Disown by mum friends who I have known for 20 years due to my gender critical view.

[rouxelitee]

I am a bit sad today because I have been disowned by my group of friends who are mothers. I have known them since college. All of us have children, mine is a toddler.

One of them is a paediatrician. Let's call her JY. She supports the trans-movement for children. Recently she has shared an article with the whatsapp chat group on sexual and relationship saying that this should be how children are parented. https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/sex-relationships/
I didn't agree with the gender and identity section and I called it out. I said that affirming children in this matter will make things worst. The conversation escalated and she basically cautioned me that this is hate speech and if a doctor have the same view as I do, their license will be taken.

Fast forward to today, my partner and I are have been researching on local schools and their policies on the same matter, preparing ourselves for when our child is of school age. We found out that this school in Leicester has the following policy.

7.3 In accordance with the Equality Act 2010 we will not inform a parent or carer about a student being Trans or gender questioning.
7.4 Confidential information will not be shared with the parents and carers without a student’s permission, unless there are safeguarding reasons for doing so.
_
https://www.newcollege.leicester.sch.uk/force_download.cfm?id=3190

I felt that this is such a massive red flag, that I need to warn all my friends to look into their school policies.

JY then said "Much as I value our friendship, I do not have headspace to engage in these issues. I'll bow out of this group." A few others followed and quit the chat group.

They will possibly not talk to me ever again. I am very sad and I feel very alone in this matter, and that my partner and I and alone in this battle alone trying to protect our child from the state, the school and dangerous ideology.

I guess I just want to not feel like a crazy person shouting on top of my lungs "please look into this, this is bad".

Thanks,
roux

Let me reiterate my point. Schools should nurture the bond between a child and their parents. School should respect that each family has it's own values and religion.

This is naive at best.
Most physical, sexual and emotional abuse happens within families. Home is not a safe place for many children. All children need trusted adults in their lives, including teachers.

What do you think being Gender Critical means?

I am from a Muslim country, and I am a non-white. I spend the first half of my life in another country with an entirely different culture. I came to this country and I learnt an entirely different western view point, that's very different to what I was brought up with. To call me racist without knowing who I actually am is very unhelpful.

There is a lot of nuance in this topic and like I said I don't have views on this.

It's very quick for you to jump into judgement regarding why a child doesn't want to discuss certain issues with their family, and concluded that the parents are bad parents.

Oh come on. If it's legal in traditionally extremely religiously and morally conservative countries it's probably (I'd bet money I don't have) because they prefer to have a child be another sex in preference to being homosexual, where in Iran (going by travel advice) the penalty for such can be as serious as death.

So you’re not going to elaborate on what you said when “the conversation escalated” at which point the friend cautioned hate speech

Disingenuous comparison

the remaining members of the chat…

has there been any chat since then?

There already are well-debated and well-reviewed safeguarding guidelines to deal with this.

This is different to what I have said. School must nurtured the bond between children and their families, not drive a wedge between them.

@DysonSphere I am aware of that. Did you read my next sentence? I research and write about this as an academic. I can send you a whole reading list (that my undergraduates are currently reading) about changing gender norms in Iran from the Qajar period to the present. I objected to the OP saying this was a ‘Western’ debate. Gender fluidity has been recognised and debated in MANY forms in non Western countries. It may not take the form of the debate in the UK but to say that discussions about ‘third genders’ is a Western thing is patently historically false.

Academic literature is different to actually living in a country for a long time. If you are really data driven, a more data-driven assessment would be to visit various different countries, survey the population regarding the topic and compile the data in a unbiased manner.

And you really want to go academic, there is a mathematical proof that to have a third sex, is actually suboptimal for the population. :)

Speaking as an academia too.

I never said that the parents are bad parents. You’re jumping to another conclusion. The parents can have the best intentions, but (with regard to this topic in particular) can create a home environment where a child doesn’t feel safe and would rather speak to their teacher. IMO, in these circumstances, it is not the school driving the wedge, it is the home environment that’s been created, whether on purpose or inadvertently.

If you have read my first post properly, the problem I have is schools hiding secrets from parents (including children who are 'gender-questioning'). If you are a parent you will know that this will drive a wedge between the child and the family, making the child distrusting the family.

Schools should be transparent with parents that the child has expressed this, and deal with it together, taking heavy considerations on parents view.

The friend, the paediatrician, likely at work, not giving this issue or the OP even the tiniest thought.

Instead using her decades of training and experience in to treating very poorly children, and supporting their parents

Meanwhile the OP tapping away debating the issue the friend, criticising her friend, garnering opinions on her etc, when all she said she simply doesn’t have the headspace for a discussion after having previously made clear that from a professional perspective the debate is not one she wishes to engage in.

I don’t know what you mean by ‘data driven’ but anthropologists, sociologists and historians have written about gender fluidity in the Middle East and South Asia for about twenty years or more. And for instance India recognised the ‘third gender’ as a legal category in 2014. And India’s legal history on homosexuality is complex to say the very least. Edo Japan had a history of gender fluidity.

I made a simple point. This is not a ‘Western’ issue in that people in the rest of the world don’t think there are just boys and girls and nothing in between exists. Gender fluidity has been culturally acknowledged in the ‘rest’ of the world in many ways for centuries.

I objected to your using the ‘rest’ to make your point. You responded with ‘I lived in a Muslim country…’.

Umm, yes so have I. And a couple of non Muslim Asian countries as well. And a Buddhist one where I did several months of research.

If you can’t accept this simple point that this gender fluidity has a long GLOBAL history (one that is really well documented) then I can see your friend found arguing with you so frustrating.

India is not Iran. Stop showing your ignorance.

I’d ditch you too.

I would agree with this, however, there is a fine line to be drawn between family values and states education to avoid the State from indoctrinating children and forcing family to accept certain views. and making sure that children are of no harm by anyone.

Hence we are here debating :) There is also already well-established safe-guarding guideline on this matter.

However, as per my first post, when the policy states that school will not inform parents when the students are 'gender-questioning' as a blanket policy, that is highly alarming.

Lost all sympathy for you here, OP.

Being gay and being trans aren't analogous.

Gay Muslim teenagers should be supported by their schools, and there may be very valid safeguarding reasons for not disclosing a child's sexuality to their parents (particularly parents who have conservative religious beliefs).

Some teenagers from these kinds of backgrounds are at very real risk of harm due to the clash between their parents' conservative values and the society in which they are growing up. Shafilea Ahmed was murdered by her parents in front of her four younger siblings, essentially for wanting to wear western clothing, get an education and not be forced into marriage with her cousin in Pakistan. Imagine the potential consequences for teenagers from similar backgrounds if schools outed them as being gay to their parents.

Being trans isn't analogous to this. Being gay isn't dangerous. Being gay doesn't put your health at risk. (Not in the 21st century anyway.) Being gay doesn't make you infertile or at risk of having healthy body parts chopped off. The only thing we need to protect gay teenagers from is other people's bigotry.

But children who identify as trans are at risk of serious physical and emotional harm if they are affirmed as what they believe to be their preferred gender before their brains are fully developed and without having received proper counselling.

If a child from a very conservative background identifies as trans, there is a safeguarding discussion to be had about whether they are at risk of being harmed by their parents if their parents are made aware of it. But this will not apply to most parents who just want to protect their children from harm.

By bringing sexuality into the discussion, it sounds like you're saying we should respect parents' right to be homophobic if they come from a culture which does not accept homosexuality. And that's where you're going to lose a lot of sympathy on this board.

“the Muslims”

just one homogenous body OP

good grief, you should be ashamed

Well I can't see your point. Because mammals have only two sexes, it can be proven by looking chromosomes and gambits.

What you are describing is probably a spectrum of personalities - from feminine and masculine. My view would be there is no right or wrong way to be a female or a male. Female can be masculine, male and be feminine. Despite their personality, their sexes will not be altered.

My partner is Iranian and he can attest to this. He told me this before.

And this is the crux of the extreme individualism and unmooring of the child that has taken root in western society. What bond is in question? Are you suggesting that merely because a child does not wish to tell their parents about a certain subject, their parenting is automatically to be judged as unfit? The parenting bond is abnormal, somehow? Inadequate?

Many children do not automatically wish to confide in their parents! Hell I wouldn't tell my parents anything remotely avant-garde when I was growing up. Parents aren't cool. Parents don't understand you. That viewpoint is and has been the underlying premise for many shows, movies and stories. We all go to Never Never Land or through the Wardrobe, or into the Labyrinth or Back to the Future and the parents are clueless. We don't tell them about our secret exciting lives because they won't understand or worse, they won't let us have our adventure!

This used to be understood, but there has been concerted undermining of parental authority for decades. I've seen some of these trans threads and they interestingly echo school policy: your parent's won't understand, keep your pronouns secret, grey rock them if they refuse to affirm you, it's ok your teacher/counsellor/doctor/strangers on the net affirm you. Next step getting affirmation from one of these 'more trusted' people who don't have to pick up the pieces, ever, about my need and desire for surgery.

I said I have no view on it. I haven't thought clearly on the matter when a child is gay from a fundamentalist background and how the school should be involved. I know that it is terrible for school immediately putting in a wedge between the child and the family and break that relationship by breaching trust of parents. It is a very difficult situation to handle. The hope would be the family will be open minded enough and open enough for discussion on this matter.

I have many gay friends and neighbours, we get along just fine and we have helped each other.