LGBT+ at summer camp?

[TreeSqueak]

My dc are at a summer camp this week. It's a day camp run by a youth movement. The leaders are aged from 17/18 to mid-20s, the children 6-11. I can't fault the care, my dc have come home every day burbling with happiness, exhausted, loving the leaders and the activities.

Every day has a different theme. Yesterday it was LGBT+. I noticed the flags and facepaint when I dropped them off.

Dc told me last night that they had learned about every letter, what each one meant, including that you may not be the sex that you look like, how people were different and should change if they wanted to, and we should love and respect everyone, etc etc etc.

AIBU that this is not an appropriate theme for the setting?

Rainbows - are you deliberately misreading what Bowl has written? She said she'd tell her son he can't change sex. That's not an opinion, it's a fact

And back to the OP - if anyone at school started telling him he could change sex I’d be having words.
Surely making them aware of trans doesn't mean it's automatically putting ideas in their heads and making them want to be the opposite sex! That's like saying if you tell them some people are gay they're automatically going to think, ooh that sounds like a good idea. I want to be gay."
If it was described in an age appropriate way which at primary school age it will have been, I'd have no problem with that.

Again the comparison with section 28 is a false one (and much pushed on TRA websites.)

Being gay is a normal biological issues.

Telling kids they can change sex, and eroding safeguarding in schools and camps etc is not a good thing. Telling children they’re in the wrong bodies is not a good thing. Pushing children down medicalised pathways is not a good thing. Conversion therapy for gay kids is definitely not a good thing.

Not deliberately misreading, I addressed that in my follow up post that I didn't see at first where she said that.

How do you know it was done in an age appropriate way rainbows?

It doesn't hurt for kids to have some objective info

Please explain how you know that the teens and uni students delivering these sessions are being 'objective'.

(And How factually incorrect information can be considered 'objective'.)

If it was described in an age appropriate way which at primary school age it will have been, I'd have no problem with that.

The issue I have is HOW do you do that without getting bogged down in gender stereotypes?

Our school tries to teach the kids that they are not constrained by gender stereotypes. That toys are just toys, they can wear whatever, read whatever etc.

If you look at that allsorts/mermaids stuff it’s SO ridiculously gender stereotyped. There’s a pink girl barbie at one end and a GI joe at the other - BALLS TO THAT. I do t want my kids told that rubbish - that girls like only so and so and that if they don’t then maybe they are a boy. Its bollocks. Arent we trying to get away from all the pink and blue shit?

I get what you’re saying - that teaching tolerance is good, that there are loads of different ways to live and be. But school already do that.

The problem is that there isn’t a way to talk about this that doesn’t reinforce the gender stereotypes we are trying to break down.

How do you know it was done in an age appropriate way rainbows?

I don't. Just like you don't know that it wasn't either. Just when you talk about things in schools etc like this they tailor the info to their age.
Year 6 had a puberty talk here a few months ago. It'll be age appropriate but you could pull them out if you didn't want them to learn about it.

I would have wanted informed in advance of the content and agenda behind this.
Yadnbu

Wichita

Rather than selectively linking screenshots, why not let people make up their own minds. The Feminism Chat forum is right here for people to check out.

bringin

You have no way of knowing how "objective' the message from the summer camp is.

Here I am specifically referring to the information about trans, NOT about sexuality. You Section 28 comment is a red herring. A common one

Your year sixes will have been given that talk by people trained to do so and trained in safeguarding in case any questions or disclosure arose. You’d also be able to see that materials used if you asked. That’s all good, and it’s how it should be done.

What I’d want from the summer camp is confirmation that their material was delivered in accordance with good safeguarding practice and I’d want to see the material.

There are ways of making kids aware of most issues without breaching safeguarding. What’s worrying is the access some groups have to schools to put forward material that actively contradicts that safeguarding. That’s the real issue here.

It’s nothing to do with being gay, or section 28. Trans is not sexual orientation.

Wichita

How are you defining trans?

Here's how the leading charity Stonewall (trusted by Government etc etc ) defines it:

Surprising how many things come under their definition
michellelianna.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/transumbrella.jp

"You can’t just say you’ll never be a girl, to these children they are girls."

But what does that even mean?
A girl is a young female human. Literally and factually, he cannot be a girl. That doesn't mean he can't wear clothes that are coded female in our society at this point in time (all this talk of dresses? Dresses are irrelevant to sex. Why the fixation with clothes?).

Unless we are changing the definition of girl, which seems to be becoming more common. That "girl" and "woman" are social classes, and so anyone can "identify with" them, they have no basis in material / biological reality.

I have also seen it claimed that some women are trying to change the definition of girl / woman to mean female sex - from it meaning "social class that anyone can identify with" which is an incredibly bold statement and a whopping great reversal!

I have also seen it said that "female" is also a group that can contain any human who idenitifes with it.

These changes in language are important.

If girl / woman means "any human who identifies as a girl / woman" then these words can no longer be used to group the cunty half of the global population and talk about things that happen to them specifically because they are cunty.

Oh and I've seen it said as well that people are oppressed because they are "femme" - that biology has nothing to do with it.

All of this leads from the simple idea that a boy can be a girl, because he says he is.It changes the meaning of the word girl. And from that, all else flows.

Does girl mean "any human who says they are a girl" or does it mean "cunty person who is young"?

If the former, what happens with babies? Young children? And how do we describe e.g. things that are done to girls and women all over the world because they are cunty? Calling us things specific to the conversation waters down the breadth of issues and stops linking them. "Menstruators" is a different group to "uterus havers" for example. And so on and on...

Losing the language to talk about women and girls is non trivial.

" TransAn umbrella term to describe people whose gender is not the same as, or does not sit comfortably with, the sex they were assigned at birth.
Trans people may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms, including (but not limited to) transgender, transsexual, gender-queer (GQ), gender-fluid, non-binary, gender-variant, crossdresser, genderless, agender, nongender, third gender, two-spirit, bi-gender, trans man, trans woman,trans masculine, trans feminine and neutrois"

From Stonewall website. Sorry, previous link didn't work

There is nothing sinister, salacious or vulgar about LGBT

Nowt wrong with LGB. Nowt wrong with lots of T's. But I have a fucking massive issue withTrans activists and the movement behind it. Which certainly is sinister salacious and vulgar.

Not heard the last one before:

"What is Neutrois?
Neutrois is a non-binary gender identity that falls under the genderqueer or transgender umbrellas.

Definitions
There is no one definition of Neutrois, since each person that self-identifies as such experiences their gender differently. The most common ones are:

Neutral-gender
Null-gender
Neither male nor female
Genderless
Agender
Understand more about relevant concepts such as gender identity and gender expression, or familiarize yourself with commonly used terms such as transgender and genderqueer."

I know what the OP wrote which is that 'you may not be the sex that you look like'. Which is bullshit

It's also up to parents to decide about PHSE education for primary aged children.

The love and respect thing is fine. But telling young children they can actually change sex is obviously daft. I actually had to pull my kid out of a planned talk by Mermaids at her reception. Loads of the other parents also pulled their children out after researching the 'charity'. They are a pressure group, and their 'teachings' include gems such as 'everyone exists on a scale from barbie to GI joe' and telling children that the stereotypes they follow actually dictate their sex, rather than their biology

As always, safeguarding is an issue I think. It kind of scares me how willing some adults seem to be to throw out all we know about child safeguarding the second the T word is mentioned. Indeed many trans pressure groups/TRAs seem to actively want to destroy all safeguarding procedures we currently have.

As always, safeguarding is an issue I think. It kind of scares me how willing some adults seem to be to throw out all we know about child safeguarding the second the T word is mentioned.

Why would someone being "the T word" be a child safeguarding issue?

Why would someone being "the T word" be a child safeguarding issue?

I am unsure if you are misunderstanding me on purpose here, but it seems its possible. Someone being trans is not a safeguarding issue. The advice given by trans organisations is.

Not misunderstanding on purpose, was genuinely wondering how as you said child safeguarding was thrown out of the window when it came to trans.
Still not sure why the advice given by trans organisations is though.
As I don't know what they say to children.

rainbows

This may help

I'm not sure we should be telling young children they should 'love and respect' everyone either. Does that include Ian Huntley? The guy that tried to lure me and my little brother into his van when I was 7? I don't love everyone, and I didn't teach my kids to either.

Here's an idea rainbows. Why don't you read the thread as 99% of your challenges and questions have already been discussed at length

I'm not sure we should be telling young children they should 'love and respect' everyone either. Does that include Ian Huntley?

Where has anyone said that?
From what I can see they've only said that tolerance for others beliefs whether they be gay, straight, bi, trans, whatever can only be a good thing.
Not that they have to suddenly get in strange men's cars as they're supposed to love everyone.