transgenger book being introduced to 12 year old at school

[Molucco]

Just wanted to see what other parents think about a book called the art of been normal being introduced to all girls secondary school year 8 in English ?

Yes Lloyd I agree. My child in particular gets really frightened and you have to be careful what you say to her.

It’s not that people are being labelled bigots and transphobes. It’s that they are.

Who mentioned using details of surgical procedures or mental distress? But that said pretending mental distress or surgical procedures don’t exist isn’t that healthy. My dc knew what a tonsillectomy and c section involved st that age.They coped with babies coming out of vaginas too without a whimper.

Even transsexuals mostly don’t believe that you can actually change sex. Are they bigots too?

I think minty’s doing a father Dougal - “I’ll just open my mouth and see what comes out.”

Right.

It’s not that people are being labelled bigots and transphobes. It’s that they are

Are lesbians who don't want to have sex with 'ladydicks' bigots and transphobes too, @Happyspud? According to some they are, and they're ostracised and vilified for it.

Let me say that again: Lesbians ostracised for not wanting to have sex with penises.

They are doing Shakespeare first then persuasive writing and at the meeting the head of English mentioned right at the end of it that they would be reading a book called The art of being normal by Lisa Williamson.

She then went on to say it might be a bit controversial as it talks about sex and transgenderism .

I know there are quite a few girls in the school that say they are trans and when speaking with my daughter and others they do seem to get special treatment for example the school are very strict on uniform standards however trans students seem to be let off the hook as one parent told be there's so much stuff going on in their head , to which I though there's a lot going on in my daughters head too 😳

Having read the free bits on Amazon it seems like a very light read indeed. It’s probably some English teacher’s favourite novel of the moment. I seriously can’t believe that anyone reading will feel like it has the makings of a classic piece of literature.

Reminds me of the time when dd’s class entirely skipped the Tudors in order to do a terrible football literacy project ‘to help the boys get into reading’.

”bigots and transphobes” - who cares. I’d rather be both than a fool and a liar.

I do feel sorry for kids today having all this ishoos pap forced down them instead of decent books.

I don’t think telling a five year old they can change their body to one of the opposite sex is wise at all. It’s weird to lie so blatantly.

Minty and how do you explain to a 5 year old that they can change their body? ‘Well, darling, when your older if you decide you don’t like your breasts you can just slice them off! And they’ll you have the body of a boy, and you’ll feel much better.’

JFC. That would give DD nightmares for weeks. Hell, it’s given me nightmares for years.

Fenny could you answer some of the concerns parents have about this book, as you’ve read it and are a teacher? Can you reassure people that there’s no sexist gender stereotyping and no misleading statements that lie to children about changing sex?

And slicing off tonsils and tummies open doesn’t?

Oh yes that exactly the same as telling a child that they can change sex. Exactly the same.

I do t think anyone explains surgery in graphic terms to a five year old, or needs to, but that is not the point, as you surely must realise. It’s not a blood and guts issue. It’s about how frightening and destabilising it can be for kids, especially kids like mine, to be told that bodies can be wrong and sex can be changed. And the dishonesty too.
I’ve seen the distress these narratives caused my son. Laugh at it if you want - god alone knows what’s wrong with someone who thinks this is funny - but it happened.

MANy people probably think they don’t have quite the right body

Too fat? Look better with a tattoo? A bit short? An extra finger or Poor eyesight?

I guess there are plenty of books about those people ?

Although highlights a general question. To what extent should we be medically treating dissatisfaction with our bodies? Poor eyes = pay for , subsidised. extra fingers = nhs treatments. Too fat, or tatoos, your on your own . sexual organs?

Slicing off tonsils is a medical solution to a medical problem, or they wouldn’t do it. Nobody chooses to undergo medical procedures for any other reason than the deluded belief than slicing off breasts will make you a man, or slicing off a penis will make you a woman.
If you can’t see why this is not comparable, please don’t go scaring any 5 year old’s with your nonsense, eh?

How old do you need to be to have a tattoo?

I work in an FE College. Every transgender student we have, (and they are all FTM), is also autistic. Coincidence? Or vulnerable young people susceptible to a dangerous ideology. Oh and they are all unhappy too (e.g. mh issues).

Mh issues are at the very root of this

We have to be so careful what to say to kids. They remember everything and it does stick. I remember my mum saying things she hadn’t really thought about and to this day some of them frighten me. I won’t go into details!!

Something I consistently observe about genderists is how uninformed, uninterested and uncaring they often are about the difficulties faced by minorities in society other than trans people. I wonder why that is.

Exactly - to suggest slicing off breasts is a medical treatment equivalent to removing tonsils is utterly horrifying. Being female isn’t a disease to be treated.

(And you don’t actually need your tonsils, and your tummy is repaired after being sliced open. Breasts however are pretty important, and you don’t get to sew them back on. I find what you have posted, suggested saying to children, absolutely repugnant.)

I am amazed that such a small minority is pushing the buttons.

We have knife crime at a mad level, ageism and sexism worse than ever, highest rates of children being sexually abused at schools (unisex loos aside), social media spouting all sorts of crap that youngsters don’t seem to have the critical ability to analyse and reject, the planet is on its knees, the amazon rainforest is on fire, animal species are going extinct at the rate of knots, children are being born into slavery today whilst others don’t have enough to eat, and yet, yet we are being told that the most important thing in the history of the world is to be nice to and pretend do believe a small child who says they want to be the opposite sex (when last week they wanted to be a teapot and next week may want to be a cat).