To Say Well Done Suella Braverman.

[AnonIsUsuallyAWoman]

Of course I'm not and I'm going to applaud her. Well Done and Thank You! Brava!

More that this is a live issue in society that the average person hasn't given a lot of consideration to yet and is therefore persuadable one way or the other.

There's a lot of ill-temper on both sides, but one side - yours - and not just here but across the Internet - has decided not to explain why you're right, deciding instead to go for crunching ad hominems and smears.

People like you make it impossible for people to discuss the issues without getting accused of bad faith. In the meantime I see your opposition actually getting their points across, not just to me, not just in this thread, but everywhere.

I apologize for my uncomplimentary post earlier - you did in fact come back - but I suggest you need to have a hard think about what you're trying to achieve here.

So overthewine can go round attacking Jott, but it's Jott that's making it impossible to discuss the issues? I don't think so. I've reported the personal attack on Jott so hopefully it'll get deleted shortly.

What is clear is that it's absolutely impossible to have a mature debate around any aspect of this issue. You have to be all in on one side or the other. You can't support gender questioning children being treated with respect at school, or adjustments being made for autistic children like being called a different name or pronoun otherwise you'll be accused of wanting surgical intervention for all GNC children. No matter how much i state im a gender critical feminist (ie i want to see gender stereotypes gone) it's apparently not ok to consider myself that unless i toe the line and think exactly as everyone else does.

Where's the nuance? Its a huge grey area but Mumsnet is very much "No debate". If you dare to suggest that maybe some things aren't that big of a deal (like birthrights saying "women and birthing people- that was the thread that converted me away from a flag waving member of FWR) you get all of the usual cut and paste arguments, and words which have been overused so much they've lost all meaning (DARVO and cognitive dissonance for two).

Anyone who wants to post to discuss the issues from any alternative viewpoint is leapt on immediately and insulted (as per overthewines post) attacked until they're battered into submission and they lose interest because there's no good faith discussion to be had here. Then those people congratulate themselves on having won the argument. No, you're just a zealot and it's tiresome to engage. I've reported so much genuine transphobia on Mumsnet this week, which has been deleted, and that's after not engaging with this subject for months - i dip a toe back in and immediately see all the transphobia (which FWR loves to pretend doesn't exist - because it gets deleted, allowing you to pretend there are no transphobes and homophobes among your number) That's why you never see a conclusion to a debate. Anyone with a dissenting viewpoint is hounded off the thread.

I already know people will say "but that's what TRAs do!" I know that. But you do it too. But I'm not engaging with TRAs, i don't represent them, i don't agree with pretty much anything they say.

I am just not comfortable with seeing people who say they're feminists yelling "thank God for suella!" As if she's a champion of women's rights. She's voted against all of us. She's no friend to women or gay people. Perhaps if you are agreeing with someone like that, you should step back and focus on what the big stuff is, and stay away from criticising children. But again it seems it's not ok to point that out because that means you're here in bad faith. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a TRA or posting in bad faith.

Why would anyone replace trans with gay? No comparison whatsoever. Gay boys or girls are not invading anyone else's space. And sex is a protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

Her wording of how schools should handle issues around gender identity read like a direct callback to Section 28 which stated it was illegal to "intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" and told schools that they must not "promote the teaching of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship". The main argument in favour of Section 28 was that it was necessary in order to protect vulnerable children from being indoctrinated into homosexuality by predatory gay people and prevent them having homosexuality "thrust upon them". The Conservatives claimed that Labour wanted pro-homosexual literature taught in schools, that they were in favour of pushing children into being gay, and that they were encouraging them to declare themselves as homosexual by promoting this as an acceptable lifestyle.

This is where the comparison to Section 28 comes from, the article contains the same rhetoric of othering one group of people ostensibly to protect vulnerable children when really it's just political posturing and an opportunity to appeal to a particular mindset.

I don’t agree with this take.

The reason I’m interested and talk about these issues is because women and girls are impacted when their rights are not protected.

I’m very glad the trend is now moving towards acknowledging this.

I’m not completely aligned with Braverman’s comments a) because girls having access to a different uniform eg trousers or ties or not (a recent change in my dc school) is a good thing and gives choice. But I will say the girls that choose this are just wearing an expanded uniform it is not always related to gender change in any way. I don’t know if skirts are available to boys but about half of the girls choose the new uniform I haven’t seen any boys but maybe there are.

I can also see the why the pp says my dc can now access academics due to pronoun use and feeling safer. Accessing learning for whatever reason is generally something parents want to protect.

On the flip side I also understand the safeguarding concerns from pp re autistic children, again most parents have an understandable drive to safeguard in any situation that applies.

Overall I don’t accept the idea this is the same but I do accept there are complexities and chikdrrn’s needs should be assessed and come first. I’m not sure what the answer is but listening to why people say what they do seems a good starting point.

You can't support gender questioning children being treated with respect at school, or adjustments being made for autistic children like being called a different name or pronoun otherwise you'll be accused of wanting surgical intervention for all GNC children. No matter how much i state im a gender critical feminist (ie i want to see gender stereotypes gone) it's apparently not ok to consider myself that unless i toe the line and think exactly as everyone else does.

As the parent of an autistic daughter who is gender non conforming I've tried several times to have a nuanced debate on this thread and my questions have been ignored.

I have asked why it is kind to tell my daughter she is a boy rather than there is no wrong way to be a girl?

i have asked how this will help her issues that mean that she was gender non conforming in the first place which are sensory processing disorder and social communication issues, both fairly normal autistic traits?

I have asked how identifying as a boy will help her in the long run when she will still experience sexism as identifying as a man doesn't remove sexism?

I have asked how, once I have been kind, and told a lie I can then 'kindly' draw back if she seeks medical interventions in the future which have been enabled by this lie? She has social communication issues, and is vulnerable and I believe it would be utterly cruel to start a process by using preferred pronouns but not ultimately support medicalisation

These are not unreasonable questions. If you were really as interested in a debate as you make out you would at least attempt to answer them.

@Badqueen well said.

Posters would do well also to remember that there are people here, and elsewhere, with skin in this game and when hateful language is used that's them or their loved one you're taking about.

My child is working through some gender identity issues, they don't want to change pronouns yet but if they did then they should be allowed to use them if it helps them as part of that process of working out who they are. A post on here a while ago talked about growing up involving going through several rough drafts and practice versions of yourself, like trying on metaphorical different outfits until you start to put together your final draft of the adult-you by keeping what fit you and discarding what didn't. If, in one of those drafts, my child wanted to be known by their chosen name or their chosen pronoun then how does that harm anyone? As a PP said, the vast majority of children experimenting with pronouns and chosen names will not then go on to transition but they should have the freedom to do it as part of figuring it all out and schools should be supportive of that - it is entirely possible to support without encouraging but telling schools to shut down any "pandering" and that they do not have to discuss the issue removes that opportunity to help the child. Ignoring it will not make it go away and would more than likely have the opposite effect of pushing vulnerable young people towards the more extremist TRA groups and MRA groups.

Assigned? Do you think there’s a sorting hat involved here, or some sort of committee deciding which sex each child is?

Sex is observed and recorded, not assigned.

At one of my DC school pupils are offered the use of a private changing space and the accessible toilet, this is available to all pupils if needed (for example, a child with sensory issues who finds the shared facilties challenging is also allowed access to them).

Absolutely this.

"Assigned at birth" is anti-scientific nonsense.

Sex is clearly not assigned at birth, as anyone who has seen their child's genitals at the 20 week scan should know.

So what exactly do they think is being "assigned at birth"?

Gender?

What the fuck does that even mean?

"Oh, it's got a penis, I'm assigning it to the "favourite colour will be blue and will be interested in football" category."

What a load of sexist nonsense.

OK. I’m not clear what that has to do with sex being observed rather than assigned though.

I find it concerning that this language would be used in schools (as the poster states they are a teacher)

Was responding to

It's based on complete misinformation, there are trans pupils in the school I teach and I have never heard of a person assigned male at birth sharing facilities with people assigned female at birth.

And of course in many cases we’ve had tests done very early on to screen for certain conditions, and these show the sex too.

Pretending a person with gender dysphoria has been assigned a sex is anti-scientific ignorance.

I wonder if we’ll now get the equally disingenuous “but what about DSDs.”

I find it concerning that this language would be used in schools (as the poster states they are a teacher)

@MarshaBradyo not embedding the quote anymore as it is getting a bit too long.

This is one of my main bugbears with the transing of children, and I think teachers are absolutely complicit in this when they use nonsense phrases such as "assigned at birth".

Gender identity is pseudoscience, invented by adults working in the gender studies departments of American universities, whose pay cheques depend on the answer to the question, "what is a woman?" being more complicated than "an adult human female".

It is not something that children should be troubled by or burdened with.

When I was a little girl, I understood that the difference between boys and girls is that boys have willies and girls don't.

If the difference between boys and girls is in their differently sexed anatomy, obviously they cannot choose which one they are and they cannot transition from one to the other. It's not scientifically possible. If a child believes that this is the difference between boys and girls then they either understand that transitioning is not actually possible, or they are going to grow up believing something which is completely and utterly wrong.

If the difference between boys and girls is not in their differently sexed anatomy, but something else, what is it? Girls play with Barbies and boys play with Lego? If you're a boy and you like Barbies you're really a girl and need puberty blockers? That's unbelievably regressive and harmful.

By teaching about gender and gender identity as though these are actually real things which define whether you are a boy/girl/man/woman, and downplaying the material reality of biological sex, teachers are contributing to mass confusion in young children.

Just let kids be kids, ffs.

No, a boy cannot become a girl and a girl cannot become a boy. But who cares? Both can wear whatever clothes and play with whatever toys they like.

Posters would do well also to remember that there are people here, and elsewhere, with skin in this game and when hateful language is used that's them or their loved one you're taking about.

But what is 'hateful language'? What is transphobia?

The problem is that every child really has a skin in this game, girls in school will be impacted by boys who identify as girls entering their bathrooms or bathrooms being gender neutral. Girls in school will be impacted by boys wanting to enter their girls sporting teams.

Girls are growing up with less rights than we grew up with because of the conflict between trans rights and women's rights which we can't talk about because transphobia.

The impact of girls transitioning will also have an impact on others, there is social contagion which we mustn't talk about because transphobia and the issues for autistic girls which I have tried to discuss in detail but everyone who is pro the social transition of children is ignoring. I am sure that boys would rather that their single sex spaces remain so as well.

It seems to me that any questioning of the impact of socially transitioning children, either on the child, or on others that the child will share spaces with is deemed hateful and transphobic.

That helps no one in the long run.

Whatever your personal views on Suella the Interim Cass report is clear that social transitioning of children is not a neutral act AND that a disproportionate number of autistic girls are transitioning. Is the Cass Report Transphobic and hateful?

The problem is that every child really has a skin in this game, girls in school will be impacted by boys who identify as girls entering their bathrooms or bathrooms being gender neutral. Girls in school will be impacted by boys wanting to enter their girls sporting teams.

This x 100.

The message that kids are getting is that regular "cis" girls don't matter.

If they want their toilets to be single sex, they're transphobic. If they want their sports to be single sex, they're transphobic.

What about Muslim girls whose religious beliefs prohibit them from sharing changing facilities with boys? How are their rights being balanced against those of "trans and non binary kids"?

If you want your feelings to be respected, you'd better start claiming some sort of trans or non binary identity to get special privileges.

Pronouns signify something though, otherwise what's the point?

If I tell my class that "Bobby now wants to be referred to as 'she'", what does that signify? Because of course they will want to know:

Is Bobby a girl now?
Do we have to pretend Bobby is a girl?
Is Bobby a boy who wants to be called 'she'?

Or do I say "Shh! You mustn't ask questions."

And then:

Does Bobby use the girls' toilets?
Does Bobby do Games/PE with the girls?
What about Sports Day?
Where does Bobby get changed?
Where does Bobby sleep on school trips?

The problem is that every child really has a skin in this game,

I agree we all have skin in the game

I haven’t seen hateful language but if anyone thinks a post is transphobic they can report it.

I see strong feelings from each side which is understandable, but overall I’m glad women’s and girl’s rights are now more on the agenda. The way forward has to be considered though. Pronouns are a tricky one. Agree what do they mean in practise

they don't want to change pronouns yet but if they did then they should be allowed to use them if it helps them as part of that process of working out who they are.

Except they are not the ones who will be using the changed pronouns. Nobody, as far as I’m aware, refers to themselves as he or she. They will still be using the gender neutral I, me, my, mine etc. Any change will be demanding that others use the new pronouns when talking about them, and no doubt getting in to trouble if they slip up,