LGBTQ talk in schools

[JaggedStone]

Named changed for this as could be outing.
We are very open with our children and explain life to them in ways they can understand and to ensure they are respectful of everyone and are always open and honest with us.
A LOT of parents have kicked up a fuss about the fact that teachers have spoken to the children today about LGBTQ but it is government mandated as compulsory so essentially the parents can not opt out of it unless they are planning to home school.
Some of the views seem quite hypocritical and some are saying they shouldn’t have these kind of talks yet.
AIBU to think that they are being unreasonable?

The erasure of young gay teens sexuality is something they’ve always had to endure in a way that straight kids never have

Which is also why TRA ideology is concerning. “You like girls? Well, that means you should accept girldick”.

@hellebore - I think usually it's fine not to distinguish between women born women and transwomen. Sometimes obviously it's necessary (women born women don't need prostate checks; transwomen often will; there is very little point in 'inclusively' inviting transwomen for cervical smears).

Does this make anyone feel entitled to anything? I'm not clear on why it should.

When you ask about 'same sex' and 'same gender' I'm not clear if you're asking about me personally or what and it's a weirdly complicated question. I wouldn't want to have sex with someone with a penis; equally, I find DP's gender identity/ gender performance is a big part of what appeals to me. So I guess it's both.

I have generally found young lesbians have as diverse views on this as any other age group. I know some who would be very happy to date transwomen and others who would not, just as I know some who would not identify as women but would identify as lesbian (which is another complicated to that definition). The vast majority of lesbians of all ages I know don't really care what other people do while calling themselves lesbians, though. The only real hard line I have come across often (which i don't like), is a fairly persistent biphobia. I definitely know lesbians who can get very, very offended if a woman who is bisexual ever calls herself a lesbian.

• for the avoidance of confusion, when I say 'a woman who is bisexual,' I mean women who use that label fairly interchangeably with lesbian - eg., saying you're 'part of the lesbian community' while in a relationship with a man. Nothing gets peoples' backs up quite like that.

Funny though, that when a girl has a crush on a boy or a boyfriend at that age no-one starts saying, it could just be a phase, maybe she’s gay and will actually grow out of this and settle down with a nice woman once she’s stopped ‘experimenting’…
True, I never got any of that.
In fact you get from school age '' ooh, is he your boyfriend?!''
Or if you have a friend who's a boy at school it's usually seen as '' cute. ''
Not people telling you it could be a phase or that you're too young to know about such things.

I will say -and then I will shut up because I should get DD to bed - the issue I have found young lesbians, and indeed not so young lesbians, bothered about is the tendency to presume if you're a bit butch you're probably trans and in denial, or you must want to be trans. I suspect it's the 2022 version of accusing lesbians of wanting to be men.

Does this make anyone feel entitled to anything? I'm not clear on why it should.

My point was though, that there are prominent transitioned males who have stated that because of the use of language, they posit that transitioned males ‘should’ be entitled to all things females are entitled to. Including the other words women use.

In particular, I am talking about Veronica Ivy/McKinnon (sacked from their academic position I believe) and Grace Lavery. Both academic and prominent transitioned male trans activists claiming that using ‘woman’ does indeed entitle them to all.

And in this case OP is talking about primary age kids being taught PHSE appropriate to their age and ‘some kids have 2 mummies or 2 daddies’ along with some kids are adopted. Some kids live with their grandparents, some kids have step brothers and sisters etc etc is pretty standard and not, IMHO, something to get outraged about.
Are the parents objecting on ‘religious’ grounds also objecting to stuff about divorce and blended families being discussed, too? I’m willing to bet they aren’t.

I suspect it's the 2022 version of accusing lesbians of wanting to be men

I think it’s related to how regressive gender stereotypes become. How girl/woman and boy/man are now aligned with social signifiers rather than sex. With a trickle down to toys/clothes/hobbies now apparently markers that a child is “trans”.

@SarahAndQuack

I will say -and then I will shut up because I should get DD to bed - the issue I have found young lesbians, and indeed not so young lesbians, bothered about is the tendency to presume if you're a bit butch you're probably trans and in denial, or you must want to be trans. I suspect it's the 2022 version of accusing lesbians of wanting to be men.

This is most concerning too. I agree.

Since when did females of the human race lose the ability to choose how they look AND the ability to tell who is male and who is female. From gait, to hands, to proportions of the face. (I may find it easier because my long vision is poor and my brain uses all aspects of a person to fill in the blanks)

I actually think humans have probably always been rubbish at telling who's male and who's female. People have successfully lived as the opposite gender all through history, at times when it was a criminal offence with serious punishments. I can't believe they'd have got away with it unless people then were just as likely to make inaccurate snap judgments based on clothes/expectations as we are today.

And in this case OP is talking about primary age kids being taught PHSE appropriate to their age and ‘some kids have 2 mummies or 2 daddies’ along with some kids are adopted. Some kids live with their grandparents, some kids have step brothers and sisters etc etc is pretty standard and not, IMHO, something to get outraged about
Exactly, there's other family set ups out there (for want of a better phrase) and they should know that it's perfectly fine and normal

It should be discussed in a non judgmental way, 3 of my grandsons ' aunt is gay so they're used to seeing her with girlfriends. Homophobia is often caused by people being scared of the" gays" because they might be targeted or even worse be targeted and receptive. If it's taught that it's normal, and not just in humans we can hopefully get rid of this attitude.

In my experience men can’t read sex as accurately but women definitely can.

Also women can pass for men far easier then the reverse, as well, so historically women joining the army/navy/becoming doctors etc by pretending to be men may well have passed under the radar. But a man presenting as a woman is clockable 99% of the time.

I might be fooled by a carefully posed and filtered photo but once they move or talk, or it’s in person, it’s blindingly obvious.

I'm not convinced it's an issue best solved by saying ok then, transwomen may not consider themselves to be women and may not use the word lesbian, is all.

I'm really not sure why you feel the need to dance around it so much. They aren't women, in any sense. So they aren't lesbians, unless you strip the word of all meaning.

@GaiusHelenMohiam

In my experience men can’t read sex as accurately but women definitely can.

Also women can pass for men far easier then the reverse, as well, so historically women joining the army/navy/becoming doctors etc by pretending to be men may well have passed under the radar. But a man presenting as a woman is clockable 99% of the time.

I might be fooled by a carefully posed and filtered photo but once they move or talk, or it’s in person, it’s blindingly obvious.

Women definitely can't read sex accurately.

It's possible women are better at it than men though, I can see that.

Even so, there have been men in the past who lived as women quite successfully, which does absolutely fascinate me.

If it's taught that it's normal, and not just in humans we can hopefully get rid of this attitude
This

I actually think humans have probably always been rubbish at telling who's male and who's female.

I think that's a fairly bizarre thing to think. You can tell who is a poster on mumsnet by their sentence construction but you find it hard to work out people's sex? Right

@Ereshkigalangcleg

I actually think humans have probably always been rubbish at telling who's male and who's female.

I think that's a fairly bizarre thing to think. You can tell who is a poster on mumsnet by their sentence construction but you find it hard to work out people's sex? Right

Why's that bizarre? MN dialect is pretty easy.

I have no idea if I find it hard to work out people's sex or not TBH - but people, in general, absolutely do get sex wrong all the time.

I disagree. There are a very small number of people who can successfully pass as the opposite sex. Maybe in a staged, filtered photo. Maybe in a head shot in a face mask.

I'm pretty sure if you saw a tweet by someone you didn't know that read 'Am I being unreasonable? MIL pearl-clutching about DD's GCSE grades' would it never for a moment cross your mind it might well be a MNer?

I know 'MIL' and 'DD' get used in a few other contexts, but in combination with the AIBU, I'm fairly sure you would automatically think 'ah, she's a MNer'.

If it's so easy to pass as the opposite sex, why don't any MTF trans people on Twitter look remotely like women apart from clothes, makeup and hair?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

I disagree. There are a very small number of people who can successfully pass as the opposite sex. Maybe in a staged, filtered photo. Maybe in a head shot in a face mask.

Maybe we're talking cross purposes - I was talking about whether people can easily tell sex casually, without particularly thinking about it, rather than whether people can if they scrutinise. I agree with you that if people are thinking really hard about someone's sex they can probably tell most of the time. But we don't do that in daily life.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

If it's so easy to pass as the opposite sex, why don't any MTF trans people on Twitter look remotely like women apart from clothes, makeup and hair?

How do you know you're not just missing the ones who do look like women?

I think maybe GC feminists do

Free reign into trans ideology doesn't tend to end well.

Oh of course, kids can’t do their own thing, and we aren’t allowed to teach them anything at school, and parents aren’t allowed to either, unless it’s the right thing apparently.

Or, we can stop being so bloody wound up about it and remember actually it doesn’t really matter in the scheme of things and our kids will be just fine.