To want to nip this in the bud ( LGBTQ views , child )

[Calmorchaos]

I’m after some advice really on how to approach this.

I have always been the type of person to support anyone to be who they are. I’ve never shied away or shielded my children from the world - very much a ‘love is love’ person and always encouraged my children to support those who need it and be inclusive ( in terms of people being bullied , disabilities etc too ) .

My youngest is going into high school ( 11 ) . Over the past few months I’ve noticed a few comments such as “ there are 2 genders “ , “ I don’t support LGBTQ “ . I’ve addressed this in the moment . But recently he found out his new school has an LGBTQ assembly on a monthly basis and he has started saying he doesn’t want to go because “ he doesn’t support it” . I sat down and had a chat with him , I explained to him that it isn’t really his place to choose to not agree with it - it’s not a choice , i explained it as he could say he doesn’t agree with people eating meat as that is a choice he would be making , but someone’s sexuality is their feelings and not a choice.

I am sure comments will allow me to explain more how the conversation went from my side so I won’t drag this post on with that but his comments were unnerving :

• he believes someone chooses to be gay , they can control it but they choose it
• we can choose who we fall in love with
• if a friend of his told him he was gay he would still be friends with them but not as good because they chose to be gay and he doesn’t support it.

I know he is very young and he doesn’t understand and has things to learn. He is the sweetest boy and the way he said these things sounded scripted as though he has heard others say this . I know he is a child and it’s my job that guide him and that’s the advice I’m asking for , how do I address this? I’m not saying I need him to go around advocating I just don’t want these views becoming ingrained and he becomes the reason another student who is struggling, struggles more. I know I may be overreacting but this age and as the years go on is a time that he can be heavily influenced . He’s a quiet, sweet boy and I do believe he could be heavily influenced.

Another concerning thing is that when I asked him where he had heard all this and where it comes from he said his Dad .

And how many of them were convicted for having the opinion that being gay is a choice? As an experienced teacher you should understand that biologically speaking a 11 year old child’s brain has not fully developed at that age. Whilst your brain has. Surely an experienced teacher will understand that? And a teacher will also understand the importance of freedom of expression, which a core human right. But very concerning as a teacher you think an 11 year old should be locked up for having an opinion. Yikes.

Ive seen “Will and Harper”. What exactly did you think I should take from it? A selfish AGP expecting everyone to pander, and a comedian virtue signalling.

That’s a really good point and it also sounds like OPs son is not quite ready to have discussions about sexuality pushed on him by his school. 11 is still really young for boys and while some are more aware of or interested in such things, many are not.

The school also utterly undermines itself if it is teaching things he knows to be untrue, like people can change sex it that ‘gender’ is more important then sex.

They wouldn’t be locked up - it’s more likely a gay police officer would have a word with them and explain the legislation on hate speech.

I agree with the last paragraph, and the OP is risking falling into the same trap. If she is unable to differentiate her approach between sexuality (LGB) and identity (TQ+), and tries to insist on the TRA approach to trans issues, she's going to pretty much undermine everything she tries to teach her son. If he knows she's lying/ talking rubbish about one thing, why should he trust anything she tells him?

Nothing the OP has said her son has said would fall under hate speech or be worthy of police time spent on it.

Yeah, I’m sure of course that would happen. Very ethical for a gay police officer to explain the legislation on hate speech to an 11 year old. I’m sure a POC would also do the same 🤣 just like I’m sure you’re a “teacher” but okay, say whatever you need to justify your point 🤣

I think Will and Harper is toxic misogyny just as much as Andrew Tate and the Manosphere. Two sides of the same coin.

Gender identity ideology is deeply harmful to women and girls - as well as to gay people (as in actual homosexuals), and gender non conforming children.

The idea women should have empathy for men who are trying to take away all our rights to single-sex anything would be laughable if it weren’t so genuinely dangerous.

It could be a heterosexual police officer. The law is the law. Are you still OK with the boys who killed Jamie Bulger because their brains were only developing at the time?

This isn't specifically for you @CaptainFuture, but who decides to add more letters and plus signs to LGBTQ........?

Is it a panel of important people? Peter Tatchell? Lewisham council? And how are the updates publicised? Is there a website that releases the info on a monthly basis?

"This month it has been decreed that peadophiles will be included and represented by another + sign"

Does anyone know?

What @TalkingintheDark said much more eloquently than me!

Let me get the right, as an experienced teacher who helps young offenders you’re saying horrifically killing and torturing a 2 year old child is exactly the same as an 11 year old saying that people choose to be gay? WOW JFC

Feelings might not be a choice, but how / whether one acts on them is.

What makes you so sure that a view you don't agree with must be coming from "outside influences", rather than from his own mind? He is at the age now where people start to think for themselves. You seem to be struggling with the idea that he's going to form his own views on things and sometimes have different views to yours - now, and for the rest of his life. If you can't adjust to that, you're in for a rough time in the teen years. ("Not his place" to decide what he believes? Is that what your parents told you when your values didn't match theirs? Did you believe them?)

Even if it is a matter of "influences", the fact is that as soon as a child goes to school and spends time with people who are not you, and has conversations with other kids, and learns to read, and so on, they're subject to a million different influences on every subject there is. You can't simply instruct him to believe what he's told by you and the LGBT assemblies and not what he gets from his father (and anyone who's gender critical, and anyone who subscribes to the position on sexuality of all the world's major religions, etc). Again, he will absorb it all, and he'll think for himself.

Look on the bright side, though - he'll probably reverse his beliefs on everything many times over before he's an adult, as teens usually do.

you took the words right out of my mouth Tandora, so depressingly predictable. No need to enforce views on biological sex here, not relevant.

of course it's possible to have compassion even for children who became killers.

Sure. But they are totally irrelevant to this child.

You said that the brain of a child is developing at that age, but the fact remains that the age of criminal responsibility is 10.

I do have compassion for them, as I do for children I have taught who became killers. Compassion didn’t stop them being imprisoned.

Why are you wittering on about murderers @OpheliaBlue exactly?

This child has nothing to do with James Bulger’s killers. It’s a huge leap.

But OP has identity mixed in with sexuality and the two are totally incompatible concepts and if she continues with her stance on ‘identity’ it will undermine her discussions on sexuality because her DS knows that the first thing is not as she presents it.

Why is it ‘depressingly predictable’ that a thread where OP is worrying about homophobia needs to mention biological sex? How do you think same sex attraction works?

I’m talking about the age of criminal responsibility in England, which is 10. I was responding to another poster who said that at the age of 11, a child’s brain is still developing.

Well it is relevant when he mentioned ‘there are only two genders’, and is likely conflating this with sex, as gender is a made up concept. So entirely relevant (and not transphobic) when to be homosexual is same SEX attraction.

The OP’s child, as described, isn’t a criminal.

Well yes, but they are being used as a comparator to the OP's ds for reasons I'm not entirely clear on!