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9
MargotBamborough · 20/06/2023 14:32

@RedToothBrush Great post.

"Trans women are women" is "Brexit means Brexit" for woke people.

Meaningless guff, designed to allow bad actors to achieve their nefarious political aims without being held to account, with serious real life consequences.

MargotBamborough · 20/06/2023 14:36

Oh and what really gets me is that, as you allude to, Keir Starmer in particular understood this perfectly well when it came to Brexit. He stood up in Parliament numerous times and tried to pin the government down on this, to hold them to account, to get them to say our loud what "Brexit means Brexit" actually meant to them in reality and how they planned to achieve it. That's why I had high hopes for him as a leader.

But now he's employing the same tactics he so strongly condemned over the trans issue.

It seems he doesn't actually object to using deliberate obfuscation to bring about an outcome that you personally support even when you know that most of the electorate doesn't want it. He just objects to his opponents doing it.

Walkaround · 20/06/2023 14:40

Gender = unhelpful stereotyping that women in particular have been fighting against for centuries. Sex = a matter of previously accepted fact, but now under attack by people who love stereotyping.

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 14:42

Even the mother of “Crystal” said that when she was first told by her daughter “‘I have to say that when my daughter came home from school and told me what happened. I didn’t believe her, I thought she was a typical teenage girl exaggerating.”

It was only on listening to the recording that the daughter was vindicated.

However, the girl didn’t know her mother wouldn’t believe her before she made the recording. She didn’t even know what the teacher was going to come out and say before she started recording. Does the mother regularly disbelieve her when she quotes a teacher? Just as well she had a handy little recording to play her mum! Whose idea was it thento post on social media?

TheKeatingFive · 20/06/2023 14:43

Just as well she had a handy little recording to play her mum! Whose idea was it thento post on social media?

Yes it is just as well. Otherwise this wouldn't have come to wider attention

Alltheprettyseahorses · 20/06/2023 14:49

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 14:42

Even the mother of “Crystal” said that when she was first told by her daughter “‘I have to say that when my daughter came home from school and told me what happened. I didn’t believe her, I thought she was a typical teenage girl exaggerating.”

It was only on listening to the recording that the daughter was vindicated.

However, the girl didn’t know her mother wouldn’t believe her before she made the recording. She didn’t even know what the teacher was going to come out and say before she started recording. Does the mother regularly disbelieve her when she quotes a teacher? Just as well she had a handy little recording to play her mum! Whose idea was it thento post on social media?

I very much doubt the girl magically and coincidentally managed to record the very first time the teacher spouted such utter guff and was abusive and threatening towards pupils. The most likely answer is it has happened before. The girl's mother herself said she wouldn't have believed it, it's plausible that other pupils have spoken to their parents before and been dismissed so proof was obtained in this specific instance because disbelief was rightly expected based on others' experience.

HoofWankingSpangleCunt · 20/06/2023 14:51

@CecilyP , you really can’t imagine why the girls felt they need to record it?

One important issue you’ve missed though-The parent may have struggled to believe the teacher would act in that way, not that her daughter should not be believed. I think unless you know what’s going on in schools it does sound unbelievable that two children quoting scientific facts would be shamed and demeaned by a teacher.

Thank fuck they had the foresight to record it . This teacher has not just had a personality transplant, they knew what she was like and they took steps to protect themselves and by extension, their peers. Because no other bugger is doing it at that school, by the sound of it.

RamblingEclectic · 20/06/2023 14:51

I've mixed feelings. Many professions deal with being filmed, many teachers are already filmed alongside students in schools if not often with a microphone recording what is being said, and this topic does need to pushed and discussions happened and - while I've little hope for it - to reach clarity out of the conflicting mess schools are dealing with on this topic. And yes, this individual teacher screwed up in how she spoke to the students and students need ways to blow the whistle too.

On the other hand, there is context missing and yes, teachers have a responsibility to correct bullying even for things like claiming to be a cat and yeah, it sucks to be put on blast online with those who are meant to be supporting and clarifying this with teachers being conflicting in making it statutory guidance that the content be integrated but also recommending resources that use standalone lessons and units which goes against the guidance, and also at times saying those recommendations no longer count...it's a mess.

Many, many cultures outside of modern western civilisation have more than two genders.

And many, many don't. It isn't a western vs everyone else thing, there is variety all around in how social roles develop. The broad brushing of other cultures doesn't help.

Some cultures traditionally have more than two social gender roles including ones for an adult male who takes on a mostly feminine presentation and role, ones for adult females who take on mostly masculine role and presentation, and mixed roles. In cultures with this, they are all about responsibilities and what others can expect from you and in many of them, those beyond man and woman were connected to what were culturally viewed as physical and/or social abnormalities. There is no traditional ones where there is a complete swap, where someone of one sex becomes entirely the other's social role and expectations.

The concept of gender being an internal intrinsic identity is entirely modern and started in Western academia alongside what we now call scientific racism where there was an obsession with putting everyone into boxes. This is where the terms trans and cis - along with many others that didn't gain popularity - comes from: transvestite and cisvestite, defining people by clothes associated with their sex.

There have always, always been more than two genders. Sex and gender are often linked but not always the same

They aren't 'often linked', they are linked from their origins in the social sciences. Gender originally was a linguistic term - feminine and masculine and neuter. This was much later applied within the social science and in feminist activism to discuss social roles, behaviours, and expectations by sex.

Then we hit the 1950s and John Money who had the theory that gender and identity was entirely external but became internalized over childhood, did some horrific abusive experiments on children in the footsteps on Kinsey, and people died.

Using his language, things have swung the other way to the concept that it's an entirely internal individualistic intrinsic identity to be discovered and the more recent attempts to decouple it from sex and social roles. This has in rather culturally imperialistic ways been spread and applied onto cultures where the internal identity of gender is a very inaccurate way to describe them. It's applying western ideals of identity onto them and it has really screwed up how we discuss gender systems because we treat that one as the as the default. It's not unlike the reformation where religion went from a code of conduct for how to behave with deity and people to internal beliefs and was then applied to other faith systems in a way that still makes religious literacy difficult when the internal Christian framework is treated as default.

There are multiple genders. There always have been. Nobody ever manages to actually refute this, and people who try generally end up resorting to insults.

There are multiple gender systems, many different systems across the many cultures and times.

Some of them have two genders, no more can be applied within them and it be the same gender system. Some gender systems have 3 or 4 or more - again, we cannot apply more or less and it be the same gender system. Until recently, those were all about the expectations and responsibilities socially applied to people based on sex.

This has moved very recently in some places to an internal concept with no responsibilities attached - that is very new. It's actually difficult to call non-binary and some variants of transgender genders in the social sciences sense because they aren't roles, there are no social expectations or responsibilities, they're just identities. There has been a decrease in those social expectations on women and men in many Western cultures, but it's still there in a way that it is not for recent identity concepts using the gender label.

The concept of internal individualistic intrinsic permanent identity is not a universal concept. That any such thing exists is one that has been argued for a while and likely will forever more. The trans/cis gender system is a modern western gender system that is among many others and in its most recent variant relies on that concept that we all have this internal identity and this is a defining part of an individual. It has its uses as a lens some people use, but should not be universally applied and I don't think should be used as a representation of genders in wider culture. It's part of why there is push to use gender diverse as the umbrella term with transsexual people, transgender, and non-binary people as types of gender diversity.

RavingStone · 20/06/2023 14:52

MrsOvertonsWindow · 20/06/2023 13:09

I can't get over the fact that there's a teenage girl, believing she's a cat and a school not only agreeing with her - but bullying the other children to validate and "be kind" to her. If she was a toddler being a cat or aeroplane or dinosaur would be fine. But she's 12 /13 years old!! How have we got to a stage where professionals think this is OK?
There's a despicable failure on the part of professionals to be responsible adults and get this child the mental health support she needs.

I agree. My 5 year old is a cat most of the time at home. But even he knows "I didn't understand what you just said, because I'm a cat" won't wash at school.

Trans lobbyists have succeeded in getting professionals to stop being curious about the roots of the behaviour of teenage girls, just so long as they utter magic words. What a victory for abusers.

RedToothBrush · 20/06/2023 14:55

MargotBamborough · 20/06/2023 14:32

@RedToothBrush Great post.

"Trans women are women" is "Brexit means Brexit" for woke people.

Meaningless guff, designed to allow bad actors to achieve their nefarious political aims without being held to account, with serious real life consequences.

Brexit means Brexit was designed to appeal to anyone who wanted to leave the EU but to use their own definitions of what this looked like in practice. Vote Leave even admitted it was their strategy to create an open ended concept which existed on an individual level based on individuals' beliefs rather than having a solid clear definition and goal.

Transwomen are Women is slightly different in its a mantra which people sign up to knowing full well that a transwomen is a fiction - they can often see a male still but are agreeing to be nice about it anyway. Where this falls apart is when it's asked to be defined in an enforcable way. So you get stuff about it 'true trans' and 'men gaming the system' and people assuming that transwomen is only people with a GRC or post surgery. When it's broken down into legalities and certain scenarios - like Brexit - it falls apart.

The idea that the Good Friday Agreement was irrelevant or didn't matter has ALWAYS been Brexit's Achilles Heel. And unfortunately the Achilles Heel of the trans movement is Safeguarding. It's separating abusive males from non abusive males by magic intuition. It protecting children who can no consent and don't fully understand concepts from medicalisation. It's upholding the reason why women's sport was created in the first place. It can't be done. But like Brexit, the ideologs refuse to acknowledge the problems. And in refusing to acknowledge the problem they will always hit the Wall of Reality where shit hits the fan and these problems become unavoidably apparent. This is also often known as 'a scandal'.

It is not hate to proactively shout about where the Wall of Reality is.

This is what these girls are doing. They are shouting at the Emperor that he's naked.

The story of the Emperor's New Clothes is not new. It's about people seeing the blindly obvious but power carrying on regardless and expecting everyone to cheer it on.

Saying that you can have a cat gender that everyone must facilitate is nothing short of lunacy. It will only lead to problems because of how much impinges on the identities and well being of others. It is not a neutral act. It is not even an act that's kind. It's just an act that stores up a shed load more problems when telling the truth would have been much more honest and less damaging in the long run.

That not everyone is admitting this yet, is merely fingers in ears and eyes shut tight in the face of criticism.

Teentaxidriver · 20/06/2023 14:57

The teacher deserved what she got. I say that as a teacher.

RedToothBrush · 20/06/2023 15:01

RamblingEclectic · 20/06/2023 14:51

I've mixed feelings. Many professions deal with being filmed, many teachers are already filmed alongside students in schools if not often with a microphone recording what is being said, and this topic does need to pushed and discussions happened and - while I've little hope for it - to reach clarity out of the conflicting mess schools are dealing with on this topic. And yes, this individual teacher screwed up in how she spoke to the students and students need ways to blow the whistle too.

On the other hand, there is context missing and yes, teachers have a responsibility to correct bullying even for things like claiming to be a cat and yeah, it sucks to be put on blast online with those who are meant to be supporting and clarifying this with teachers being conflicting in making it statutory guidance that the content be integrated but also recommending resources that use standalone lessons and units which goes against the guidance, and also at times saying those recommendations no longer count...it's a mess.

Many, many cultures outside of modern western civilisation have more than two genders.

And many, many don't. It isn't a western vs everyone else thing, there is variety all around in how social roles develop. The broad brushing of other cultures doesn't help.

Some cultures traditionally have more than two social gender roles including ones for an adult male who takes on a mostly feminine presentation and role, ones for adult females who take on mostly masculine role and presentation, and mixed roles. In cultures with this, they are all about responsibilities and what others can expect from you and in many of them, those beyond man and woman were connected to what were culturally viewed as physical and/or social abnormalities. There is no traditional ones where there is a complete swap, where someone of one sex becomes entirely the other's social role and expectations.

The concept of gender being an internal intrinsic identity is entirely modern and started in Western academia alongside what we now call scientific racism where there was an obsession with putting everyone into boxes. This is where the terms trans and cis - along with many others that didn't gain popularity - comes from: transvestite and cisvestite, defining people by clothes associated with their sex.

There have always, always been more than two genders. Sex and gender are often linked but not always the same

They aren't 'often linked', they are linked from their origins in the social sciences. Gender originally was a linguistic term - feminine and masculine and neuter. This was much later applied within the social science and in feminist activism to discuss social roles, behaviours, and expectations by sex.

Then we hit the 1950s and John Money who had the theory that gender and identity was entirely external but became internalized over childhood, did some horrific abusive experiments on children in the footsteps on Kinsey, and people died.

Using his language, things have swung the other way to the concept that it's an entirely internal individualistic intrinsic identity to be discovered and the more recent attempts to decouple it from sex and social roles. This has in rather culturally imperialistic ways been spread and applied onto cultures where the internal identity of gender is a very inaccurate way to describe them. It's applying western ideals of identity onto them and it has really screwed up how we discuss gender systems because we treat that one as the as the default. It's not unlike the reformation where religion went from a code of conduct for how to behave with deity and people to internal beliefs and was then applied to other faith systems in a way that still makes religious literacy difficult when the internal Christian framework is treated as default.

There are multiple genders. There always have been. Nobody ever manages to actually refute this, and people who try generally end up resorting to insults.

There are multiple gender systems, many different systems across the many cultures and times.

Some of them have two genders, no more can be applied within them and it be the same gender system. Some gender systems have 3 or 4 or more - again, we cannot apply more or less and it be the same gender system. Until recently, those were all about the expectations and responsibilities socially applied to people based on sex.

This has moved very recently in some places to an internal concept with no responsibilities attached - that is very new. It's actually difficult to call non-binary and some variants of transgender genders in the social sciences sense because they aren't roles, there are no social expectations or responsibilities, they're just identities. There has been a decrease in those social expectations on women and men in many Western cultures, but it's still there in a way that it is not for recent identity concepts using the gender label.

The concept of internal individualistic intrinsic permanent identity is not a universal concept. That any such thing exists is one that has been argued for a while and likely will forever more. The trans/cis gender system is a modern western gender system that is among many others and in its most recent variant relies on that concept that we all have this internal identity and this is a defining part of an individual. It has its uses as a lens some people use, but should not be universally applied and I don't think should be used as a representation of genders in wider culture. It's part of why there is push to use gender diverse as the umbrella term with transsexual people, transgender, and non-binary people as types of gender diversity.

👏

What were you saying Data?

You don't have the capacity to challenge this, because you don't understand what you, yourself actually believe. You just expect others to believe what you believe without telling them what they should believe.

No gotcha needed.

MargotBamborough · 20/06/2023 15:04

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 14:42

Even the mother of “Crystal” said that when she was first told by her daughter “‘I have to say that when my daughter came home from school and told me what happened. I didn’t believe her, I thought she was a typical teenage girl exaggerating.”

It was only on listening to the recording that the daughter was vindicated.

However, the girl didn’t know her mother wouldn’t believe her before she made the recording. She didn’t even know what the teacher was going to come out and say before she started recording. Does the mother regularly disbelieve her when she quotes a teacher? Just as well she had a handy little recording to play her mum! Whose idea was it thento post on social media?

What's your point? They wouldn't have been able to get a handy little recording of their teacher verbally abusing them for refusing to believe this rubbish if their teacher hadn't verbally abused them for refusing to believe this rubbish. And I doubt it was the first time either. (Otherwise why would they have had the foresight to record her?)

RedToothBrush · 20/06/2023 15:09

I'd have known darn well which teacher to wind up on this shit if the school were propping up catkid identities. The sense of injustice would just lead to taking the opportunity that youd been looking for.

Smart kids know how to push a feckless teacher's buttons to get them to respond in a particular way.

Any teacher who behaves in this manner a) has form for it b) is utterly feckless and an incident like this waiting to happen.

I remember one teacher we'd go into his lessons going 'how is he going to fuck up the experiment to day' and we'd kill ourselves laughing whe he did. Ad we were the swotty good kids. Who never did anything wrong or had a single detention

RedToothBrush · 20/06/2023 15:09

I'd have known darn well which teacher to wind up on this shit if the school were propping up catkid identities. The sense of injustice would just lead to taking the opportunity that youd been looking for.

Smart kids know how to push a feckless teacher's buttons to get them to respond in a particular way.

Any teacher who behaves in this manner a) has form for it b) is utterly feckless and an incident like this waiting to happen.

I remember one teacher we'd go into his lessons going 'how is he going to fuck up the experiment to day' and we'd kill ourselves laughing whe he did. Ad we were the swotty good kids. Who never did anything wrong or had a single detention

DaSilvaP · 20/06/2023 15:35

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 14:42

Even the mother of “Crystal” said that when she was first told by her daughter “‘I have to say that when my daughter came home from school and told me what happened. I didn’t believe her, I thought she was a typical teenage girl exaggerating.”

It was only on listening to the recording that the daughter was vindicated.

However, the girl didn’t know her mother wouldn’t believe her before she made the recording. She didn’t even know what the teacher was going to come out and say before she started recording. Does the mother regularly disbelieve her when she quotes a teacher? Just as well she had a handy little recording to play her mum! Whose idea was it thento post on social media?

You start sounding like this burglar who claimed his "human rights" were infringed because he was filmed by a hidden camera installed by the home owner.

What next? Resort to the favorite trick of a well know extremely litigious cult - claim copyright infringement to shut up people you don't like?

YorkshirePuddingsGreatestFan · 20/06/2023 15:43

Regardless of the actual content, the teacher should never have spoken to the children like that. She could have challenged their thinking to get them to look at the points from both sides so they can make their own reasoned judgement.

Telling the children that their opinion is not valid, their views are despicable, they should find another school and their parents are sad is bullying.

It's also concerning that the teacher accused the girls of being homophobic. As the girls rightly point out, it was a discussion on gender identity and nobody mentioned gays or lesbians.

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 16:20

What's your point? They wouldn't have been able to get a handy little recording of their teacher verbally abusing them for refusing to believe this rubbish if their teacher hadn't verbally abused them for refusing to believe this rubbish. And I doubt it was the first time either. (Otherwise why would they have had the foresight to record her?)

From the article I got the impression the girls were kept behind for being mean to another pupil (however delusional!) So they were recording her telling them off, perhaps because they didn’t feel they deserved a telling off. It starts as follows.

”The recording at Rye College in East Sussex begins with the teacher asking the pupil: 'How dare you? You just really upset someone, saying things like [you] should be in an asylum.'
The girl responds: 'I didn't say that, I just said if they want to identify as a cow or something, then they are genuinely unwell, and they're crazy.'”

I have heard the recording but can’t find it again but the teacher seems to get more and more flustered as the row develops. Of course what she says gets more and more ridiculous and the girls more than hold their own. But would the girls have known that? This wasn’t a class discussion, they were being kept behind for the way they behaved to another pupil.

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 16:25

You start sounding like this burglar who claimed his "human rights" were infringed because he was filmed by a hidden camera installed by the home owner.

Really? A burglar knows they are breaking the law and shouldn’t be in anyone’s house. The teacher who was just telling pupils off and only came out with ridiculous things after the recording started.

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 16:27

Regardless of the actual content, the teacher should never have spoken to the children like that. She could have challenged their thinking to get them to look at the points from both sides so they can make their own reasoned judgement.

Probably! If she can’t stay calm and collected, perhaps teaching’s not for her.

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 16:32

Smart kids know how to push a feckless teacher's buttons to get them to respond in a particular way.

Any teacher who behaves in this manner a) has form for it b) is utterly feckless and an incident like this waiting to happen.

Yeah, the kids definitely sounded smart and like they’d got the better of the teacher who sounded utterly flustered. I’m sure they’ll go far!

DaSilvaP · 20/06/2023 16:38

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 16:25

You start sounding like this burglar who claimed his "human rights" were infringed because he was filmed by a hidden camera installed by the home owner.

Really? A burglar knows they are breaking the law and shouldn’t be in anyone’s house. The teacher who was just telling pupils off and only came out with ridiculous things after the recording started.

And a teacher should know to not ramrod BS on sane pupils.

"telling off" someone for stating plain fact is not "telling off" - it's plain bullying.

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 16:47

I’m speculating that that the pupil who wanted to identify as a cow or something was a girl who wanted to identify as a boy. One thing to think she is crazy, perhaps another to tell her she’s crazy to her face to her face, if that is what this pupil did.

Whatwouldscullydo · 20/06/2023 17:06

CecilyP · 20/06/2023 16:47

I’m speculating that that the pupil who wanted to identify as a cow or something was a girl who wanted to identify as a boy. One thing to think she is crazy, perhaps another to tell her she’s crazy to her face to her face, if that is what this pupil did.

Even if they did tell the girl she was crazy for believing she was a boy/cat/cow, however they did it, its still kinder than indulging it. Perhaps if adults were brutally honest then the kids wouldn't have to be.

If I thought I could fly you might get away playing along with it while I'm jumping off the sofa. But I'd hope to god you'd tell me the bloody truth before I reached the top of a multi storey car park. As opposed to calling the concrete that hosted my splattered body a bigot. Fuck worrying you might upset someone. Facts don't care about feelings . Reality isn't always what you want to know or hear. But it exists all the same. And these kids shouldn't be made responsible for having to hide that fact because the adults are running scared.

Allowing children to believe the Imossible and indulging them in some thing that can only result in being harmed, either through encouraging down a medical pathway or placing themselves in dangerous situations ( like a female child using the mens loos ) is far crueller, more abusive and damn right sinister than any kid calling them crazy tbh.

Jux · 20/06/2023 17:08

One pupil said the girl who identified as a cat was mentally unwell, which - if they really do think they're a cat, and not just making a joke - they are.

Children shouldn't have to record their teachers, and vice versa, but sometimes it's the only thing that can be done. As said already, no one would have believed it otherwise.

If teachers don't understand what they're teaching, they shouldn't be teaching it, and no teacher should be shutting down questioning children like that, especially not in secondary school.

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