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?

Mummyschnauzer
Interestingly I just started to answer a survey linked to my experience of giving birth. A condition of participation was being a cis woman

What about trans men!?

Different family structures is a suitable topic (eg some people have a mummy and a daddy, some have a mummy, some have two daddies, some have pets). It's downright irresponsible to tell children that they might be a different sex on the inside and that they can change the outside just to better fit societal expectations.

Wow
One in ten people are gay . I don’t the stats for the rest . But it’s a fairly basic tenet of humanity .

I hope our children are more tolerant than this generation

Who is intolerant? This generation hasn't invented or discovered gay people you know.

There’s no issue whatsoever for me with kids being taught about LGB - I think all sex/sexuality based education needs to be age appropriate and delivered within appropriate contexts. But no issue at all with LGB. None.

What I have a massive issue with is the trans agenda in schools, because the groups who are advising schools are pushing:

Early medication with puberty blockers/cross sex hormones and surgery leading to infertility
Science denial
Reinforcement of gender stereotypes
Homophobia
Things like confidential disclosure which is an abusers charter

That’s a problem. Being gay isn’t.

@Bowlofbabelfish

Why does your tolerance end at T?

The science denial is with people like you where any admitting of brain differences (and therefore brain and body can be mismatched) is too much for your ideology to cope with.

Men and women are different including our brains are physically and functionally different from mid-gestation onwards. Don't blame social conditioning for this, it's millennia of evolution; the same reason our hair, eyes, hearing, smell, skin, muscles, skeletons, hormones, metabolisms, chemical makeup etc have sex-based differences.

I honestly think the reason some people here are afraid of transness is simply because it doesn't fit with their illogical 'but we're the same' fundamentalism.

highmodal Well I am a scientist, so I’m well aware of the sex based differences thanks - twenty plus years working in human development and genetics.

As I said above, this is not about being intolerant of the transexual community. It’s about the lobby groups like mermaids who go into schools and promote:

Homophobia - I dont think homophobia is OK. A young gay girl will end up gay. She’s not a straight boy. Leave her be.

Early access to puberty blockers - I don’t think that’s ok. These drugs are being used off licence and untested for gender questioning behaviour. They have irreversible side effects like cognitive damage (8-10 point IQ drop) osteoporosis, joint damage, metabolic damage etc. They are also actively contraindicated in any person with depression/anxiety etc which even the gender clinics say is almostvall their young patients. They set children on an irreversible route and 80% of kids who question gender identity end up ok with the gender they are, so these groups want to treat 100% of kids when only 20% might possibly still even be questioning their identity. I don’t think that’s OK.

They advocate confidential disclosure - that’s a disaster in safeguarding terms - I don’t think that’s OK.

They tell kids you can change sex. You can’t.

They reinforce the gender stereotypes that we are trying to break down. That there are ‘pink brains’ amd That boys who dress in a feminine way must in fact be girls.

It’s bollocks and it’s dangerous.

Trans ideology is deeply homophobic. So that’s where my tolerance stops. At the point where child safeguarding rules are being breached and kids are being taught homophobic, scientifically incorrect crap.

Where does yours end?

Oh dear highModal. I think you chose the wrong adversary to debate science with there

What’s wrong with education, empathy and understanding?

LGBT+ isn’t a contagion. Being educated about people who are LGBT+ won’t make children that way. For some who are, it might make them more confident in talking to their parents about it rather than repressing it. That can only be a good thing.

The more kids learn about all walks of life the more they’ll be prepared for adulthood and the less bigotry will exist in future generations.

Because she'll make you look pretty silly ime

I’m torn on this one. My children are all very accepting of all lifestyles. I think a session about diversity at a summer camp is great!

But, when you’re young and figuring out your identity, things like the possibility of being trans could be very confusing and should probably be handled sensitively by parents and people close to the child. Explaining that some people feel they aren’t the sex they were biologically born as and eventually transition to live as a man/woman is fine, but telling children that they can choose to change their sex is a little problematic. I don’t conform to gender stereotypes at all, and wonder if I would have declared myself to be trans as a young teenager, if this had been suggested to me.

Teaching about it is totally okay (my kids know a trans woman through me and are totally accepting), but I wouldn’t tell them that they could change sex if they wanted to...not when they’re young and impressionable and trying to make sense of themselves and the world! I actually know somebody who’s teenager recently declared that he was trans, simply because he doesn’t conform to gender norms and was looking for something, a label, to define his identity. It was short-lived and he’s now decided that actually he is just a unique individual who doesn’t conform and that this is completely fine - he doesn’t want or need a name for this.

In this situation I’d say it depends on how the information was presented, and I’d be wary that your children might have repeated it to you differently to how they received it.

@BowlofBabelFish thank you for expressing that so well. This is an issue that has become a reality with a child I care about and it's so terrifying well-chosen rational words fail me. The repercussions of telling children this lie seem abstract/nothing to a lot of people - you change your tune when you see effects on a young person.

You don't get to pick and choose just because this is the limit of your tolerance. If you think it's abominable to sweep the existence of gays and lesbians under the carpet and pretend they don't exist, you can't then argue for different rules for trangender people.

to me this is not remotely about what you opinion of the current debate is.

this is a camp for 6-11 year olds.
Since when in a camp for 6-11 year olds is it appropriate to spend a whole day dealing with sexuality?

If the day had been about relationships and hwo you might marry, and the best things to look for in a partner, that would also ahve been inappropriate.

A day on diversity is great.
Do it in an AGE APPROPRIATE way., That means do it along the lines of - we are different. Include all forms of diversity, and include in that LGBT. But it should be with a light touch. It should not at this age and in this context be about sexuality, but rather - some families have 2 dads and some two mums.

Some of these kids are 6 - SIX - they haven't a clue about who they are attracted to.

It is not school, it is not a context where the leaders have an on-going relationship with the kids and their families.

I cannot get over how age inappropriate this is.

Witchita

It was actually you I was thinking of with all your ‘not in my name’.

Not what in your name? Not critical thinking around sensitive issues to do with vulnerable children? Not protecting rights for women and girls? Not teaching children about their biology? Not teaching children about sexuality rather than gender identity?

Which one?

I want to be clear here. I am pro LGBT. People should love who they want. They should be able to identify as they want. But there needs to be a division between gender and sex. And this is what is being messed with by the trans lobby at the moment.

Everyone using the term transsexual needs to be aware that transgender groups now consider it a slur and transphobic. The official guidance on this is now being written by those under the ‘trans umberella’. These people believe that Transwomen are actually physically women and deserve access to women’s services and safe spaces, even if they have had no surgery and still have a penis.

So teaching children that you can can be the wrong sex (in a tiny minority of cases) is fine. But teaching them that you can change sex is not. That can’t happen and it is really quite sad for those with dysphoria and we should help them.

But not at the cost of creating a loophole in safeguarding so big you could float a battleship through it.

Self id gender- yes
Self id sex- no

Good to know you’ve realized you're not up to debating on FWR, so aiming for the other fish now... very telling.

Or alternatively we don't go on FWR because we've realized it's a toxic cesspool where you will be beaten with sticks and have creepy accusations thrown at you of 'not really being a woman' or 'clearly a TRA' if you don't follow the party line but rather hoped that other parts of MN weren't quite so 'special interest group'.

Honestly, I sort of wish this thread was on FWR because then I wouldn't have wasted my time commenting and you lot could all have been outraged and had 'witty and intelligent conversations about biological facts' to your heart's content.

trying

LGBT+ isn’t a contagion.

LGB is a sexual orientation. It’s innate. It’s normal, there’s nothing at all wrong with it. I’ve been a long standing ally to the LGB community and I will continue to stand up for them where I’m asked.

T is not a sexual orientation. It’s not even one ‘thing.’ The Stonewall umbrella now includes what we think of as classic ‘transsexuals’ who have gender dysphoria but also cross dressers and individuals with AGP (that’s a fetishistic sexual arousal by seeing yourself as a woman for anyone unsure.)

So T isn’t one thing. Most people are very tolerant of the small number of people with genuine gender dysphoria and want them to be able to live their lives without discrimination or harm - I certainly do.

The recent ideology pushed by this new breed of transactivists however - is massively homophobic. At the recent Pride march, lesbians were abused for stating that they are female homosexuals. Transactivists have abused lesbians for not taking ladydick. if anyone would like a google, please take a look at the cotton ceiling (or how to, as a male born person, literally break through the knicker gusset of lesbian women and make them have sex with you.) horribly, deeply homophobic.

Many of the children seen at gender clinics will just turn out to be gay. Those children should be helped to explore how they feel in a safe, age appropriate manner with no pressure, no damaging drugs, and no being placed in an irreversible path. Those children are perfect as they are. They may end up gay, they may end up straight. What they are NOT is ‘in the wrong body.’ Nobody is in the wrong body. We are not souls decanted into bodies by angels.

The push to tell children that if they are questioning gender they are the opposite sex is very wrong - it’s effectively gay conversion therapy and I do not think that’s ok.

The piggybacking of T onto LGB is a problem. The two groups do not have the same aims. The T actively opposes the LGB. I don’t think that’s OK.

The pushing of things like confidential disclosure in schools should be setting off huge alarm bells because it’s a direct contravention of every safeguarding principle there is.

Closing down people who say ‘hang on a minute, that’s against our safeguarding rules’ with cries of bigot is going to end one way only - in the usual scandal and ‘lessons learned’ and handwringing over how this could happen.

Example: the girl guides are saying that any male bodied person who identifies as a woman (guide or leader) can share sleeping and washing facilities with girls and their parents MUST NOT be told. If the girls have qualms about this, they are in the wrong.
The scouts are mixed sex and they have very strict rules about sex segregation in camps. So why are parents actively not told? Why are girls boundaries eroded like this? Why is no one saying ‘that could go very wrong.’

It’s not a nice thought to feel like we have to always be vigilant about child safety but there are people (and I’m not talking now about trans, I’m taking about predators in general) who take years to get jobs that put them in positions of access to children. Years. That gym coach in the USA who abused the gymnastics team. Countless others. Our safeguarding frameworks help to protect against such people. Eroding the safeguarding WILL cause damage.

So you can call me intolerant all you want. And when the first girl guide is pregnant or has been abused on a camp, I will take absolutely no joy whatsoever in telling you I was right. Because right now I feel I’m screaming into the void on this one.

SAFEGUARDING. It’s the most important thing. People are trying to dismantle the safeguarding framework. Please do not let them.

its seems a shame that a movement that was about who you fall in love with, has become one about how if you don't match a rigid set of stereotypes about your sex you can swap sex rather than challenge those stereotypes

I'd happily let my child join in respect, tolerance and learning about different family structures but I would certainly be questioning the biology side of things.

SAFEGUARDING. It’s the most important thing. People are trying to dismantle the safeguarding framework. Please do not let them.

This.

another thank you to Bowl.

Thank you from me too bowl for explaining it so well.

Personally I think they are too young to be learning about sexuality, especially at camp. They are easily influenced at that age, often dependant on adults round them, and trying to work out who they are.

There is enough pressure on kids these days without discussing who they might fancy or who they might be when they are older. I am certainly not against anybody or any sexual preference but simply feel that we should allow kids to be kids for the short time they have, plenty of time to be an adult.

Having been helping run scouts for a long time now the change over the years is noticeable. We seem to have an ever increasing amount of emotional problems/situations to manage and sadly that is taking over from homesickness and cut fingers. Perhaps kids are exposed to too much adult content that they are not equipped to emotionally deal with. ....

Totally agree with @bowlofbabelfish: you can't change sex. Presumably at your child's Summer Camp, they were trying to present a simplified view of LGBT for age appropriate understanding, aimed at acceptance and tolerance.

But the problem is that these current popularised & simplified teachings on trans confuse sex and gender.

And totally agree with PP who point to the homophobia of much teaching on trans. As bowl says
Homophobia - I dont think homophobia is OK. A young gay girl will end up gay. She’s not a straight boy. Leave her be

Here's what's wrong with this:

"this is not about being intolerant of the transexual community. It’s about the lobby groups like mermaids who go into schools"

This is an AIBU thread about a summer camp pride day, with zero indication that it had any influence or advice from any outside organisation.

The intolerance comes when it gets derailed by an posse of FWR posters who see the mention of trans as an opportunity to set out their stall of why they think talking about trans to children is not ok, because child abuse, flashers, sterility, conspiracy and all the other scattergun ammunition they'd can think of.

The cheerleading smugery, fawning over how intelligent their "debate" is, taunting posters who refuse to get in line. This is commonplace in FWR, which is exactly why vanishingly few people who aren't in the GC bandwagon have given up posting in there.

Threads elsewhere die when you lot pile in, and it's really fucking tiresome.

Take your intolerance back to FWR it's not welcome on AIBU. You've got your corner of the mn playground locked down. Please leave the rest of it open to being trans inclusive in tone.

What’s your definition of trans Witchita?