Janice Turner interview with Debbie Hayton in the Times

I don't think it's that complicated.

All staff have the option of the clothing choices typical of their sex - within the appropriate dress code of the school, and there is one in most - or gender neutral clothing. That's it. Any clothing choices beyond this boundary and the member of staff can either be spoken with or in extreme cases asked to go home and change. No different to if they turned up dirty and scruffy, or in a too short skirt at one end, and with a t shirt with an inappropriate message on, tiny shorts or a low cut top with boobs falling out at the other end.

The guy with the enormous fake boobs should have been told to take them off the moment he was seen on site with them, that was a ridiculous situation to have enabled. A male teacher who chooses to have fake boobs implanted under the skin or to take hormones that involve breast development can have a bust perfectly well with trousers, shirt and jumper or jacket as the majority of the women staff will be managing, he does not need to wear a top that shouts the visual cue of 'look, I have boobs'.

If someone finds that they cannot feel sufficiently 'them' unless they are able to do these things freely, then that's a 'them' thing, and they'd need to make a decision on whether teaching was for them. Professional jobs come with boundaries and putting your own convenience second to the needs of those you're in the job for. There are many other jobs out there where you can do you all day without problem.

Paraphilias are wll defined in medical literature and sexual offences likewise in legal terms, in addition education has rules and policies about behaviour.

There are now 394 comments, with the aforementioned top one, still the top. It has 394 votes. The other two remain in 2nd and 3rd place, just with more votes added on.

Times readers have rejected the article, it would seem.

Until comparatively recently, teachers were not allowed to live at the same address as someone with a criminal conviction for violence or sex crimes.

Schools are a mess. They're rife with bullying. Sex assaults among pupils are far too frequent and treated too lightly.

It's interesting that societies are implicitly expected to accept the public indulgence of paraphilias without the consent of those who end up facilitating them. And we're expected to accept the rape and sex assaults of children as a necessary consequence of bringing children together. And to tolerate school staff upbraiding, minimising or ignoring the victims.

In the first incident, a staff member saw the children in the corner of the playground – but then proceeded to tell the girl off.

“She was told off for having her knickers and her tights down around by her knees with one of these boys behind her,” Anna said.

On a second occasion, another member of staff saw one of the boys with his head up her skirt. The assistant told off the girl for letting the boy stick his head up her skirt, and the boys were just told to “run away”. The girl was not talked to separately, asked what had happened or whether she was OK.

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3364173-Our-kids-were-raped-by-classmates-DfE-wont-listen

The indulgences largely seem to flow towards the transgressors of one sex class. And, sadly, they're facilitated by the members of the oppressed sex class. I wonder why we're in the mess we're in.

How would we just say this?

They would have to be a legal framework which defined paraphilias and banned them to do that?
Would they be banned in all public situations?

Thank you! Apologies if that sounded like a spiky response but it's a fast moving thread and I thought maybe I hadn't expressed myself clearly.

But if a man is wearing a knee length dress, heels, long hair and makeup what argument is there for this being inappropriate?

Historically we managed it socially, with the understanding that everyone knew what was appropriate, and applied social behaviour as a result.

Yes* *@Datun I've increasingly been thinking this and discussing it elsewhere and have realised that one of the functions of social codes around men and women's clothes was to prevent men who fetishize femininity performing it in public.

20 years ago everyone knew transvestitism was a sexual fetish that's why it was done in private.

Now we seem to be having to intellectualise what we always knew to be true with talk of agp.

The problem is while we maintain clothes are just clothes there's never going to be any way to stop a man with fake boobs wearing a dress and make up to work for his fetish.
All he has to do is say it's not a fetish.
But we all know it is. We knew it 20 years ago and it's still true now.
But the social code has disappeared.

I quoted merely because I thought it was a good point and it inspired my following thoughts.

Most teachers in a school will be wearing gender neutral clothes. Trousers, shirts, jumpers, jackets. How they identify doesn't matter. No one needs to be using costume to indicate that they identify as a stereotype of the sex they are not. This is about the reasonable limits on self expression as it impacts on others.

It would also fit exactly with the schools guidance currently being considered. That no one should be encouraged or required to mis-sex others, that no one should be dressing in opposite sex coded clothes (gender neutral available, its not as if there's a requirement to wear own sex clothing), no using opposite sex spaces but other alternative changing and toileting facilities can be provided, no one required to enact a belief that a person has changed sex.

The job is to meet the needs of the children. Not to self express.

Applies to what though? If sex means sex and there's no secrecy clause for those already with a GRC, what does it apply to?

If we are in the position where performing a fetish in front of children is something people are unable to say is wrong we are in very deep shit indeed.

This isn't true is it?

The protected characteristic of GR in the EA applies without the GRA?

I mean we could just say that you're not allowed to bring a paraphilia to work, and if we think you have, we're going to tell you to change, or leave.

Yes. And occasionally a manager or headteacher had to point out to an employee that their clothing choice was inappropriate. One of my schoolteachers was a young woman who wore inappropriately short skirts in the classroom. Most of the boys spent more time looking at her knickers than working. It was a relief when she left the school.

It's about a proportionate response to the challenge to safeguarding. There may be differences of opinion as to what a "proportionate response" is, as we already know from the disputes about single-sex spaces.

I fully accept the mire this creates because, as PPs remark, clothes are clothes. I don't think anyone would raise an eyebrow at male teachers wearing sarongs or tunics appropriate to their culture.

We seem to have been trapped for decades by a culture of despair about paraphilias and the transgressive ability to enlist unconsenting people into facilitating them.

It would be a fascinating topic for a Citizens Assembly. Of course, that would predicate a neutral preparatory set of education materials and I am uncertain that that would happen.

@Datun yes it is.

I'm not sure why you quoted my post? I largely agree with your points. I said that I draw the line at what language people use in their private conversations which JT's article was not.

Is that tweet from today??

She's just written an article calling women who disagree with her ultras and extremists.

How is that not tone policing??

Eh?

What am I missing?

Yes Scribbling, that's what it seems to be.

She should have taken stock, instead of taking to scold with a side of DARVO.

If you repeal the GRA, the PC of GR means nothing, in effect. You're still the sex you were if sex means sex. Just means you have thoughts in your head.

Is this all about Janice Turner and the protection of her career? Is it about making clear that her politics align with the Labour Party, and kicking away anything and anybody who could make her look like the spokeswoman for right-wing women?

The insults - ultras, extremists - are just awful from her, and very deliberate. She seems to be trying to coin ultra as the new terf, which is such a damaging thing to do to less-powerful women struggling to maintain boundaries.

Is it also about Kelly Jay Keen starting a women's political party and wanting to create clear water between her politics and Janice's position as an elite journalist?

It's a very aggressive, disingenuous, damaging column. All I could think about reading it was the female prisoners who have been threatened with longer sentence for 'misgendering' the male prisoners they're trapped with.

That's because it is in the equality act.

It would need a complete rewriting.

It's not about denying Debbie H his job, it's about telling him not to wear a dress at work, because he's just told everyone it turns him on.

The man in Canada with a gigantic breasts is a case in point. That is where this leads.

It's a minefield, though, because clothes are clothes.

Personally, I think it's quite hard to legislate what clothes people wear, without reinforcing gender boundaries.

But you could definitely start with pronouns, calling a man a man, and making him use male facilities.

Historically we managed it socially, with the understanding that everyone knew what was appropriate, and applied social behaviour as a result.

Surely we already have the legal framework - namely safeguarding in schools, Working Together etc? (I know not all of it has legal obligations and other posters will be able to specify).

If we forget AGP, forget the whole trans thing, what are we left with? A man who is a teacher has published a book about what sexuallly arouses him. What does Working Together to Safeguard Children say we have to do?

I agree with repealing the GRA.

But we'd still have the Equality act.
DH would still be able to work with children.

If you believe he shouldn't be able to perform his fetish by dressing as a women around children how would this legally be achieved?