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.

[Bucketsandspoons]

I'm also livid about the assumption that children with SEND aren't capable of a sense of self or expressing it. This is actually profoundly disablist.

I've taught boys and girls with severe SEND who were naturally highly feminine and drawn to nurturing and dressing up, and boys and girls who were naturally highly masculine and drawn to footballs and trains, wanted comfy trousers and trainers. Their frank questioning of gender stereotypes happened naturally and they were confused and upset by information that what they naturally liked should sometimes be trumped by whether or not it might draw negative attention in the street. They did not need their sense of self trained or manufactured for them, they were not blank slates for others to write on.

How exactly is this supposed to serve and benefit children?

[BeyondAssignation]

"were not blank slates for others to write on"

Yyyy!! 😡😡😡

[Thelilywhite]

Just wanted to say that this is being discussed on feminist chat thread and it looks like people are going to write to complain about it. Not sure if complain is a strong enough word though tbh...

[Eleanorsummer]

That's crazy!

[LangCleg]

I know a great many people get really fed up with the whole trans vs feminists stuff and just wonder why everyone can't just live and let live, but this really exemplifies why so many feminists are getting so fed up.

ALL of our official institutions are taking advice from trans organisations on writing all this stuff - the NHS, our schools, all of them.

NONE of our official institutions are taking advice from feminists on writing all this stuff - the NHS, our schools, none of them.

And this is the kind of nonsense that erupts when officialdom only listens to one side, especially if that side is advocating for a tiny minority. The vast majority of people are just boggle-eyed at the results.

[GerdaLovesLili]

Well that's the crappest thing I've read for a long time.

[Stopmakingsense]

Is anyone taking advice from child psychologists, developmental experts, teachers?

[TheGoalIsToStayOutOfTheHole]

I just...I am at the point now of saying I think this is clearly a cult. These people are coming for our children and they are deploying every mechanism of the state to do so.

It is a cult. In open view, with many many people buying into it. Its fucking scary.

There are already a disproportionate amount of 'gender question ing' kids who are autistic too. So...target more kids with SN with this bollocks? Really? Should there not be questions about how so many kids with autism are 'transgender' now instead?

[MakeMisogynyAHateCrime]

This is incredibly regressive and utterly wrong.
I'm writing to my MP, the DfE and the local schools in my area to ask where they stand on this issue.

[Stopmakingsense]

Or parents, for that matter.

Honestly it's the equivalent of handing over the writing of sex education policy to a fundamentalist Christian sect. They have every right to have their own views, but to present it as "the truth" or "scientific, settled fact"? Does no one in authority question this?

[MakeMisogynyAHateCrime]

I wonder if as a parent you could say my child doesn't understand the gender they were assigned so re:

"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."

I'll let you know when they understand it.
And play the innocent card?

Or could you withdraw them from lessons promoting such an ideology?

[Uokbing]

One of the things I read before about transing kids is that it is possible that this agenda is being pushed with the idea children being able to consent to sexual activity at a younger age. After all if they are equipped to 'consent' to such life changing decisions about their bodies, then surely they are equipped to make other decisions about their bodies (eg. Consenting to sex)

I don't know, it does sound a little far fetched and I don't know who would be behind it, but it did strike me when I read it.

[Thermostatpolice]

LangCleg

NONE of our official institutions are taking advice from feminists on writing all this stuff - the NHS, our schools, none of them.

They don't even need to listen to feminists! Try consulting scientists and doctors for a start. Not to mention the vast majority of voters, who will recognise this sort of guidance as the potentially abusive nonsense that it is.

[Abra1d]

Yup, it’s s cult. Worrying that authorities who should be more questioning are falling over backwards to pander to it.

[SuburbanRhonda]

NONE of our official institutions are taking advice from feminists on writing all this stuff - the NHS, our schools, none of them.

Try being a gender-critical feminist who works in a school! I’ve already been told by our PSHE consultant that if a pupil asks me whether a transgender boy is now a girl, I am not permitted to say no.

[Thermostatpolice]

Trans campaigning has been hijacked. I agree that it feels cultish now.

[Elendon]

My autistic son would not have complied, and this is a compliance.

Totally bonkers. (he BLOODY WELL HATED THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE)

Just to give you a flavour of his needs.

[WTAFisthisshit]

Uokbing I wouldn't be surprised if that was the aim at all! I keep saying it, it's PIE all over again. How were they stopped last time?

[KOKOagainandagain]

Back in the 90's, following research where I interviewed and did participant observation at the Beaumont society meetings in Manchester, I wrote an undergraduate dissertation where I argued that the trans movement was the 'last bastion of feminity' as I had been told off for not being feminine enough - no make up, DM's, jeans and t-shirt despite being gorgeous. This was 'wrong' because it made it harder for 'men' to 'pass'.

I am a woman but I don't know how it 'feels' unless you mean menstruation or childbirth or menopause. Or maybe the whole sexist, rapey vibe - I have experienced that - went beyond a vibe in the past but (ovbs) I am too old now...

My sons have an ASD and one of the good things is that they don't get the whole 'gender' thing either. Why would they - it's a social construct and they don't get social constructs that have no objective base. So now they have to be taught it? Is this a new social skill?

[Elendon]

My son is now doing sociology at A level and he has come to the conclusion that there should be separate safe places for trans people and that they should advocate for them, and he is very concerned that some men would hi jack the trans agenda to get at women in their own spaces.

He is fully aware of the equality act 2010.

[SparklyUnicornTractors]

Or could you withdraw them from lessons promoting such an ideology

Considering the information repeatedly given is to avoid informing parents where at all possible? Even against standard safeguarding policy? The aim is intentionally to prevent adults who don't agree from protecting their children from this crap. I've seen written information about the need to catch children young (paraphrasing) before adults can poison their minds with bigotry and outdated things like science, facts and women's rights.

I intend to ask the DfE to sign post me to the guidance on what are 'boy' activities and what are 'girl' activities, who decided this and based on what research and evidence - because obviously this can't be based on someone's personal subjective stereotypes - and how this fits with the Foundation Stage Curriculum which is about free flow play and child led choice. How exactly are the children to be restricted to the correct toys to teach them the right stereotype?

And if we're no longer allowed to respect SEND children's independence to discover, express and make decisions for themselves in their own time and way, and need to forcibly search and assess for any child we might be able to stimulate and label trans recognisable feelings from, are we going to get them all to kiss boys and then kiss girls and then 'diversify' and do a bit of swapping around too, just to make sure we identify the gay, straight and bi ones too?

It would be about as sensible.

[BelligerentGardenPixies]

Uokbing - the "child love" movement has been around for a long time with some very high up advocates. I'm not convinced that this whole movement isn't in part, a way to "weaken" legislation around consent in minors and parents legal ability to decide what happens to their children physically too.

I suspect the bulldozing of this ideology into law and society has more than one objective but I am certain they are coming after the children for one reason or another - call me a tinfoiled hat wearing terf, I don't give a shit, I am not silently offering my children (one who has a ASD) up for sacrifice to the cult of idenyity politics.

[BelligerentGardenPixies]

And for the record, my boy with ASD has identified as an elf for the last few years. I have yet to perform a banishing spell and send him back to the fairy folk though, on account of him objectively being a human boy and everything.

[KOKOagainandagain]

But aren't all elves male!!!! Gender stereotyping! You need to be re-educated.

[LangCleg]

Thermostatpolice

They don't even need to listen to feminists! Try consulting scientists and doctors for a start.

Well, quite! I am entirely unsure how random trans advocacy groups have suddenly become arbiters of everything. Expert opinion has been entirely disregarded. Opposing advocacy groups have been declared verboten as if we're all being run by Scientologists and if anyone disagrees they're declared suppressive and shunned.

We can only hope that evidence-based practice makes a comeback before too much damage is done.