find my thread on schools guidelines but I linked it in there. He and others responded directly to that schools week article.

It was mostly around normal legal stuff iirc, as in, lawyers always warn that all guidelines that are proposed can expect legal challenges. It's a warning, It doesn't mean it's actually happening.

As per current law, outside these proposed guidelines, there is no self id for diagnosis for GD, and children cannot legally transition. so schools and others are under no obligation to use pronouns.

The proposed guidelines are simply a reminder of what the law already is, such as single sex loos, and raise some safeguarding questions for schools to consider.

Toys exiting pram moment there

Schools Week isn't exactly a hotbed of trans activism and Foran clearly hasn't read all the lawyers' remarks in that article.

What is absolutely uncontested is that this is draft guidance, and does not yet apply. The chances are that this will not be implemented before the next election and rewritten or abandoned by Labour.

There is, I suppose, a difference between "the guidance might be unlawful" and "the most contentious elements of the guidance might be unlawful". If you had some dosage instructions for some pills and you were warned "don't worry - only some of them are wrong" and you followed them anyway, you'd be Michael Foran.

Foran does say "Theres[sic] no general duty to permit social transition" and "primary schools should not permit a deviation from sex-based pronouns" are examples, which are pretty much the core of what this issue is about. He also neglects to mention that a vital reference to indirect discrimination has been removed and says there are only three issues, when there are more. I guess he's not read this article.

Given the chance to correct them, with a 70% chance of legal challenge succeeding, they chose not to change them. Combining that with the conflation of EqA protections and safeguarding concerns makes the whole thing a hot mess.

Michael Foran tweeted extensively about this and it's BS.

Their difficulty for the queer theory enthusiasts is that objecting to the guidelines forces them to say all the quiet bits out loud. That an adult ideology takes precedence over children's wellbeing. That schools must be places where a political ideology is allowed to run riot. That children are there to be gaslit by any passing adult with an interest in queer theory. And that children are not entitled to protection from an age inappropriate ideology

Conflating adults with children is a feature not a bug as it enables trans activists to derail and ignore safeguarding. We must insist that the issue of children's safety is addressed. Children are not mini adults.

Yes, there's quite a PR spin going on to push the idea that it's highly likely to face legal challenge and fail.
Luckily, there are plenty of other voices just about breaking through the TRA noise which are pointing out that the majority of the guidance is either based on existing laws or is based on points that are in line with existing laws.

There was a tweet which laid out the 3 potential challenges, which would have resulted in minor amendments if upheld. Not re-writing of the entire guidance. There's a thread where all of this is discussed in much more detail. I'll see if I can dig it out.

TL:DR the TRAs are putting in a lot of effort on spin. So far, sanity seems to be prevailing.

I find it helpful to remember that these people are in the main terrified. This ideology has been promoted by fear and intimidation with women being a particular target to ensure compliance. From the first uttering of #nodebate, the deliberate misuse of suicide stats, the mangling of language everywhere especially the language of women, the bullying has escalated. Disappointingly so many powerful men use it as an opportunity to display their misogynistic tendencies. The Bully Braggs, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Michael Cashman, David Lammy, countless men on sports governing bodies, in the NHS etc have indulged themselves like sniggering schoolboys with opportunities to intimidate and smear women with aggressive language - bigot, terf etc. It's been so disappointing to see - and is why I now take great pleasure from seeing the vast numbers of men finally understanding how important it is speak out.

Never forget that there are some very regressive men around who will smear safeguarding as "right wing bigotry" and are determined that the new guidelines with their focus on safeguarding all children must fail:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4954762-pushing-back-against-safeguarding

💐💐💐💐💐
Sending huge hugs. I am still overwhelmed at times and I've been liaising with the school for well over a year. I've also raised and discussed it via whistleblowing at work (after the policy was corrected to be lawful re sex as a protected characteristic, the training about gender identity is still being rolled out but I'm not currently pushing it as school is my priority). It's one of the most difficult things I've ever been involved in and I've been so grateful to everyone on MN for the conversations, the insights, even the pushback and the uncomfortable moments (because it helps to show me the bigger picture). The sanity-saving part for me has been thinking of it as a belief. Asking myself: how would I handle it if I were talking to a Christian and I was being forced to declare Jesus was the son of god, or to say prayers in a restaurant before I was allowed to eat my food? Would I go right in there and say 'God doesn't exist, you're wrong" or would I find an approach that acknowledged the difference in beliefs, while still raising the alarm about the harms? Hold on to whatever approach keeps you sane!

The DfE guidance is in draft form, and leaked documents suggest that there is a high likelihood of legal challenge. It's a mess, and it's drafted by someone who doesn't understand and conflates safeguarding requirements and the EqA. I wouldn't rely on it.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/trans-guidance-dfe-lawyers-said-schools-face-high-risk-of-being-sued/

💐- don't worry most people feel the same as you, they're just too scared to say so in this new McCarthyist era of right think. It's basically bullying, you're being bullied in a particularly insidious way that involves redefining basic words and language in a coercively controlling way, that's why you're feeling overwhelmed.

Thanks to very brave women like Maya, Jo, Allison, Rachel, Denise, and Roz and many more to come we now know that you very definitely have the law on your side. Take courage from that.

And definitely send a copy to the school governors too.

The pronouns rubbish is the bit of transactivism that annoys me the most.

Obviously it's not the worst aspect (the women sexually assaulted by male criminals in prison, or the rape victims turned away from support or the children sterilised would be that) but it annoys me the most.

It's the most nonsensical and the most clearly an egregious attempt to bully others.

Third person pronouns IN ENGLISH are in the gift of the speaker and based on externally observable sex class. This is just a fact. The vast majority do not consent to the rules of the language just being arbitrarily changed.

Making them individual is pointless - you might as well just use their name then.

But if you are going to do it and have 'gender based' pronouns then it needs to be for ALL people and in all situations, otherwise the language is inconsistent and impossible to learn.

Doing this to children in schools is abusive.

Full stop.

Honestly I'd be asking what other rules of English are optional and can be varied according to children's identity.

My dyslexic DD used to tell me over and over that SPAG didn't matter to her and she didn't want to learn how to do it. Can she just not use any punctuation because it's part of her identity? And not get marked down for her entirely punctuation free work?

I said in another thread, schools enabling this shit will have terrible SATs results. Someone needs to do this analysis. How can the poor kids grapple with the rules (such as they are) of the English language and make it make sense and - you know - learn when they're simultaneously told one person can alter all those rules on a whim. But you have no way of knowing when this will happen.

Copy of comment (formatting gone a bit weird, sorry!):

I'm following up on something I posted earlier up in the thread. I'm putting it here in case it's helpful to anyone.

This discussion has really helped me to clarify how to approach the current promotion of preferred pronouns at my daughters' school. Although I don't know if the teachers that run the LGBT club, which is putting up all the posters, identify as non-binary or are just allies of trans and non-binary identified people, the end result is the same: these posters are actively promoting gender identity as a "thing" in the school.

I've already shared a copy of my response to the draft government guidance with the school and am in conversations with members of the SLT. The direction of travel seems to be positive and I'm keen to keep the dialogue as constructive as possible. There are clearly some very activist staff at the school, so I understand that it's not a quick or easy job to sort this out. I've now sent an email which includes the following main points:

1. a reminder (with reference to my guidance feedback) that the guidance sets out the fact that not everyone believes that we all have a gender identity
2. following the Forstater appeal, the right to a lack of belief in gender identity, as well as the belief that sex is immutable, is protected in law. Screenshot and link to tweet from Anya Palmer on my earlier post.
3. a request that the school follows up on whether this promotion of gender identity belief fits within the existing laws of the Equality Act and the statutory Teaching Standards on how personal beliefs should be handled by schools. I've asked if it should be handled in the same way as religious beliefs.
4. a summary of why autistic and looked after children are particularly vulnerable to believing that they are in the wrong body. I've also summarised the impact on SEN children when using preferred pronouns for others, WRT confusion and an impact on their ability to learn.
6. I appreciate this isn't my thread, so I hope it's not a derail to say thank you to everyone for the discussion and a special thank you to MrsO for (as ever) the invaluable insight and clarity on how beliefs should be handled in school.

Link to relevant page on thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4992220-non-binary-teachers?page=12

Screenshot relating to point 2 below

There's loads of really good advice here OP.

I'm going to copy a comment of mine from a different thread in case it's of use when you speak to the school. In all my discussions with my daughters' school to date, I have found it beneficial to position two different beliefs: a) the belief that we all have a gender identity and b) the belief that we don't/sex is immutable. Under my belief that there are two sexes, I don't identify as a woman, I just am one. I don't believe in gender identity. The law is very much in favour of this positioning, with multiple tribunals now being won based on it and the new government guidance also rooted in it. Positioning it this way has also allowed me to be respectful that others hold a different belief - in this case a belief which means that the child is requesting they/them pronouns, presumably because the child isn't "identifying" as a boy or girl - while also pushing back on that belief being forced on to me and my children as a truth.

I'll put the copy of my comment and a link to the thread it's from in the next post.

https://sex-matters.org/posts/schools-and-safeguarding/what-hilary-cass-needs-to-tell-schools/

You may find this link helpful OP - lots of stuff to go at.

"She [Cass] observed that “social transition” is not a neutral act but a major psychosocial intervention that may affect whether a child’s gender distress disappears or becomes long-lasting."

I'd ask the school what expertise/advice/guidance they have engaged with that means they feel confident in rejecting the findings of the intermin Cass Report that has been fully accepted and is being implemented by the NHS.

"Supporting full social transitioning in schools is incompatible with child safeguarding and the duty of care that schools have for all their pupils. Schools are not clinics, and teachers are not mental-health professionals: it is not appropriate for them to be overseeing a psychosocial intervention with such potentially grave consequences."

Given social transition is not neutral, there is the possibility of harm to both the child and their peers:

"In 2012 the Intercom Trust (a regional LGBT lobby group), Cornwall Council, and Devon and Cornwall Police published their first version of an influential guide to “transgender children” in schools. It encouraged schools to adopt the concept of the transgender child, and to socially transition children, in order to comply with its own interpretation of the Equality Act.
The guide stated that gender-reassignment discrimination was an asymmetric protection, whereby only trans children were protected against discrimination. It claimed that schools were “therefore free to take special steps to meet the needs of Trans pupils without being accused of discriminating against pupils who are not Trans”.
This view of the law is inaccurate, since special steps taken to meet the demands of children identifying as trans could result in direct or indirect belief or sex discrimination against other children. Furthermore, schools always need to consider their duty of care to all children before considering special steps (such as lying about a child’s sex) which impact others."