To think the world has gone stark raving bonkers

[sleepyjane]

Sorry it's another trans one but this is a ridiculous one. I have a twelve year old dgd who has told me that a girl in her class, who identifies herself as a lesbian has now told class mates that she can't decide whether she wants to be female or male. She's given herself two names, and told everyone that when she wants to be a girl everyone has to call her Ann (made up name) and when she wants to be a boy everyone must call her Tom. She's also said that if anyone refers to her by the wrong gender then they're being "trans phobic" or whatever she calls it and as such the guilty child will get in trouble. Surely this can't happen.

Would a school really pander to this. Has anyone any advice what to say to my dgd. Surely at 12 she doesn't even know if she's a lesbian no mind the wrong gender. I don't really blame the girl for all this, she's obviously swept up in all the confusion.

@SuburbanRhonda but I think it's you who is forcing your belief on others. You don't believe gender is real, and you don't want anyone else to believe otherwise. You say you consider it lying to recognise the gender of a trans child, but your view isn't a provably correct fact. It's just your view.

The important thing is that the children are being supported in their chosen gender, genders or lack thereof

But what does “support” mean here?

IIn my (true) example upthread I am compelled to “support” a child’s chosen gender by pretending to anyone who asks that they have changed sex. That’s not support, that’s coercion.

The intersex community has been begging trans activists to stop piggybacking on their struggles and has issued statements asking them to stop. I bet they are. Because their struggles are based on differences in physiology and anatomy which they have to deal with. Whereas transgender people's struggles are based on feelings of confusion. Not that I'm unsympathetic to people with gender dysphoria. Maybe in the future when medical science has progressed we will discover clear physiological and neurological markers for people with gender dysphoria. But isn't the case at the moment. Or am I wrong?

So what you are saying is that you believe that gender is a real thing and I must believe this too. Is there any evidence for this belief, before I subscribe to it?

You say you consider it lying to recognise the gender of a trans child

No, I said it would be lying if a child asked me if “x was now a girl”, i.e. had changed sex, not gender.

Unless we can be absolutely certain that school children understand that sex and gender are not the same thing (and that will ever happen is even legislators can’t tell the difference), when you tell a child someone is now a girl, they will believe they have changed sex. That’s the lie.

Surely better to focus on the adults who are pushing the political and ideological agenda? Focussing on the vulnerable individual child or adult quietly living their life creates the 'proof' of intolerance that this powerful lobby then use to push through policies and laws that may leave girls and women unprotected. It is their agenda which deserves greater scrutiny focus.

I think its important to leave the analysis and medical treatment of children with experts such as Dr Polly Carmichael at the Tavistock Clinic. (her recent nuanced talk on Gender Dysphoria is available online). There is a considerable amount of divergence in what she describes and the more commonly heard 'truths' constantly repeated by those in the media spotlight and in positions with political influence .

Identity, sexuality and emotional well-being are incredibly complex for all children.

Actually, sometimes it is just about names and pronouns. Addressing someone the way they've asked to be addressed is basic respect. It's not pandering, there's no special treatment, no one's treading on eggshells, it's just one day they might be Sally, the other day Steve. It takes less headspace to accommodate that than it does to froth and foam at the mouth about sneaky trans folk and make a point of only ever using Steve.

As I say, flipping between Sally and Steve is about power. Not identity.

Your identity is not all about your name. How people respond to you knowing whether you are male or female differs, rightly or wrongly. Saying you are sally one day and steve the next doesn't change that relationship on a day to day basis if you work with them. The person working with you isn't going to have a different opinion based on which name you use.

You can be 'different people', in different company. You don't need to change your name for that. That's the point. This Sally / Steve business is about making a show of it. I think the phrase is 'peacocking'.

If you are trying to force others to act differently towards you by being Sally or Steve, that's about power and what its really about. But ultimately it doesn't change the sex of Sally or Steve, nor does it change the mind of Sally / Steve's colleague.

Also:

SuburbanRhonda but I think it's you who is forcing your belief on others. You don't believe gender is real, and you don't want anyone else to believe otherwise

I don’t care what other people believe. Same as I don’t care if people believe in god. It is a private thing and doesn’t affect me. It’s when they want me to believe it too that they lose my support.

Yabvvvu

Everyday being forced into having to give mental headspace to give a fuck about a work colleague’s gender just to be civil or get their name right is just odd. It's hard enough to get on with colleagues without this extra layer of confusion and worry that you might offend someone or worse be hauled off to HR for a misgendering misdemeanour. Similarly at school where a teacher or pupil gets into trouble for the wrong use of a pronoun. Being a teacher or being a pupil is hard enough already without all this.

@SuburbanRhonda being bad at explaining things doesn't make you a liar. If a child misunderstands you it's not ideal but it doesn't mean you lied to the child (unless you're suggesting that every teacher who failed to adequately explain differential fractions has lied to their class about mathematics).

Also, it's not complicated. Adults like to pretend that children won't be able to understand issues relating to gender (also to sexuality) because they want to use this imaginary confusion as an excuse for not teaching children about these issues. If you doubt your own abilities to explain, there are many resources online which will help you.

Actually, sometimes it is just about names and pronouns. Addressing someone the way they've asked to be addressed is basic respect

I have real issue with remembering people names – I don’t know if it's related to my dyslexia or just something about me though it’s a common thing within my family - but I do take huge pains to get people’s names right and I do get worried about it.

Someone having two names and having to use one day and another for another would be an issue for me -knowing who the client, manager or colleague is talking about or who produced the work/document is usually helpful as well.

Another good thread with much to absorb and ponder on.

See the transplainers are leaving after denouncing the thread as toxic though.

We just want polite and reasonable debate.

This all just sounds so stressful for pre-teens!

There needs to be an open discussion about this, here’s the link to petition asking for women to be consulted petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214118

@StandingOvulation was it polite and reasonable debate when a PP swanned in and said all trans children are narcissistic bullies?

My child being asked to believe something for which there is no evidence and which is entirely subjective sounds remarkably like a child being asked to believe in religion. I thought we all had freedom of conscience?

Believing you are 'born in the wrong body' is a quasi-religious belief.

It implies a soul.

You can not force others to share that belief.

@fascinated your child being asked to respect another's identity is not the same as your child being asked to believe something. As you'll be aware, you don't get thrown in prison for holding the belief that trans women aren't women. But you will face consequences if you discriminate against them. And while you can believe what you like, you may well be challenged by others who disagree.

So if your child says 'is X a girl now?' You can say 'X identifies themselves as a girl. I don't think this is real, and you don't have to if you don't want to, but to be respectful you should accept that she does believe that and call her by her preferred name.'

See? No one is telling you what you can or can't think. But you can (if you insist) think transgender people are delusional and still respect their rights and treat them with decency.

@SuburbanRhonda being bad at explaining things doesn't make you a liar.

I can’t quite work out if you’re being patronising or haven’t read my posts properly.

If a child asks me if her classmate who was a boy last week is now a girl (having come into school with a new name and pronouns), and I say no, x is not a girl, that is the truth and that is what I’m not permitted to say.

I’ve read Trangendertrend’s advice to schools about this, but according to our PSHE lead, that resource does not adhere to the Equality Act 2010 (), so is unacceptable.

I’d be interested to know how you’d explain it to a primary school child without making massive assumptions about their understanding of gender identity and how it differs from sex.

@RedToothBrush no it doesn't. It's entirely possible to believe that gender is an innate characteristic which doesn't always correspond with sex and have no belief whatsoever in souls or god. You're the one making a connection with religion - that certainly isn't everyone's view.

Ugh hmm I'm happy to support whatever choices people make but this insistence on the world revolving around them is utterly bizarre and they need help for their sense of self importance alone.

IN fairness this is exactly what we should expect from 12 year olds. It's upsetting that we are getting itfrom 40 year olds though yes.

X identifies themselves as a girl

What, you’d say this with absolutely no explanation of what “identifies themselves as a girl” means? How does that qualify as an explanation?

@Derxa

You're exactly right, you can't see transgenderism in the brain, in exactly the same way you can't see depression or anorexia in the brain, you just have to believe what people are telling you.

I think what worries me about the 12 yr old I know is that she then wanted to be a he and now wants to be an 'it' (not my term).
This is obviously an important sensitive and fairly private process for the child and should be considered by family/close circle/ poss GP.
But to make a big issue of it at school (another child getting it wrong is at risk of 'hate bullying' which it could be but it could also just be confusion / forgetting) and to politicise it worries me as I am not sure how helpful that is for that child?

@SuburbanRhonda how about this:

'Being a boy or a girl isn't just about body parts. It's about how you feel inside. Sometimes a person can have boy body parts, but inside the feeling is that they are a girl. When that happens, the person might want to live as a girl and be treated as a girl. If so, you should use the name they choose and call them a girl. That way, it shows you understand who they are inside.'

Obviously this is intended for young children and therefore hugely simplified.

Children are generally much more open and understanding than adults because they don't have such fixed concepts of how things are.