Political correctness gone mad - parents under fire from withdrawing their child from school after male class mate wears a dress.

[ThaiRedCurry]

Ok so just catching up with my mail online news before bed. I've seen a Christian couple have withdrawn their son from school due to his male, 6 year old class mate wearing a dress to school.
They where on This Morning and have come under fire from viewers and the presenters for their decision to remove their son from the school as they don't agree with a boy wearing a dress.
I will just say I would find it a little odd but wouldn't withdraw my child from school.
I can't help but feel that if another race/religion did the same thing they wouldn't come under fire. It's as if white British folk are trying to be so politically correct we no longer can see what is ok and what isn't incase we offend some one.
I feel political correctness has gone mad 😖
I'm now going to sit and wait for Mums net abuse to roll in.

Kids have temporary feelings and say things and those feelings mostly pass. If they don't by adulthood, they can decide for themselves what to do about them.

If my daughter told me she wants to be a Muslim, I wouldn't send her to school in a full face veil. I'd just move the conversation along and probably hear nothing of it again. I wouldn't think she had gone through a spiritual transformation, she probably has just been speaking to a Muslim girl at school or something.

My son said to me he wished he was a girl. I said it is normal to feel like that but it will pass and it has. Some parents nowadays would probably have the cock and balls off before the year was out.

It is daft but I don't think it makes a difference to their child so I would not withdraw mine.

Its one thing to withdraw your child discreetly and another to start a national media campaign on the issue. They have chosen to do that so they must accept criticism. Those with opposing views have a right to express them.

Maryz

Well exactly. If a bunch of six-year-olds think they can change their sex, can you imagine conversations at home over the tea table?

And teachers being increasingly asked to respect the pronouns of 30 different kids. On different days.

I know Datun. It's hard enough as it is explaining to my extremely literal, quite possible autistic, child why the gender rules are nonsense.

Numerous studies have shown the prevalence of transgenderism to be significantly higher (in the region of 10 times higher) amongst children with autism. That worries me massively

Stats - we have no idea how the child in question was behaving, though, and given the behaviour of the parents I am not convinced they would be concerned if there was bullying involved.

As to methods of dealing with unkind behaviour, explaining that an insult isn't an insult, etc. that strays into beliefs and parenting philosophies. There will never be consensus on this. I am an atheist with grave concerns about the effects of organised religion on children but that doesn't make religious people uncaring or dangerous parents and wouldn't give my DD the right to bully a child for believing in a "made-up" god.

As to your comments on transgender people generally I agree that there will be some who take advantage in a predatory fashion and some who will conflate gendered behaviour with biological sex. But I'm not convinced that the majority of trans people feel they have to conform to gender norms, or if they do I don't think that is necessarily why they identify as trans. Plenty of "effeminate" men and "masculine" women exist without thinking they must be transgender.

I guess what concerns me is that a lot of the concern seems to follow the pattern of prejudice against other maligned groups. To be honest it's not racism or sexism it reminds me of so much as the poor. A lot of focus on how we need to save our sympathy for the "genuine" and "deserving" not the criminal or lazy (or in this case confused).

You seem to be utterly twisting my words in so many different directions I don't even know where to start with that lot.

I'm not trying to. I thought I'd engage because I think a lot of what you say sounds reasonable. My comments about the "deserving/genuine" weren't intended as a specific reference to you either but about my wider perceptions on the debate. Clearly you feel insulted, I'm sorry. That wasn't my intention.

This school is local to me, and from what I hear has been very much live and let live with it. No enforced pronouns etc, just, X wears a dress some days and others not.

I also know the family (well, the mother) and must say that I am surprised to hear that the older child also had a transexual child in their class which led to the removal of their child. It is a tiny school, the odds of that are nuts. Unless it is a well kept secret (given recent behaviour I would be surprised) as far as we were all aware child was removed because he didn't get on with classroom based learning etc. They had been talking about removing the other one for a while, so whilst the rhetoric about how much they loved the school and how sad they are makes for a more interesting story, it doesn't 100% ring true.

Sorry, just listened to interview again and it is a bit confusing, but it isn't another child in a dress but the same one.

www.iwcp.co.uk/news/Boy-in-a-dress-Isle-of-Wight-parents-to-take-on-Church-of-England-school-over-transgender-policy-316457.aspx

Fair enough - I don't think I've said anything about the genuine/undeserving element at all as that doesn't reflect my thoughts. I also haven't really discussed predatory people.

As I've said upthread I think it's a shame that the debate has been triggered by these particular parents as...well they're Daily Mail fodder, really, aren't they? It could well be that they are bigoted, it could be that their child is a bully. And that makes it harder to have the discussion about whether the school's expectations and policy were reasonable - which their own statement suggests, imo, that they weren't.

I think it's quite important to try and have this discussion without focusing too much on specific individuals on either side because in some ways I don't think it helps.

Re gender norms; I've not yet heard anyone come up with an explanation of "living as the opposite sex" or "being a girl/woman" in the context of trans identity which doesn't centre around gender stereotypes. Especially in the case of younger children where it's always about clothes and toys.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/john-lewis-gender-neutrality-trangender-children-medicalisation-lesbian-gay-education-a7946426.html?amp

Bit more reasoned article here in the Independent today.

“Being transgender is much more compatible with conservative Christian ideology than being gay or lesbian. It’s also more compatible with conservative Muslim ideology, which is why they execute gay people in Iran but pay for sex changes.”

At the moment, we’re used to hearing only one side of a nuanced and complex debate. The number of children identifying as transgender is increasing year on year, and there are many more girls who experience body dysmorphia and want to change sex than there are boys. There is compelling evidence to suggest that some of these children would, after puberty, actually come to feel secure and happy in the bodies they were born with, eradicating the need for serious medical intervention. It is irresponsible not to investigate this possibility – indeed, by not doing so we are in danger of failing children.

That's the first time I've read an article in a national newspaper where the writer actually gets it.

I wonder how much hate the author is getting online for what isn't even a particularly controversial article; there's not a hint of hate but I bet they're being labelled a transphobe.

StatisticallyChallenged

Yes, and that works against the ideology. People who raise the smallest dissent get piled on. It opens their eyes to the bullying and violence.

Maryz

I've seen a massive sea change in the last year.

Opinions are still polarised, but the understanding and implications of what it means from a woman and feminist viewpoint is now being more widely disseminated.

Before you would get, if they've got a dick they're a man and OMG that's so transphobic.

Now you get the reasons why gender and sex are not the same and why one is harmful and the other is immutable.

It has definitely had an effect. People are understanding it better. Almost all the comments that are allowed, that I can see, are gender critical.

amp.ft.com/content/99e12c68-994a-11e7-8c5c-c8d8fa6961bb

From the FT today.

It is tempting to see all this anxiety as a backlash against the huge gains women have made in the past century. Many of the arguments against initiatives to encourage girls to take science courses or get tech firms to hire morefemale engineersrest on the idea that there is such a thing as the “female brain”, or that women’s tastes and aptitudes are innately different to those of men.

It neatly removes any need to consider whether harmful stereotypes, persistent hiring bias or sexual harassment might be part of the problem, too.

After all, there is a wide spectrum of human diversity, and neuroscientists put it like this: there might be sex differences at population level, but you cannot look at any one brain and tell whether its owner was male or female.

That scientific insight has profound implications across society. No, women do not prefer to work in lower-paid sectors. They don’t gossip more. They are not worse with numbers. And girls do not all, instinctively, want to wear dresses while boys gravitate to trousers.

Open to comments but I don't subscribe so can't do so.

It let me read it the first time. I've quoted some of it. Wish I'd copied and pasted it all now.