Just out of parents night - 11 years new novel is about a boy who wants to be a girl

[Workingmomof2]

And the teacher was talking about it as a great book. I’m seriously not happy. Would I be unreasonable to raise this with the school. Why is this kind of idea even introduced to our children so young. No wonder they are all so confused.

Disagree. ROGD is real.

I’d say the current trend is more like the bad old Witch Burning days when wise women were burned for not toeing the line with a made up patriarchal ideology

5 years ago I would have thought : what's the problem? Broaden their minds , think outside the box.

Then the Orwellian lunacy kicked off. I'd definitely want to read this book first. But it doesn't sound great if the current climate. Very worrying in fact.

Excellent response to an idiotic post.

None of that would make your son be anything other than a boy though. It's the pushing to say if you don't strictly confirm to a narrow view of what boys or girls like, you must actually be the opposite sex.

I honestly think people this obtuse are pretending not to understand. I don't want teachers at my children's school trying to tell them you can change sex or that it's a good idea to mutilate yourself.

I, too. Bisexual women like me were once their natural allies. But if Gender purists and TRAs have lost the support of women, then that's their fault, not ours.

Perhaps they genuinely believed that they could claim we are bigots, tell us who we can and can't be attracted to, erase our status as women from medical literature, reduce us to our anatomy; that they could assign to us labels we don't consent to like 'cis' and then insult us on the basis of those labels; that they could take it upon themselves to inform us rape victims need to 'reframe your trauma', or that lesbians should 'get over your genital fetish'; that they could assume any non-compliance with this systemic, institutional, social bullying justified them in hounding us out of our jobs, threatening to dox, rape and kill us, or using the police to pursue and intimidate women who were saying what they didn't care to hear.

Perhaps they thought we'd suck all that up under the pretext of performative allyship, sit up and beg them for another good old kicking so that we can claim our rainbow lanyards, pronoun badges, and nice little accolade as a good, well-behaved liberal 'feminist'.

And when women said 'to fuck with that' they act all surprised and immediately start with the DARVO.

Fuck it. Fuck all of it. THEY created this particular TERF, and I'm getting to the point where I'd wear that badge with pride (albeit not the pride I remember ...)

If its a book saying it's OK and normal for a child under 18 to believe they are the opposite sex then no I wouldn't be happy with that. I'd be interested to read the book yo see what the take on it is, especially the bit about the girl giving up her role to the male.
There is no such thing as a transgender child. You currently can't obtain a grc until 18. Gender reassignment can't happen until you're 18. It may be currently common to be a child confused and distressed about gender and that should be dealt with with compassion but within safeguarding norms.

And how did your son react when you explained people can’t change sex, but his long hair and nail painting might get some nasty people telling him he’s a girl and trying to get him to take drugs that will stop him growing up properly.

the same people who support the idea Jamie can be a girl also support the idea grown men can get naked next to his sisters when they are in changing rooms

Those same people who would tell his sisters if they were gay they should sleep with men

its part of a group of ideas that would tell his sisters they would have to have a strange man performing intimate exams of them when they specifically said only women

how does he feel about his sisters being described by their biological function?

I assume you also discussed all of this in your oh so progressive afternoons viewing?

maybe it might be more advantageous to your children to explain to your son about the misogynistic underbelly of this ideology, so that he can relate to his sisters beyond the hair and nail painting. - but that’s probably not a progressive mummy boast at the school gates is it?

Excellent point - maybe the OP should suggest reading Animal Farm or 1984 instead!

I don't want teachers at my children's school trying to tell them you can change sex or that it's a good idea to mutilate yourself.

Yup @TimandGinger. I worry about all the young and not so young activist teachers in schools. Where their activism and their own ideology matters more than the teaching. Actually informs their teaching. It matters more than the children, and safeguarding those children.

I am talking from experience. Their religious fervour impacts children. That is one of the reasons why some schools have cohorts of students children identifying as different genders and others have none or a very few.

And a weak leadership too. That doesn't help. All head teachers must be aware of the issues by now and if they aren't then they choose to be wilfully ignorant.

I wanted to be a boy for about a year after reading the famous five thank god no one listened to me.

At my first school we did a play based on a novel with a boy as the main character. The teachers cast one girl as the part of the narrator (sat at the edge of the stage reading a few lines to set each scene), and then split the story up into multiple scenes casting different boys and girls as the hero in each scene (always wearing jeans and a checked shirt as it was set in the American West).

Everyone spoke at least one line. There were group scenes where everyone got to sing and dance a bit. The teachers managed to make it fair for everyone. This was back in the 80s.

Depressing to hear the "happy ending" of this novel is the girl letting the boy have whatever he wants.

Next book for the classroom 😶🙄

I saw that. Chelsea Clinton was promoting it in all seriousness.

I can’t imagine how she thinks that a middle aged male person who has fathered children can possibly be an inspiring role model to show little girls what they can be one day.

RL is no more like those girls than any middle aged father of kids.

Exactly this. Educators are educated themselves under Freire based ideologies of ‘conscientization’; critical awareness and raising a critical consciousness of their own oppression and learning to identify with anyone else they’re told are oppressed. Activism becomes the main purpose of education with it overlayed or becoming the lens through which every subject matter, issue, topic must be viewed in.

Academia is breeding leftist Freireian educators for the purpose of breaking up/down society under the various banners of social justice. The social science intellectuals are spewing ideas and as ‘experts’ they’re taken as being knowledge and fact rather than mere ideas and theories. Intersectionality, the meeting of queer, non binary, gender-queer, bisexual, neurodiverse, adhd, autistic, body positive … (and the zillion other labels anyone can give themselves) where ‘lived experiences’ matter more than anything else, where to abolish stuff (anything, everything; the patriarchy, the nuclear family, the prison system, the police, heteronormativity) is seen as progressive and good and if you question any of it you’re against anyone oppressed. And a bigot.

So new young educators are there with all of this BS in their heads (just spent 4 yrs in edu academia so can confirm) & taught to dismantle and tear down the ‘oppressive’ institutions (incl traditional ideas on education being about knowledge acquisition it seems) from the inside. They critique even knowledge (remember the whole 2+2=5 BS in edu Twitter a few yrs back?) as being derived from colonialism or white supremacy therefore we must have ‘new ways of knowing’ and all knowledge is questionable. Activism and revolution and deconstructing society into a magic unicorn land where everyone is exactly equal in all things is the aim (socialism bordering communism it feels and sounds like). Equality and equity and inclusion and diversity (tho not of opinion) are the bingo words that when used make you a super hero for the oppressed and morally superior.

‘There’s no such thing as trans; it’s just an ad campaign for the gender industry’ Jennifer Bilek.

There really out to be an age limit on being a teacher - no under 35s

Come on. Think back to when you were 11. I knew enough to be angry about Section 28 and to write a letter to my MP about it when I was 11. So I think that those kids can probably handle this book.

That’s probably because there were lots of adults round you getting angry about it. Here we have a bunch of adults forcing their false mantra of transwomen are women on children.

if the book is to be read it should be balanced with a discussion about all the issues with Gender Ideology and the problems it causes women and children.

Cracking post DigitalHen

I'm afraid that it was partly having to deal with exactly these types of teachers that I have left teaching.

There really out to be an age limit on being a teacher - no under 35s
We're infantalising teachers, actual grown adults of 30 year olds now?!
Also way to go assuming all over 35 year olds think the same as you, ageism as well as infantalising to boot, well done.

It’s a matter of statistics - the majority of under 30s seem to be buying into all manner of crap. Over 40s seem to have their heads screwed on.

Of course these are general assumptions but you have to draw the line somewhere.

We need to break this cycle of pushing harmful ideologies onto children somehow - it’s not ideal - but how do you suggest we do it? Have questions like “ do you believe number lines make sense?” “Do you believe a girl can be a boy”

Me also. They were starting to appear a few years ago and I was both bewildered and afraid when I saw how RIGHT they thought they were - arrogant and an inability to bend or flex in any way. Then we got a trans obsessed fool on SMT and it was time to go.

So your solution is ban anyone under the age of 35 from teaching.
Just when you think you've heard everything on MN, there's always one coming out with an absolute belter to prove you wrong 😁

So I’m confused, books, discussion and websites about pro suicide and pro anorexia are banned as it is recognised that social contagion, especially amongst children, is a real thing and these ideas are dangerous, but books and websites telling children they can change sex if they take drugs with unknown effects and mutilate their bodies is allowed? Why?

Ooh it’s just like those GenZ blaming anyone over the age of 30 for anything isn’t it? Telling them to “educate themselves” thinking they know everything, - they really don’t like being told that they have no life experience, no ability to think things through beyond the ageism they always display.