AIBU to think that this has gone way too far?

[dorade]

The Alberta Government in Canada has issued guidelines to schools that essentially allows kids to 'identify' however they want, use whichever toilet/changing room they want and play on whichever sport team they want.

I can't help feeling this is bad for girls.

(PS I'm a long time mumsnetter (2004), just have not posted for ages)

Identify was the word I was looking for. Say they have identified as male \female for a certain perood of time then they can use the facilities for that gender that may weed out people with bad motives.

Great fine.

Lets segregate facilities and sports teams by chromosome.

crazypetlady. Read the Trans Inquiry report. It goes on about how people should not have to go through the process of living as the opposite sex, or any other hurdles.

the Nebraska School Activities Association Board of Directors approved, by a vote of 6-2, a policy that allows transgender high school students to play sports according to their gender identity

With the way the American college system works, this is a horrible thing. Boys could join women's high school sports team then take scholarship places that would traditionally have gone to girls. With how competitive it is over there, then I could really see this being exploited.

Well said LuluJakey1 (again)
Some people believe the people pushing this are good people overcome with well-meaning zeal.
They are not.
They’re awful people, Bullies who are engaging in totalitarianism.

They are the new fascists

And also, you'd then have to have sex education classes that said things like, "Now, Billy, you have a penis and XY chromosomes, even though you play with Barbies and wear dresses, while Esmerelda scores the most goals in football but has ovaries and will get periods soon."

It's potentially less oppressive than the current "People who have long hair and like nail polish and are caring must be female" model.

How do you implement a policy like this with commonsense? That means using your discretion, which means possibly discriminationg against someone because in your opinion, they are not what they say they are.

It's either the law or it isn't. A Saturday girl at Primark shouldn't be in the position of deciding when/if to apply the law of the land.

I applaud you MizK.

MN is never so bigoted than on the subject of transgender issues.

As the mother of 2 teenage DS's I also resent the way people feel it is ok to insult them......like every boy is trying to attack your DD's

Dorade I obviously don't understand this properly at all. I thought we were all on a spectrum.

For Jesus sake Serin. Would you read what people are saying.

It's not about saying your sons are out to attack anyone. It's not about saying tg are going to attack anyone either. It's about ensuring the safety of single sex spaces.

Opportunistic men are a threat to women. Note I said 'opportunistic'. Let's not create opportunities for them.

As the mother of 2 teenage DS's I also resent the way people feel it is ok to insult them......like every boy is trying to attack your DD's

But it's not about people assuming a boy will attack. It's about the rights of women (particularly in this case, young girls) who also have the right to change in an environment that they feel comfortable in.

Why should 20-30 girls be made to feel uncomfortable so that one boy who identifies as female can express their "right" to get change in the changing room among these girls, when they could easily use the separate changing room that has been provided for their use and avoid upsetting a whole class of young women?

Serin,

I have a son but don't think he should be allowed to call himself a girl and use girls' changing rooms. It is not a case of saying that a particular boy or man is a threat but I'm afraid that the evidence says that men as a class are a threat to women and how are women supposed to know which ones are? 99% of all sexual offences are committed by men.

Why are spaces (changing rooms, prisons, refuges) segregated on the basis of sex? If there is a good reason, and I think there is, then allowing men to enter those spaces on the basis of self-identification makes a nonsense of those safe spaces.

So much of the anger at the way women are treated as second class citizens appears to be directed at transgender people. As they are a small minority who already so vulnerable to hatred and violence, I find this pretty shocking.

This.

At what point is the views of the child that feels uncomfortable sharing their space become as important as a child who identifies as a different gender. Safe guarding is also about children being able to speak freely, teaching young girls that their bodies is theirs and theirs alone and privacy is their right. If one child is made to feel scared/ ashamed changing in front of someone who is biologically still the different sex then they are as worthy of their voice as anyone else.

So you would be totally happy with a fully functioning adolescent male - no hormones, no surgery, who simply announces 'I am a woman' to share a changing room with adolescent girls. because that is the way it is already in places in the US and we will not be far behind.

Here's a tip for you, OP. When you find yourself responding to a comment by something that begins "So you say that..." or "So you would be happy with..." in essence you're holding up a big sign that says "I can't think up a sensible response to what the other person actually posted so I'll just make up something fictional that I can answer."

"With regard to everything else (sports, classes etc) schools shouldn't be separating children according to their sex anyway, yet I see it a lot."

Really? You think women should be playing rugby with men?
I think rugby's too dangerous anyway and there are always musclier women, but it would be even more dangerous for the average woman to be playing a contact sport against men.

It's not fictional GruntledOne. These are things that are happening.

Bluebolt, you could equally ask at what point the views of a child who feels uncomfortable sharing their space with someone of a different race become as important as those of the child who is of the different race. Is the child who feels scared or ashamed of changing in front of a black person as worthy of having their voice heard as anyone else? Or how about the child who feels uncomfortable sharing their space with another much bigger child?

And before you argue that the black person isn't posing a threat, you would have to demonstrate that a child who identifies as a girl automatically poses a threat. It's not self-evident.

It was fictional, 7Days. MizK at no point said what OP claimed she said.

Gruntled one

I don't see any anger being directed at TG people. In fact on twitter I see more venom and anger coming from transgender activists towards feminists who do not accept that a transwoman is a woman.

Just because someone does not believe that any of the following: calling yourself a woman, dressing as a woman, taking female hormones or having your penis cut off can make a man into a woman, it does not make them transphobic or amount to 'hate speech'.

I believe in respect for everyone but at the moment the rights of a larger group are being thrown under the bus to accommodate the demand of a tiny minority. By all means have separate trans changing rooms etc, no problem.

There is a transgender person in dd's year, who is FtM. His name has been changed officially. The school refuses to recognise that he is make, and will not use the new name. The name was changed 2 years ago, he has been 'living as male' for longer than that. The school are treating it as a silly phase. This si secondary. He will leave school for Uni this summer. I think in this case the school are utterly wrong.

However, he uses the girls' changing rooms and loos, as he is still female physically, and has not made any fuss about it. He does not force his transgendering down your throat, he is quiet, polite and considerate. He will presumably start using male spaces when he has had the op, some years away from that yet.

I think that there should be quite a lot of give and take, and that the onus is on the person who wants something (like using women's changing rooms) they should be prepared to prove that they actually deserve the privilege. I also think that women's spaces should be just that, and contain no balls.

I dont think this will become a wide spread policy. It just isnt going to work because its stupid and irresponsible.
Something will go wrong, someone will sue, yada yada yada.

Gruntled,

It was a question to MizK as I wanted to clarify whether when she refers to a transgender person she means someone who has had gender reassignment surgery.

Most people assume that all trans people do when in fact the percentage is remarkably small.

I can actually see a case for a gender-neutral upbringing of young kids, and I can imagine this leading that way

Re-inforcing stereotypes to the extent that displaying certain behaviours mean there must be something wrong with your body isn't a gender neutral upbringing.

I think part of the problem is the way of thinking:

a) I need to change in the male/female change rooms because it makes me feel like more of the gender I identify with, and the feelings of the people in that change room mean nothing to me as my transgenderism is more important than their right to not feel uncomfortable whilst changing.

OR

b) As a transgender person I feel uncomfortable changing in the change rooms that are not of the gender I identify with and would prefer to change elsewhere.

Option A means that their wishes override the rights of other persons not to have a person of a different sex in their change room. Option B means the person can use the additional change rooms provided for their use under this policy and no one has to feel uncomfortable.