Pride Day

[Itsmyshadow]

DD8’s school have a Pride Day coming up. It’s being run by a local LGBTQ organisation who are coming in to hold workshops and assemblies with the kids.

All great on the face of it. I completely support the fact that people are attracted to others of the same sex and that children should be told same sex relationships are as normal and valid as heterosexual relationships.

DD8 has always been interested in things that are more stereotypically associated with boys (football, gaming, Pokémon etc), her closest friends are boys, she plays for a boy’s sports team. She’s had periods over the last few years where she has insisted she is a boy. These periods tend to coincide with an incident e.g. a boy at school telling her girls can’t play football and go away completely when she sees girls like her e.g. watching the England in the Women’s Euros.

She last year joined a girls football academy and all talk of being a boy has gone away. She’s made friendships with girls and seems happy in who she is.

Now on to Pride Day, so the company has sent out some slides in advance to allay any fears. It seems the KS2 programme will be delivered by a guy who identifies as non binary and there are slides on things such as “assigned sex” and lots of pictures of this guy in a dress.

I’m worried the kids will all be told they can just change their gender and it’s as simple as that (apparently everything will be explained at a very high level and in simple terms). I’m worried this will sow the seed in DD’s head that she can be a boy if she wishes, without telling her all the difficulties that would be involved.

WIBU to not let her go to school that day? And would you tell the school why? I think we should email and explain. DH thinks we should just put in a holiday request and cite we are going away for the weekend (we would actually go to his parents so it wouldn’t be a lie, but it would be pretty obvious why we’d chosen the date, and I’d rather explain to the school rather than them think we’re homophobic - which we are definitely not!). DH thinks whatever way we try to explain it to the school they’ll interpret it badly.

Keep your child off school that day.

And speak to chair of governors and school Safeguarding lead.

This is wholly unacceptable... what can the school be thinking about?

I am C of G at a primary and would have expected this to have been brought to our attention beforehand. I would have vetoed it.

My ds school has had a pride week with a grand finale of a drag act and performer, that has made for some interesting conversations from of bunch of ND primary aged kids!

It would be silly to say both - why lie and muddy the water about a mysterious ‘family event’? 🙄

Just explain that you feel that your dd is at a vulnerable stage of her development and whilst you support LGB rights, you do not subscribe to spurious opinions on gender identity and you don’t feel confident in the school’s discernment in this matter. Copy in the Chair of Governors and your local mp.

If that is said to the kids then a teacher should be there to correct it. School need to confirm

Oh, and kids always listen to their parents...

No way. I would be keeping my child off and explaining why. It’s totally inappropriate to teach things like that at their age. My son came home with a pride picture he had coloured in at nursery and he’s 4.. I wasn’t happy but don’t think they talked about much!

Weveforgottenwhoweare · Today 21:14
Pride in primary is totally inappropriate. It's about sex and In my opinion a safeguarding matter.”

Agree with this. If our secondary children told us they were gay, we would have supported without question but I agree that at primary sexual orientation is too complicated for them to get their heads around.

Assigned sex simply means determining sex at birth based on characteristics. It has nothing to do with gender reassignment. I honestly don’t think this is anything to worry about. It is vital for a child to understand that gender is a social construct and they can chose to play “male” sports and wear trousers and dresses without being teased. This will help them to develop a more compassionate and fair view of society which is surely why the school is having this talk to begin with. The difference between your daughter getting a write or a wrong message is how you chose to approach it at home. If you make a secret out of it and make her feel like this is something that shouldn’t be talked about, then she will have no opportunity to talk about it with you and will take her questions elsewhere. And you are making a strong statement about that by considering not letting her go to school.
When I was growing up sections about human reproduction were censored out of biology textbooks for similar reasons. We got our information elsewhere which was much less reliable or sensitive to our age.

Speaking with my partner a few days ago and i said to him that i was glad trans wasnt a big thing when i was younger because i can hand on heart say if i was offered a gender change at 8 years old i would of jumped at the opportunity. Not because i think im a male or want to be a male but because i was your dd, i was into football, played with the boys, dressed like them and women playing football wasnt as accepted as it is now, so no role models that were female. I had an asthma attack once playing football and was told it was because i wasnt fit enough to play with the boys. So changing to male would of made my life easier, would of made my interests acceptable, would of let me be me without the comments and the judgement.

Sex is observed at birth not assigned. Assigned implies choosing.

I’m giving you an official definition of “assigned gender” which is to “classify a person as having particular sex or gender on the basis of their genitals at birth”. You see, this is exactly the thing that will be taught to children, a proper definition of terms rather than their emotionally-tinted interpretation based on conscious or subconscious biases.

This and also add in the PM and the Secretary of State for Education asking them when are they going to enforce child safeguarding in state schools.
How long does it take to stop this unscientific nonsense from outside agencies?

Why would babies be given a 'gender' as opposed to 'sex'?

Wearing trousers and keenness on sport doesn't make her a boy, does it? Do you not wear trousers or play a sport? Of course you at least have done it. Are you less of a woman because of that? Or does our gender change when we do what others perceive as typically "male"? So female engineers are actually men? Boys playing with dolls and buggies are playing mums rather than dads? Are you going to attribute female gender to male nurses and midwives? Girls that climb a tree (nearly all of them if physically able), do they need to refer to themselves as boys? Boys that like baking (probably most of them) - are they really girls?
And a man that puts on make up is now to be considerded a woman and gets to change in a shared female changing room?
Do you not see what harm it can cause?
She can do anything she wants to do, and feel what she feels, nobody needs to tell her that if she chooses sport, or trouses, or decides to be an astronaut, or if she is good at maths, she isn't a girl, she must have male gender identity. These are personality characteristics that vary more among individuals that they do among the two sexes
It is a massive step backwards for women and promotes gender stereotypes. All women have interests that the likes of you stereotype as "male", and all men have the reverse.
And do you not see how batshit it is and harmful?

This with bells whistles and cymbals on.
This world has become bloody bonkers.

8 years old - way to young to be interpreting and understanding this topic. Your fears of planting seeds of ideology are genuine.

“Assigned at birth” is terminology only accurate when referring to people with differences in sexual development (what was known as intersex) who may have been born with ambiguous genitalia not reflective of internal parts of their reproductive system. Gender ideology proponents have co-opted the term in an attempt to give legitimacy to a dangerous and misleading “born in the wrong body” narrative which should not be being regurgitated to school aged children.

Anyone without a DSD - so over 99% of the population - has their biological sex observed and recorded at birth. Gender and sex are not synonymous; gender is a social construct based on stereotyping the sexes. No one can possibly know at birth which sex-based stereotypes a child will conform to and which they will reject, so using “gender” to describe anything about a newborn is inaccurate and meaningless.

OP, I would be raising concerns with the school as this is inappropriate for primary children. Safe Schools Alliance may have some helpful resources as to how to do so in such a way your reservations will be listened to: https://safeschoolsallianceuk.net/

I would be keeping mine off school and I'd be telling the school to shove that shit where the sun doesn't shine!

As a parent of a 13 year old girl who is currently 'identifying' as a boy as all of her 5 best friends are and who has spoken to the school about her changing her name to a boys name I would keep her off. We are certain our 'she' is not a 'he' and absolutely so sick of this trans bollox everywhere at this point that honestly I am starting to resent the entire LGBT thing completely and we have many gay friends. It is grating at this point. Schools need to keep their nebs out of this stuff.

And also 'assigned at birth' give me strength. You are born male or female. 'Assigned' implies choice. There is no choice. You are born into the body you are born into and if you DECIDE at some point you are in the wrong body then so be it. I am not against trans people in the least and do believe some people do genuinely feel they were born into the wrong body but it is at pandemic preportions at this point.

YABU. Unless she chooses not to go, I cannot believe you’d override her consent to attend

You are making so many assumptions about the presentation, about your daughter's possible decisions and about how school will handle this.

I’d be keeping my child off too. At 8 all they need to know is some men love women, some men love men and some women love women

That’s what we are doing. Taking both kids out of school for the days they have these talks at their school. It’s simply ridiculous that this is being pushed onto the kids at such young age. And that us as parents have no say in what our children are being taught.