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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be worn down (Trans related)

178 replies

WillowWept · 10/12/2017 15:09

Firstly there’ll be a few of you that say IABU for not sticking this in feminism. I make no apology: people need to know this.

The slide attached is from a CPS endorsed school training programme. It’s in schools now

The training supports any boy to access girls’ private spaces, based only on his own self-declared ‘gender identity’ and enforces the idea that to challenge this is a hate crime.

Girls are being taught to ignore their boundaries - the same ones that all parents work so hard to instil so as not to commit a crime. Putting men’s feelings before their physical safety.

We’re setting up our girls for horrific abuse I’m so tired of fighting this.

To be worn down  (Trans related)
OP posts:
CosmicCanary · 11/12/2017 11:00

Making them gender neutral just means opening up female spaces to males.

Rarely will money be spent building individual cubicals which I have no problem with if that is what would happen. It wont.

StarOnTheTopOfTheTree · 11/12/2017 11:08

My daughter buys a lot of clothes from the 'boys' section. She isn't all that fussed on kittens and sparkles or pink, and quite likes blues and reds and Star Wars.

She climbs trees and builds fires.
She bakes and cooks.
She likes coding.
She plays instruments.
She isn't interested in nail polish and looking 'pretty'.
She does like tinted lipgloss and mascara.

Already looking at that list, she is as much 'male' as she is 'female'. Except that she is just a kid, doing kid stuff.

grannytomine · 11/12/2017 11:29

Making them gender neutral doesn't just mean opening up female spaces to males, male spaces would be gender neutral as well.

I think new schools are being built with the gender neutral toilets, well some are anyway. I do think there are benefits with that which I welcome. We should aim high even if we can't get it all immediately.

Lancelottie · 11/12/2017 11:44

The percentage of children identifying as another gender is so low

And rapidly increasing, in part because of the constant drip of suggestion that it should be so.

We might as well be signposting them to anorexia websites.

Lancelottie · 11/12/2017 11:48

User, of course no one with a shred of decency wants to make life harder for a dysphoric child.

But what a lot of schools are having strongly suggested to them at the moment is that they must 'affirm' a child's choice of gender, rather than be neutral or sceptical in the slightest, because anything other than affirmation is transphobia.

StrangeLookingParasite · 11/12/2017 23:03

I just wanted to address this bit: No. I think this strawman is often wheeled out to the detriment of these discussions because no-one, absolutely no-one, whatever they are and whatever they identify as is entitled to a relationship or sex with anyone. Intimacy is not a 'right'.

Except if you're one of the TRA's saying that lesbians have to accept that some 'women' have penises - this is something I will never, never accept. So that refusing to have sex with an intact male who calls himself a 'lesbian' is transphobic.

Ugh.

VladmirsPoutine · 11/12/2017 23:22

So that refusing to have sex with an intact male who calls himself a 'lesbian' is transphobic.

Nope. And if said trans person insists then we're onto sexual harassment territory. This argument just doesn't carry. Does not wanting to have sex with an ethnic minority render someone a racist?

TRA's saying that lesbians have to accept that some 'women' have penises - this is something I will never, never accept.

I agree with this part of your statement. TRAs can bang on about it till the cows come home. Stand infront of Parliament with placards and lobby every politician going if they want. But they can't tell anyone who to have sex with. They can't force anyone to have sex with them because then they're a rapist... not an activist... a rapist.

LuluJakey1 · 11/12/2017 23:34

Trans women are not, in any sense of the word, women and trans men are not men. A man may want to be a woman, wish he was a woman, think he should have bern a woman, dress as a woman, pretend he’s a woman but he usn’t; he is a man pretending. And vice versa. It is a psychological condition in all but a tiny number of intersex cases.

I am sick of hearing that the world has to adapt because of this tiny minority. Why should millions of woman have to adapt anything about their lives for a few men who want to pretend to be women?

StrangeLookingParasite · 12/12/2017 00:13

I know that, Vlad, but an awful lot of TRA's rather loudly and forcefully don't agree.

B0033 · 12/12/2017 08:02

I'm going to be raising this query with work today - I've just started as a support worker - as I don't know how they can protect service users or employees if it will be against the law to request/require same sex carers.

SnowGlitter · 12/12/2017 12:30

I'd be curious to know what they say, B0033

Maryz · 12/12/2017 13:43

I sympathise with StarOnTheTopOfTheTree and her conversations with her son. For me it's conversations with my dd that get weird - she simply doesn't want to believe me. She (and my other children) have been brought up to recognise the rights of minority groups, they are keen on inclusivity etc. She simply doesn't see that this is different.

She's told me she refuses to discuss it any more. She deletes links I send her. She tells everyone it's my new hobby horse, and that I'm talking rubbish.

I've got through to dh (finally) with a few sport-related links.

ds has always been gender critical - thinks gender brain is ridiculous because he knows plenty of boys who are rugby players and dances, who enjoy video games and music, who like wearing nice clothes and are quite keen on a bit of tan/hair removal. As well as girls who are good at sport and maths and wear jeans and doc martens.

dd and I currently have an armed truce. But I find it very hard to not talk about it all.

ferntwist · 12/12/2017 13:46

This reply has been withdrawn

This message has been withdrawn at the poster's request

BeyondAssignation · 12/12/2017 14:09

That old "my parents got really reasonable between when I was 15 and 25, I wonder what changed" thing...!

Maryz · 12/12/2017 14:24

Yeh, but the trouble is a lot of what our parents weren't reasonable about was genuinely not ok. Many people of my parents' generation (in their 80s now) were/are anti gay rights, anti abortion, anti divorce, borderline racist, anti lots of stuff that is not acceptable 60 years on.

dd says that she will look back in horror on my attitude just as I look back in horror at some of my parents' past beliefs.

therealposieparker · 12/12/2017 14:30

My DS 14 was told there are 30 genders, by the "I got into sociology teaching because I firmly believe in social justice and my friend has a child who is two spirit" teacher and my DS9 will cover trans issues next year at school.

It's a fucking disgrace.

I've not come across a sexism is shit do what you want topic yet.

StarOnTheTopOfTheTree · 12/12/2017 15:08

Yes, I'm recognising a lot of what you say, Maryz.

It's exactly the same.

For me it's conversations with my dd that get weird - she simply doesn't want to believe me. She (and my other children) have been brought up to recognise the rights of minority groups, they are keen on inclusivity etc. She simply doesn't see that this is different.

No my son doesn't either.

She's told me she refuses to discuss it any more. She deletes links I send her. She tells everyone it's my new hobby horse, and that I'm talking rubbish.

Yep.

dd and I currently have an armed truce. But I find it very hard to not talk about it all.

Yep. Same here.

Yeh, but the trouble is a lot of what our parents weren't reasonable about was genuinely not ok. Many people of my parents' generation (in their 80s now) were/are anti gay rights, anti abortion, anti divorce, borderline racist, anti lots of stuff that is not acceptable 60 years on.

Exactly. He says it's no different to when my mum told me being gay was "disgusting" in the 1980s.

dd says that she will look back in horror on my attitude just as I look back in horror at some of my parents' past beliefs.

Yep.

Nothing to add it would seem. My experience is almost identical to yours.

Maryz · 12/12/2017 15:25

I wonder if there are a lot of us with student children who are seeing this Sad

I hate arguing with her; she's a wonderful person, I'm very proud of her, and we generally agree on almost all things political/social/controversial (excluding the state of her room,
and how much housework adult children should do in their parents' home, obviously), but this is something we can't even talk about because our views are so polarised there seems to be no middle ground at all.

StarOnTheTopOfTheTree · 12/12/2017 15:27

The thing is, I have encounted 100s, no 1000s, of chidren in my professional life. I can say that I've encountered 3 who genuinely came across as sex/gender mismatched and it was constant throughout primary school.

Everyone responded to them appropriately.

However, I have met plenty who just demonstrated preferences that were more commonly associated with the opposite sex. It is these children I am most concerned about, aside from the whole protecting female spaces argument.

I am concerned about the quiet, sensitive year 4 boy who'd prefer to do gymnastics with the girls than play football with the boys and who picks daisies and makes daisychains with the girls on the field at lunchtime. He's definitely a boy and would be quite upset at any suggestion otherwise. I'm concerned about someone suggesting to him that his interest in these things identify him as being 'in the wrong body' and that someone would pursue this on his behalf.

I'm concerned about the year 7 girl who has no interest in dresses or make up, plays rugby and hates her developing breasts because it means she's growing up and she worries that the boys who have, thus far, regarded her as an equal team mate will start to see her differently. She looks at the girls talking about which member of The Vamps they fancy and it's not a world she wants to be part of. I'm concerned that someone might suggest to her that she is, in fact, a boy in the wrong body.

Then, as they get older, they encounter new problems. The 'transgirl' still fancies girls, but none of the lesbians want to know because 'she' has a fully functioning penis and is, actually, quite happy with it and the 'transboy' still likes boys but they're not interested because 'he' doesn't have a penis. Only, under the new law, this will be a hate crime. But problem has arisen because 'she' wasn't actually a lesbian transgirl and 'he' wasn't a gay transboy after all; they were just a boy and just a girl coming to terms with growing up and understanding and establishing their own identify. And, actually, he needed to be told that it's ok for boys to not like football and to like gymnastics and picking flowers and she needed to understand that being at odds with your developing body is completely normal and that she doesn't have to give up rugby because she's a young woman now and she doesn't have to start wearing false eyelashes either.

It doesn't mean that any thing is 'wrong' with you. It's just part of growing up. It means that there isn't just one way of being a boy or just one way of being a girl. Only they will never get chance to realise it because they've been taking hormone blockers and their puberty and sexual development is fucked.

All this new law will do is tell us that the gender stereotypes that have developed over the years and that some people have fearfully stuck to are, in fact, natural law. When they are not. You can have a penis and wear eyeliner or cry at Love Actually. And you can have a vagina and drink pints and swear like a trooper. And you can be either a boy or a girl and you can do both (I do).

That is what really worries me about it.

Maryz · 12/12/2017 15:34

I had short hair, wore my brother's cast offs, enjoyed maths at school, played with boys only and was bitter about not being allowed to play rugby and soccer up until the age of 12.

I remember crying my eyes out the day my mum told me I had to wear a t-shirt in the back garden (I was about 11 I think) - all the boys were in shorts only.

I desperately wanted to be a boy for a long time. I hated my breasts, my periods, my puppy fat. I was seriously depressed in secondary school and really didn't fit in at all - excluded from parties, no group of "girlie" friends, much happier with my brothers and their friends.

I never wear makeup or jewellery or high heels.

I would have been in a right mess if I was in school now.

Maryz · 12/12/2017 15:34

And on any online "what sex is your brain" quizzes, I come up at over 90% male. I always have.

B0033 · 12/12/2017 15:37

My workplace don't have a clue about this new law. Chances are low, as far as I can see, that there will be immediate problems, but after my conversation today I am still concerned because they don't understand how it can affect both service users and employees. I will keep a close eye on this.

StarOnTheTopOfTheTree · 12/12/2017 15:38

I wonder if there are a lot of us with student children who are seeing this

Quite possibly.

I hate arguing with her; she's a wonderful person, I'm very proud of her, and we generally agree on almost all things political/social/controversial... but this is something we can't even talk about because our views are so polarised there seems to be no middle ground at all.

This absolutely. It's exactly what I'm experiencing here.

Killdora · 12/12/2017 15:58

Dd has just started primary and has asd, she’s also very much a ‘tomboy’.

I’m hoping to shield her from the madness currently surrounding her by going over a few things repeatedly, in an age appropriate way.

Mainly the clear difference between sex and gender, the fact that gender is essentially ‘made up’ and means only what people expect you to like and that’s ex can never, ever be changed.

I’ll also be making it clear that everyone deserves to be treated kindly and with respect, whatever they choose to do.

But I’ll be damned if I let this insane cult thinking take hold of her, it’s seems especially chilling that gay and disabled (mainly autistic) children are being sucked in.

Tinycitrus · 12/12/2017 16:01

Regardless of one's views about trans issues, children should not be taught pseudo-science.

This 100%

Where are the science teachers? The educational psychologists? They know that the pink/blue brain is utter nonsense. What on earth is a ‘hardwired’ brain?

Why on earth are we teaching our young people scientific ‘facts’ which are unproven?

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