To want to know exactly what LGBT teaching in schools will entail?

[Toorahtoorahaye]

There has been lots of attention around the push to teach LGBT issues in schools - Birmingham being the flash point with many parents protesting. AIBU to have doubts about what is going to be taught and to want to know which orgs will be providing the material and exactly what this material teaches?

If sex and gender are not binary but are part of a spectrum of many different things - if being trans is just a natural and healthy part of the whole sex and gender spectrums - why are hormones and surgery required at all - why is someone trying to change their body to pass or ape another sex or gender. Surely they already fit on the sex spectrum in the place they are meant to be -,whatever that is.

if being trans is just a natural and healthy part of the whole sex and gender spectrums - why are hormones and surgery required at all - why is someone trying to change their body to pass or ape another sex or gender.

This is something that never gets an answer. If people want to present as the opposite sex, there's nothing to stop them doing that. As is taking hormones and having cosmetic surgery to better resemble the opposite sex - if adults want to do that, they can, just as with any other cosmetic surgery.

What I don't understand is why they insist that gender dysphoria isn't an illness, yet it requires medication and surgery. Are there any other non-illnesses which require similar treatment?

Jazz's story is a dystopian nightmare, a combination of experimental treatments - what I'd consider reckless doctors - and regressive stereotypes. Anyone who can contemplate Jazz's fate and not feel determined to do everything in their power to speak out against such treatment policies must have a heart of stone or - perhaps - just be gullible beyond belief. A
I've become aware that there are some very weird parents around, like those who idolise someone with the track record of the CEO of Mermaids, Susie Green.

As an adult with strong negative opinions about the transgender ideology, I find it so difficult when meeting a young person (at my workplace - a college) who asks to be called the sex other than their actual sex. Invariably the young person is also on the autistic spectrum. I feel like I'm being asked (forced?) to lie. Children are inherently honest. How strange it must feel to them. Or is language and biology just completely meaningless now?

I have told young people I think they are making the wrong choices, that they are probably lesbian (or gay) not transgender. I was told by one young woman that her dad (from a conservative Mediterranean country) found it easy to accept her as transgender than as a lesbian. It's all kinds of fucked up.

Just finished reading the thread. What stood out for me was that those defending trans ideology not once addressed the gender critical concern that transgenderism is homophobic.

I'm also shocked to see trans people's identities being questioned. Acceptance without exception is the mantra. That means if you are a convicted pedophile who transitions in jail you are valid. If you are a rapist you are valid.

As an adult with strong negative opinions about the transgender ideology, I find it so difficult when meeting a young person (at my workplace - a college) who asks to be called the sex other than their actual sex. Invariably the young person is also on the autistic spectrum. I feel like I'm being asked (forced?) to lie

Sorry, your wording wasn't completely clear, have you actually come across this scenario in your workplace? Comes across a bit hypothetical

What stood out for me was that those defending trans ideology not once addressed the gender critical concern that transgenderism is homophobic.

OK how is it homophobic? Genuine question

I have told young people I think they are making the wrong choices, that they are probably lesbian (or gay) not transgender. I was told by one young woman that her dad (from a conservative Mediterranean country) found it easy to accept her as transgender than as a lesbian.

See, I don't know where to start with this. You're not them, how could you begin to know if they were lesbian or gay instead of transgender?
If the young lady found it easier that they accepted her as transgender than a lesbian doesn't mean she was automatically one.
It's their prejudices dictating and her conforming.

At what age do they start teaching this kind of things? And can you opt out? I rather do the teaching in my own home, these are delicate issues and I rather be the one addressing them than a teacher that follows the gov. agenda.

I am all for inclusiveness and respect but thanks, I don't want my kids to think it's "normal" to take hormones when young and become someone else.

I want my kids to love their body and accept what they have been blessed with.
Treating your body like an experiment to look "similar" to the other sex? Taking hormones that can cause cancer like popcorn? Unnecessary high risk surgeries to have a penis look alike?
What is natural about it?

Respect? All of it. Every single person is our brother and sister.

Treating your body like an experiment to look "similar" to the other sex? Taking hormones that can cause cancer like popcorn? Unnecessary high risk surgeries to have a penis look alike?
What is natural about it?

Not to mention how even when it goes “as planned” it’s socially isolating for the child.
If puberty blockers are given at Tanner stage 2 of puberty, as those pushing it say it should be, then girls from as young as 8 years and boys at 9 could be starting this process.

Once started, it seems to be a train most don’t get off, which means that a 15 year old boy who has been puberty blocked will have the body of an essentially prepubescent boy. His cohort will be mentally and physically at a completely different stage and the puberty blocked boy will look like a child.

These complex hormonal decisions with sexual function, fertility, brain development, social consequences etc are made by children in primary school. And everything smiles and congratulates themselves for being so woke and inclusive.

The narrative is unwavering as well - Jazz was unhappy and ended up being homeschooled but this must have been because trans issues, not the fact that Jazz still looked like a child when peers were having growth spurts and hormonal changes.

And all of this because of liking pink and mermaids and soccer?

Roses - Stonewall supports that if a male with a beard is in relationship with another male with a beard and they both say on a Tuesday that they are women then that’s 2 lesbians in a lesbian relationship with female penises. Many lesbians have a problem with that - what do you think?

@RosesAndRaindrops - yes. I work in a college, with young people with additional needs. In the last 4 years we have had maybe 3 young women a year using male pronouns, asking others to use male pronouns, wearing chest-binders etc. They have almost all been on the autistic spectrum or similar issues. One of these young people gets violent and aggressive if 'mis-gendered.' i find it really sad tbh.

I don't see the problem in me pointing out to a young person that they may be a lesbian rather than transgender.

Oh and to add to that; the girl / young woman was wearing painful and damaging chest binders. She was talking about wanting a double mastectomy. So I think it's perfectly right for me to suggest other paths and options for her that don't involve mutilating her own body.

Some teachers are gay too.

The thing is, that despite some never being able to accept or understand those who feel they were born a woman in a man's body or a man in a woman's body, transgender people are not going to go away by pretending to children that they do not exist

If we truly embrace and respect all people then why the pretence and fear about being inclusive in our discussions when educatiing children?
As I understand it, in most countries, those who feel a disconnect to their gender are often feeling this alone, and have to travel a very long road with years of counselling and consultations before being able to consider any medical intervention
Teaching children that this is some people's reality will not lead to children suddenly wanting to change gender.

I think you need to go back and RTFT, midsummabreak, so you understand what people are objecting to . No one is pretending to children that transgender people don’t exist.

Some teachers are gay too.

And some of the folk concerned about the influence Stonewall and some other LGBT charities have in schools and with the DOE are gay and transgender or transsexual

and have to travel a very long road with years of counselling and consultations before being able to consider any medical intervention

Were you aware that actually puberty blockers are being offered at the very first stages of puberty in primary school children? So as early as 8 years for girls and 9 for boys. That’s not “years of counselling and consultations” is it?

To be honest I’d be very surprised if a child who is struggling with the way their body is changing in puberty would be offered years of counselling when you see the waiting lists for young people with actual diagnosed mental health conditions.

@Charley50 what n earth would make you feel like it was any of your business to comment on how someone was living their lives? If you think that's appropriate in a work situation then I would suggest you need to do some serious re evaluation about how much other people's lives have anything to do with you. That's absolutely unbelievable.

Teaching children that this is some people's reality will not lead to children suddenly wanting to change gender.

If you teach them it's normal and natural to change sex yes it would.

@letsghostdance - the student brought up the topic with me and wanted to discuss it. So I gently suggested that there are alternatives to surgery etc, and the belief of being 'trapped in the wrong body', and that many young people going down the trans route are actually gay. What's wrong with that? Young people are being groomed on the internet to think that they can 'change sex' and all will be great. That's a lie.

Charley50 what n earth would make you feel like it was any of your business to comment on how someone was living their lives?

If more people challenged Jazz’s pathway then maybe Jazz would've realised that there were alternative options, and not ended up castrated, sterile, no libido, no orgasms and no chance of ever having one and with surgical complications.

Maybe this is exactly what Jazz would’ve chosen but if everyone is either affirming or silent then there’s no easy way out for these children and young people.

If a teenager is mature enough to consider having their (subjectively) “wrong” healthy body parts surgically removed then surely they’re mature enough to to hear the respectively stated alternative viewpoints?

If they’re too immature and vulnerable to be challenged then surely they’re too immature and vulnerable to fully realise the implications of what they’re planning to do to their bodies?

If you teach them it's normal and natural to change sex yes it would.

What the actual fuck?
No it isn't "normal and natural" because that is flat out lying to children about biological reality.

And agreeing with children that their healthy, functioning body - the only one they have - is "wrong" and needs surgery to "fix" is the most egregious act of parental/supervisory abandonment.

We as adults have the responsibility to support our children to accept their bodies and teach them how to live their lives with that reality, in whatever outward clothing or interests they like.