To be HORRIFIED that this might be taught in my daughters school

[NormaStanleyFletcher]

Have any of you come across this? Do you know if this, or other lessons have been presented to your primary (or secondary) age children?

www.transgendertrend.com/teaching-transgender-doctrine-in-schools-a-bizarre-educational-experiment/

normanstanly the link you just posted, what is that organisation doing, and is it the same or different to the list girlscout posted?

Girlscout can you link to your list, or did you compile that.

Sorry to be dim, have a cold!

They only got a one of grant of £214,048. The funding isn't on-going from what I gather and the grant was targetted at a specific project.

Same with Eddie Izzard now, he's a man, he's straight, he's in high heels, make up, has a beard, wears a pinstripe suit and nail varnish.

Last I saw he had decided he was trans...

He announced that he was a bit boy & a bit girl & it was the girly bit that was into high heels, as far as I remember. So from defying gender to perpetuating stupid stereotypes.

As for an illustration of the ridiculousness of gender, in the UK liking football implies being a boy. In the US, a boy was deemed to be a trans girl partly because of liking soccer because it's a girls' game over there...

Scootle, I see what you mean but I think that's kind of the point I was making - that any "gender identity" only exists in reference to stereotypes or expectations about male or female behaviour. There doesn't seem to be anything innate about the definition of gender identity you suggest, in fact it sounds like a child would only recognise their gender identity when they were exposed to stereotypes about how boys and girls should look or behave.

Itsallgoingtobefine - I'm a bit cross with Eddy Izzard, as he's actually breaking down stereotypes and a bit of a national treasure and then he went and ruined it all by saying he was a 'lesbian trapped in a man's body' which is not only deeply offensive to lesbians, but also NOT TRUE. He is a hetereosexual male who plays around with gender. Big deal, so what?

I can't help thinking actually men need to spend a bit more time grappling with this issue, why is that anyone who doesn't conform to 'masculine' ideals automatically gets kicked out of the man box for women to accomodate? Grayson Perry is blazing a trail talking about masculinity and what it means, I think more would be achieved if men really sat down and thought about 'what does it mean to be a man?'. LBC yesterday did a big debate on male suicide, and the professional they interviewed said, 'men consider talking about emotions to be weak, which is why men bottle it all up' - it's socially acceptable for women to 'let it all out' - given suicide is the biggest killer of men under 40, surely we should ask ourselves, what on earth is going on with men that they CANNOT talk about how they feel? To the point where killing themselves is the only alternative? Surely that's about social conditioning? Rather than saying boys who are 'emotional' must be girls, we should focus on breaking down those stereotypes imho.

I think it's really simple. There are three sexual orientations, het, gay and bi. There are two sexes, male and female. And that's it, everything else should be 'as you wish'.

We don't demand that anorexics be given liposuction and the rest of us go on a diet. I'm not belittling anorexia, it's a devastating illness, but having known several profound anorexics I can attest that they have unshakable core belief that they are 'fat'. They deserve compassion, effective treatment, understanding, help, lack of discrimination, but I can't see how it'd be helpful to their mental disorder to collude with the delusion they are fat. They're not. And as an aside, relevant to this transkid debate, having known several parents of terribly sick anorexia daughters, I couldn't help noticing how much attention those girls go, they really were brats, as everyone is tiptoeing around them lest they 'relapse'. I do wonder if some of this trans business is a bit the same, particularly given the hugely distorted stats thrown around about suicide.

Anorexia is a clumsy analogy, but just because someone fervently believes they are 'in the wrong body' doesn't mean they actually are. I accept that for some profoundly dysphoric people, medical transition, and cross sex hormones are the only way currently to help them live with any level of peace. Those people (most of whom are quietly going about their business) deserve to live free from discrimination. That is not the same as rejecting gender stereotypes.

When I did as a girl, I was a proper tomboy, at age 12 was often mistaken for a boy (short hair, jeans, polo shirts - I was horse mad and usually in wellies) and as my parents were profoundly sexist and I was extremely bright (and then, horrors, pretty in my mid teens and suddenly started getting unwanted and frightening sexual attention from men) the whole 'being a girl' thing was deeply confusing. It's worse for teen girls in particular now, why the hell wouldn't they try to escape it by identifying out of what's ahead? Seems a fairly sane response to misogyny. However, I don't think you can escape female oppression by joining the oppressor's team, I think eventually every woman with half a brain has to look that one square in the eye and make sense of it.

I don't think it therefore logically follows that we have to rewrite biology. Why is it such a big deal if boys want to be 'feminine' or girls want to be 'masculine'? Or are we saying that today, Billy Elliot was actually a girl? And me as a tomboy should have been whipped down the gender identity clinic. I am happy, proud to be a woman, and the other day I was counting up my summer dresses (I live abroad most of the year) and I have over 70 ... most of the winter I spend in jeans and wellies and polonecks as I have horses and I'm outside. Am I non binary? Pffffffft.

He announced that he was a bit boy & a bit girl & it was the girly bit that was into high heels, as far as I remember. So from defying gender to perpetuating stupid stereotypes.

Yup. (Though he did identify as transgender)

www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/03/15/watch-eddie-izzard-perfectly-explains-his-gender-while-getting-his-nails-done/

Another great post girlscout

Norma, I know that Educate and Celebrate has received government funding and that it works directly with schools; I still haven't read anywhere that the book referred to in the original link (and the subject of somewhat hysterical reporting by the Mail et al), published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers (and certainly produced in consultation with E&C), is anything other than an independent title, nor that it will be supplied to schools via the charity.

The schools list and advice can be found here as a download: www.transgendertrend.com/schools/

(I'm also deeply disappointed with Eddie Izzard, btw. His life; his choice. But 'total clothing rights' was a much better stance than 'Manly me runs marathons; girly me gets my nails done'.)

multi, they say on their site that they are preparing to launch this book into their programme. As their programme includes providing resources to schools, it sounds likely that they will be supplying this publication to schools.

www.educateandcelebrate.org/can-tell-gender-diversity/

I can't see anything about Educate & Celebrate on that page, girlScout; was that a response to me? Am I being myopic?

I love that list @GirlScout72

Thanks Knit.

Again, though, it doesn't suggest it's going to be supplied to schools; just made available for purchase (and, presumably, recommended).

This still makes the two points I raised with the publisher (imposing the term 'cisgender' on those who haven't chosen it; and claiming absolutely no harm from taking hormone blockers in adolescence) even more worrying to me

I think Girlscout means the list of ways schools can challenge gender expectations that she posted earlier.

(sorry girlScout - temporarily confused!)

No it was a reply to ItalianGreyhound who wanted to know where I got it from, Transgendertrend are gender critical professionals and parents questioning the trans educational approach in schools and their list focuses more on breaking down gender stereotypes rather than pushing the idea you are 'in the wrong body'

Thanks, GS.

Indrid

I said it shouldn't matter to other people. Which it shouldn't.

What would be the problem with a trans person who was born a boy using a woman's toilet? I'm personally in favour of unisex toilets which are open plan and just have lots of cubicles. We have these at our school and they seem to work brilliantly. Equally, changing rooms should be the same as they are at our local leisure centre - unisex with individual cubicles to get changed in.

What would be the problem? If we break down the segregation, we won't have issues. People said the same things you did 60 years ago. Do you know who they were talking about? Black people.

As for Eddie Izzard, I agree he's gone off track. I find his comments offensive to women tbh.

Why was Rachel Dolezal hammered in the press for her (offensive and ridiculous) claim she was black? If I woke up tomorrow and said, I've always been fast at running, I'm a good dancer, I like rice and peas, I'm highly sexed, and I've always fancied being a drug dealer so therefore I'm black, I'd rightly be scorned for being a racist bigot churning out deeply offensive stereotypes.

And yet when a man, born male, socialised as male with all the (unconscious) benefits of male privilege (and it does seem the most vocal and aggressive voices in this debate are late, mid life, white, MTT men) say well I've always loved nail varnish, I like frocks, and I can't read a map, we hang out the bunting and call them 'brave'. I read something yesterday where an MTT said, he'd finally know he was a woman when he had to sit down and 'pee out of his vagina' - when it was pointed out that women don't pee out of their vagina's he was genuinely baffled. I also saw on twitter another MTT talking about the fact his vagina was superior as it wasn't disgusting like ciswomen's vaginas in that it didn't stink of fish, bleed, and have horrible stuff oozing out of it. I really am utterly bemused why that kind of talk isn't seen for what it is, utter woman hating??

And it's often these creepy MTT's who seem to rallying around parents of transkids and are the ones cheering them on and 'supporting' them - people (I've seen this with my own eyes) whose own twitter bio's say 'MRA and Anti Feminist Transwoman'. If I was the mum of an 11 year old girl who decided they were really a boy, I'd be smelling a rat at that point.

I think Occam's Razor applies to this stuff, the most logical explanation is the correct one. I think it's far more logical that the wonder of evolution HAS NOT gone awry, and suddenly we've got this rash of evolutionary anomalies stuck 'in the wrong' body, and far more logical that gender is a pile of shit :-)

Or as the saying goes, when you hear the thunder of hooves think horses not zebras ...

What would be the problem? If we break down the segregation, we won't have issues. People said the same things you did 60 years ago. Do you know who they were talking about? Black people.

Are you honestly comparing racist laws that denied Black people access to facilities to women saying they feel safer if they have access to single sex toilets and changing rooms?

Kits, yes I think that's what gender identity is.

A child is either male or female they are then exposed to society's ideas of what that should mean which they will internalise and which will then affect them on some level forever.

Biological sex - really really real with real implications like will you have babies and periods.

Gender Identity (internalised) - your inward picture of what you ought to be like formed at a young age based on whether you are male (boy) or female (girl) and what you perceive that ought to entail from the world around you.

Gender (external) - how you will be treated by others depending on whether they think you are male or female

Biological sex - can never be changed

Gender identity (internal) - seems to form pretty young (3 in my house) I don't know how often it genuinely can differ from biological sex I am guessing only if a child genuinely believes themselves to be the opposite sex and or has been presented to the world as the opposite sex (didn't the founder of mermaids do this to their son?) but I don't think the possibility can be ruled out.

Gender (external) - if you can make yourself look like a member of the opposite sex and everyone thinks you are then that is how you will be treated. Of course that won't undo history or account for the behavior of family members or others who know your biological sex.

I'm personally in favour of men staying out of women's sex segregated spaces. They are not sex segregated because men are considered inferior to women, so there your analogy fails. They are segregated because it's safer and to provide women with privacy and dignity.

MrsMattBomer the trouble is (as is now being seen in Canada and USA where gender identity is now law) the trans umbrella is very wide. In the UK people have to have a GRC (gender recognition certificate) and have to have been living as the opposite sex for two years at least, have had or be scheduled to have reassignment surgery, and have to commit to living that way for the rest of their lives. Under the proposed UK change to 'gender identity' it would mean that ANY MAN, could declare himself female if he felt like it - he could cross dress on Tuesdays, and still go in the women's loo. He could not dress 'feminine' at all (google Danielle Muscato if you don't believe me), and he most definitely would not need to have had 'bottom surgery' or be living full time as the opposite sex.

This then leaves the door open to every geek, freak and pervert to claim he's a woman under gender identity law and access women's spaces.

We are already seeing the unintended consequences

ScootleHome

if you can make yourself look like a member of the opposite sex and everyone thinks you are then that is how you will be treated. Of course that won't undo history or account for the behavior of family members or others who know your biological sex.

I read a case recently of an FtT transman who was raped. She dressed as a man, and lived as a man but she was vaginally raped by a man. When the police took her statement, the poor traumatized victim apparently kept saying, 'I kept telling him I was a man, I kept telling him I was a man' ...

Being female is not an 'identity' and it's not a 'disorder' either (which is the argument I hear when trans gets conflated with intersex and chormosomal disorders) it's a lived experienced based on biological reality in a patriarchial culture which enforces and polices gendered behaviour. Women can't identify out of it. Malala did not get a bullet in the head for wanting an education because she feels or looks like a girl, but because SHE IS A GIRL.

The pro trans argument seems to counter women's fears by talking about 'equality' but if you take rape as just one example, women already have equality under the law, and rape laws have been improved to make it less traumatizing and blaming of the victim.

And yet only one in ten rapes are reported. Of which only one in ten of those make it to court, and of those only one in ten ends in a conviction. You only have to look at the Ched Evans case, and the absolute discrediting of his alleged victim as a slag, whore, bitch, etc etc etc to understand that equality is one thing and misogyny is another.

Women don't report rape, not because there isn't a justice system to support them, but because they are terrified of being judged, as female sexual behaviour is policed very differently to male sexual behaviour. Nobody asks a male rape victim what colour his underpants were or whether he'd had a couple of beers, or if he was walking late at night alone, he was 'asking for it' but this attitude is applied to women all the time.

The several detransition stories I've read, really talk about this aspect, particularly with female to male transitions, that the prospect of being a girl in our culture was so abhorrent, that they simply couldn't bear it. And lots of the MtT trans stories I've read (people who are happily trans and also have destransitioned) also talk about finding 'masculinity' repugnant.

I think intelligent discussion would focus more on WHY these kids are so keen to escape 'gender' ...