To not want a stranger asking my daughter if she thinks she's a boy

[moonmaker]

Really cross about this
My daughter is at an all girls secondary
She said they had an lgbt workshop at school yesterday but it was predominantly about gender identity .
Some of the things said were :
Are you sure you're a girl ?and why do you think you're a girl ?
You have a choice , you can choose to be male
Don't worry about your religion getting in the way , you can b x religion and trans
A good percentage of you , statistically speaking , are going to be trans
Being a boy / girl is a 'feeling ' so you can change

Am very unhappy about this. Why should 12 year old girls be forced to speak with a stranger about their sexual identity and orientation ? In dds words 'it was like he was forcing us to admit we are trans' 'I had to go along with it or get a detention'
Would it be acceptable for adults to be made to speak with someone they don't know or trust about something like this ?
I believe it's dangerous telling girls they can be men if they want to . And irresponsible .
We're supposed to be telling our young women that they can do anything as women, pursue whatever interests, hobbies or career and that makes them no less a woman . Wtf is going on ?
I want to call school today and discuss this . What should I say ?

What?! Definitely ring the school for clarification on the content of this lesson.

Yanbu at all. Not one jot. Say what you’ve said here as you are spot on!

Who ran the workshop? Wht did the letter home say it was going to be about?

I would really, really go to town on this. Ask for a meeting with school- as high up as you think you'd get away with. Deputy head plus head of year maybe. Have a read on the transgender trend website and possibly print off the resource pack for schools. It sounds like the school have been brainwashed by mermaids and gone along with it unthinkingly. Idiots.

I would have been incandescent about this. A lot of transactivists are insistent that rapid onset gender dysphoria is a made up concept but if it isn't, why is there this sudden huge increase in the number of very young girls/women identifying as transgender? Anecdotally, I've seen a lot of posts here from women whose daughters' schools have several trans-identifying pupils. I've also seen comments that the number of openly gay teenagers is down. I suspect the two are not unrelated. This is really worrying as coming out as gay doesn't mean heading off to a gender clinic, taking hormones, binding breasts, being egged on to have life-changing surgery in the late teens.

I strongly support talking to children and teenagers openly about sex and sexuality, but I see a very clear difference between an approach that makes sure they know that not everybody is straight and it's OK to have different preferences, not to conform to gender stereotypes and so on, and what you've described, OP. Who led the workshop?

If you are going to talk to the school about this, you could take this with you: www.transgendertrend.com/transgender-schools-guidance/

YANBU I would be furious.

You need to go in to the school and find out what happened and point them in the direction of www.transgendertrend.com/ which has an excellent resource pack for schools. It will probably be quite useful for your conversation with the school too.

That is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible of the school and needs tackling. Especially at 12 when puberty is worrying enough for most children without some cult coming in and trying to convert them

Definitely contact the school. This is brainwashing. I'd suggest sending the school a copy of this.
www.transgendertrend.com/transgender-schools-guidance/

I’d be wary of going in complaining unless you know exactly which context these were said in. When I’ve done ‘workshop’ type things a common technique is to make slightly controversial satements in order to try to provoke discussions, especially with kids.

Apart from anything else, I really, really hope that the syllabus for Biology GCSE still makes it clear being a boy or girl is not a feeling, it's a matter of chromosomes. So the Science Department should have a view on this nonsense. I suppose it's analogous to the tension between teaching evolution in science and teaching other sorts of creation stories in RE.

This is disgraceful. And I say this as someone who is very pro trans rights.

I have a lot of positive feelings for the trans/non binary community but also feel this goes too far to be honest. There are better ways to educate young people on this issue. Like many I have a big problem with the way womanhood is being talked about - even compromised - before we have achieved gender equality. It's a real shame as we should be allies.

I’m very pro transpeople but if they really said the above statements then that’s shocking. I know not everyone will agree but I think that talking about gender as something you ‘choose’ is totally wrong and missing the point completely. In my experience trans people don’t need to be asked ‘are you sure you’re a boy/girl?’ over and over until they suddenly ‘decide’ to change because someone told them to.

Sounds like a good and thought provoking workshop. I suspect the questions were supposed to be more rhetorical, for example at that age if someone asked me how I knew I was straight it'd have made me think a lot more deeply about how people often know they're gay early.

It's inappropriate if they were actually forced to respond and engage. But if they could just sit and listen and learn I don't see an issue.

In my experience trans people don’t need to be asked ‘are you sure you’re a boy/girl?’ over and over until they suddenly ‘decide’ to change because someone told them to.

True. And non trans people won't suddenly decide they're trans and go through the stress of gender reassignment just because someone has asked them if they're sure they're not trans multiple times.

The trans agenda is all about indoctrination of children. I'm not surprised at all

This was very wrong of the school, and they need to be made aware of this.

I would be cautious how you deal with this.
You have only heard your D's version of what was said.
She may be saying it out of context or embellishing it.
They may have said statements to make the girls question and debate.
This may have been a topic that made her feel uncomfortable and so portrayed it as being said inappropriately.
Or
The workshop may have been given inappropriately.
You need to find out the facts. Have s discussion with the school but go in open minded.
This is said with hindsight as I saw many of my D's friends parents believe every word their child said and how it was said when it wasn't so. I'm also sure I believed some stuff my D said as totally correct when actually there was a different side to it.

If your child was threatened with detention for not answering a question, the school is seriously off course.

She wasn't threatened with detention for not answering
She said to me
Mum I'm pretty sure being a girl isn't a feeling and that girls are girls and boys are boys .
I said -why didn't you say that ?
She said - I can't say that Mum ! I'd end up in detention !

That sounds ridiculous. I would write that down and seek clarification from the school and their reasoning for this. I would also expect them to be clarifying what male and female is in biology or there is no hope.

When I was at school they had some loon come in to tell us that we should not become anarchists as it was ‘dangerous’ (dangers unqualified) and that if the abortion act had come in earlier many of us would not be there, all under the guise of relaying his personal experience of the dangers of glue sniffing. We all thought he was and the head looked rather embarrassed and nothing was ever said about it ever again. Our parents were not happy though.

Who was ‘he’?
What qualifications has he?

Who ran the workshop? Wht did the letter home say it was going to be about?

No idea who ran the workshop . There was no letter home .

This is so fucking irresponsible, we are grooming young lesbians to become boys. Tell girls that sex stereotypes are appalling, not a standard to measure your girlhood against. This is not education, it's a fucking recruitment drive.

Personally i am sick of hearing about this subject,i would be furious
It seems to have taken over every forum i am on,i would complain to the school