To think this breath-takingly ill-thought-out, regressive, sexist nonsense and is a real danger to children with special needs?

[Betty185]

This is guidance from an NHS organisation in Scotland:

www.centralsexualhealth.org/media/8009/guidance-for-schools-trans-gender-variance.pdf

I draw your attention in particular to page 14 on children with additional support needs:

Please note: by age 2 or 3, a child starts to develop a sense of being a male or female. Some children with a learning disability/additional support needs, however, may not develop gender awareness at the same age and stage as their peers. It is important that children with ASN are actively taught gender identity so that they understand the gender assigned to them at birth.

Conversely, this often requires blatant ‘boy/girl’ activities. However, once a child understands the gender assigned to them at birth, teaching and practice can diversify to include non-stereotypical approaches and allow the child to explore their True Gender identity.

So essentially two and three year olds with special needs should be engaged in activities based on sexist stereotypes until they understand what boys do (play with trainsets, rough-and-tumble games?) and what girls do (dress as pink princesses and play with dolls?). Once they understand what a girl is and what a boy is (circa about the 1950s), they can be encouraged to explore whether they really are a girl or a boy. If they don't fit nicely in with the stereotypes of their sex, they'll be on a path to social transition, puberty blockers, hormones and surgery.

[BeyondAssignation]

Yy unplug

[Albadross]

I cannot cope with any more of this. It's beyond fucked up.

[CaoNiMa]

This is what we've been afraid of. This is why there are "so many trans threads on MN".

[KnitFastDieWarm]

Utterly terrifying and being accepted without question as we speak in the name of progression.

Soon, by law, anyone will be able to identify themselves as any gender they wish, just by saying that they are that gender. So my Dh would literally be able to walk into a women's refuge, say 'I'm a woman' and the women there would have to accept him in their space. This is the real world result of this 'gender is an undefinable feeling' narrative that the article in the OP discusses.
Fortunately my DH isn't a sex offender. But this could make it very, very easy for people with nefarious intentions to access vulnerable woman and girls. And sadly it does nothing to actually advance or safeguard the rights of genuine trans people, who deserve to live safe harassment free lives just as we all do.

The new Gender recognition act will be debated in 2018 - this is actually going to become law. I'd urge anyone who hasn't already researched this to do so immediately, it's scary and eye opening and has completely switched my views from 'live and let live' to 'this is a serious risk to women and girls and a step backwards for true equality'

[Maryz]

I simply don't understand it.

If there were guidelines for schools not referring to transgender children, that included the words "gender ... rules ... dictate ... clothes, activities and behaviours" all hell would break loose.

Schools no longer limit children's activities by gender (or sex), do they? Most schools have trousers for girls (personally I think they should let boys wear skirts if they like, who cares?), certainly schools wouldn't excuse behaviour by saying "oh, never mind, girls can be bitchy" or "let the boys have more time outside, we all knows boys are more active".

It's just wrong. Yet here, it's approved, and schools should be following it [baffled]

[Datun]

Right, all you gender nonconforming kids. We are going to force you to conform.

After a programne of enforcement, if you still don’t conform, we can operate on you.

[KnitFastDieWarm]

I think if I was a teenager now I'd be convinced I was trans. I'm not - I a bisexual woman who likes some 'feminine' and some 'masculine' things. I have friends who have transitioned as adults, able to make adult decisions, and they are much happier now - but the key point is that a) they made these journeys as competent adults and b) their dysphoria went far, far deeper than just not fitting into a gender stereotype. I obviously am in full support and sympathy with genuine trans individuals. But the current narrative worries me - I was an awkward teenager who didn't fit the 'pretty girl' stereotype. I'm so bloody glad I'm not a teenager now, I'd probably be pigeonholed into being a transman when in fact I'm just a woman in my own right, with my own personality and nuances that have NOTHING TO DO with my chromosomes. The fact that people still conflate sex and gender infuriates and frightens me.

[madwoman1ntheatt1c]

Given that this leaflet is published to guide schools into supporting trans children, it does not actually constitute primary guidance for children with ASN (it merely mentions them in passing as a subset of trans children that may need slightly different 'gender variant' support.) I don't think it's remotely surprising that a leaflet designed for schools about trans children has bizarre ideas about the necessity of learning gender...

it's interesting though - a lot of the stuff about demolishing gender stereotypes and avoiding gender expectations in an educational setting is fine. It's pretty much what any feminist would want. It's telling though that the over-arching expectation from a pro-trans ideology is that everyone should absolutely understand the expectations based on gender FIRST. Then decide if they want to be 'gender variant'. Whereas I'd be up for just smashing the whole lot of stupid gender based expectations right from the start.

I don't see this as particularly concerning for kids with AN though - it's just the trans lobby trying to include them in their own ideology (which is that you must be completely cognizant with gender stereotyping).

A leaflet about supporting trans kids isn't a primary source for directing how educational settings educate kids with AN. I'd be concerned if this stuff was in leaflets about how to educate kids with AN (maybe they have a tiny little paragraph about gender variant kids as a sop to inclusion too.)

[MyWhatICallNameChange]

So my DS has SEN, and when he was young I bought all his toys based on his sensory needs as he didn't play with toys in an imaginary way. So no garages and tools and cars for him. But also no dolls, pushchairs etc either.
It was all flashing lights, repetitive noises and trampolines.

I have no idea when he became aware of us gender, I didn't really give a toss as there were other things I was concentrating on like getting him a statement, ensuring he got into the right school, had the right support etc!

Lots of boys with autism have sensory issues around having their hair cut so have long hair. Or does this mean that actually they are girls? Because that's the way this ridiculousness is going.

[unplugmefromthematrix]

Shit Datun. I think you are onto something. Is this programme of teaching gender oles going to be started on special needs children, then rolled out to other children...is that the real goal here?

To allow the teaching and re-entrenchment of specific gender roles to become a thing - to make sexism become part of the curriculum?

[unplugmefromthematrix]

then sterilise those who cannot be brainwashed into believing in gender stereotyping?

[Bucketsandspoons]

The incoherence of all this is shocking. The early stages of the document talk about being gender critical with children - does a man have to have short hair for example. And yet you then get this staggeringly regressive bullshit crap of 'teach disabled children their gender - whatever the actual fuck gender is anyway - by appallingly segregated sexist stereotypes'. Oh and that's so having taught that you can then teach thinking about it in other ways. Because of course pre verbal and non verbal and learning disabled children with SEND will all completely get that and not be confused about it at all.

I also notice several mentions that admit sex and gender are not the same thing right alongside conflating the two as one and the same.

I will be taking this to the Preschool Alliance, the teaching Unions and anyone else I can think of.

[Datun]

To allow the teaching and re-entrenchment of specific gender roles to become a thing - to make sexism become part of the curriculum?

Whether that is the aim not, that is definitely the result. And it’s a result that many people find reassuring. Let’s go back to the 1950s. Get back in your box.

In terms of kids on the spectrum. I have no experience of this.

But I did read a woman telling me that both she and her husband and some (or all) of her children were on the spectrum.

She said, that in her house, pronouns get bandied about and mixed up because they don’t mean much. (I sort of assumed it was the same way that I might call someone and go through DH, DS, the dog and finally get the name right.)

She went on that roles were simply roles, they weren’t designated male or female.

And whereas, I understand, that that can be tricky in terms of society, what I loved was that this is how society should be.

They didn’t notice gender, the concept, nor the behaviour. Society made them notice it.

So I understand, how, within this framework, we need these labels. What I am desperately hoping can happen is that the labels become unnecessary.

Tackle the problem. Not the symptom.

Transgenderism not only tackles merely the symptom, it turns the symptom into the solution to the problem!

Its arse about face.

[Basseting]

Well, Govts DO have a history of 'trialling' such crap with small demographics then rolling it out (or not if the Supreme Court can stop them).

[Bucketsandspoons]

I'd point out too the massive, massive majority of the workforce for early years and special educational provisions are women, most of whom will be at work in trousers, without makeup, with short hair, with low heels and sensible shoes, all not performing femininity .

Fgs most teachers and early years staff are passionate about reducing sexist stereotypes for their children.

[unplugmefromthematrix]

And also we have the first robot citizen - supposedly a female - made a citizen of Saudi Arabia, who has now decided that 'she' wants a family and says that "family is important".

So not only is it concerning that an artificial intelligence (with no emotions, but thankfully not consciousness, so learns based on feedback from other humans) now apparently wants to procreate, but what will having a family look like for that robot - will it be able to do potentially useful computer things like crunch numbers, or will it decide that actually it wants to stay home and be a perfect mother and wife. (not that being a SAHM or dad is a problem for me or in any way a lesser role) but you know this is a Saudi robot... and the robot has more rights than Saudi women do.

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/42122742/sophia-the-robot-wants-a-baby-and-says-family-is-really-important]

So when you put this together with this thread, (and the invention of female sex-bots) is it really going too far to say that women are at risk of being erased and replaced if we don't conform - or maybe even if we do?

Last year I think I would have thought I was paranoid, but now, after reading the leaflet the OP linked to.. paranoid? Nope, not even slightly

[unplugmefromthematrix]

So again as Datun and others have said... where is this going? Who is doing this? Who benefits? I am going to 'follow the money'....

Maybe it is a two-fold campaign - support the trans agenda with the ultimate aim of rolling out early years gender training for children in school, and to trans non-conformers, AND to peak-trans the adult population but instead of having the aim of blowing gender apart, the aim is to send women back to their place in the home, being financially dependent...... but why?

Perhaps because the rise of robots is getting imminent and virtually guaranteed to take so many jobs worldwide that there will only be enough jobs for half the workers employed today and when it comes to the cut those human workers still employed should/ will be men... maybe this whole thing is an attempt to answer to what will we do when robots take our jobs.. and they distract us with willy waving Trump and N Korea.

Maybe I will write a film.. it sounds like science fiction but maybe it isn't.

If you think I am nuts, feel free to ignore! But I am putting it all out there because so much is happening that once seemed inconceivable, that I am not even embarrassed about being perceived as bonkers or paranoid!!!

[Datun]

unplugmefromthematrix

Whilst I don’t disagree that the rise of the robot is regressive and worrying, particularly sex robots, i’m not convinced this is the motivating force, in this particular case.

I believe it’s plain old common or garden misogyny.

[Bucketsandspoons]

Considering this is the government that blundered into Brexit, I'm increasingly thinking this is just pure stupidity.

[ALittleBitOfButter]

This is shocking. I genuinely think it's grooming SN children as trans recruits. Trans activists genuinely believe non conforming behaviour must be transed.

Children they argue should be given pubrrty blockers to give them time. Yet almost 100% of puberty blocked children transition. Whete is the choice?

In summary, all gender non conforming children should be sterilised.

[unplugmefromthematrix]

Yep, it is sadly a motivating enough factor on its own :(

I wondered about the convergence of misogyny and captialism I suppose - all those narcissistic bankers and company directors who are furiously angry at their mothers/ nannies who wounded them somehow or who failed to protect them from abusive males (unfair of course because the women were likely abused by the males too) or mother who sent them away to school as is commnoly associated with upper middle class males sent away to boarding school.

So many women on MN have a good knowledge of and well founded fear of the narcissistic male (and female) but the connection isn't necessarily made to people outside of ordinary life to those in power who display the same attitudes and motivations or connected with feminism on MN that I have seen.

Narcissists/ people with NPD have a deep seated problem with disruption to their fundamental identity which may or may not be dissimilar to some causes of body dysmorphia/ identity disorders. Couple this with the idea that sometimes damaged people become what they hate and I was wondering if some of this rage and somewhat childlike demanding behaviour we see from some TRAs could be a narcisstic rage.

My apologies if this already is a thing in feminist thinking/ MN and I am ignorant of it.

Just musing some things I have learned from MN. Sorry if this derails. I will stop now.

[HermioneWeasley]

Could a charity or disability rights group challenge this? The implications for ASD children are horrifying.

[unplugmefromthematrix]

Don't forget that Brexit also means no oversight from the European Court of Human Rights. They might have been the ones to force the govt to stop making primogeniture and exception from the Equality Act as well as provide extra protections for the disabled etc.

I think the focus is on the money, but it is also about sovereignty and control.

[Basseting]

Well this is NHS Scotland. Scotland overwhelmingly voted against Brexit. And the SNP is vocally antiBrexit. But the Scottish Govt can do 'stooopid' too. On page 5 it talks about GIRFEC ('getting it right for every child') the umbrella policy which is about as ill thought out as the specific policy being discussed here, so this development doesn't surprise me at all. The reason I have been banging on about the NP thing is that Parents will have no rights / say in this under the NP scheme, if it continues to be rolled out (only temporarily stopped by the Supreme Court). It is very frightening.