Another trans related one, I'm afraid

[Monison]

Hello - I am an occasional poster, long time lurker on FWR. I love this board and have found the wisdom and eloquence of a number of posters quite inspirational. So I am wondering if you can help me articulate my objections to the following:

DD (yr5) had an assembly yesterday led by an organisation working with LGBT young people. The content was essentially encouraging tolerance and inclusivity (great) and making the simple point that some people are gay/bi and THAT IS FINE (again, great). However the speaker then talked about how some people are trans/gender fluid/non binary etc and that it is perfectly ok for boys to become girls and girls to become boys. DD cheerfully told me that if anyone wants to become the other sex that is perfectly normal, and should be supported. When I told her I thought it might be easier if we extended our ideas of what being a boy and girl means so that 'being a boy' can include stereotypically 'feminine' things and vice versa without changing bodies or biology she looked aghast.

There are so many issues I want to raise with the school but I am concerned they - like DD - will immediately assume that I am anti-trans individuals (which I am not) rather than questioning the wider trans narrative. I am really concerned that by including the issue of trans within the LGB discourse, it is too easy to uncritically assume that the same notions of acceptance apply rather than looking more deeply into issues of socialisation and damaging gender stereotypes.

I am also concerned that the school is allowing organisations to express as fact (and without nuance or debate) the current trans orthodoxy to children - who are clearly not equipped to think critically around these issues themselves and will accept the clunky logic of well meaning but, in my view, damaging ideology.

Another concern is that DDs school currently has a child in yr 3 who 'identifies as a girl' and the advice from the local authority has been similarly unthinking (imo). The school have been told not to out 'her' and treat her as a girl to all intents and purposes. Clearly this will present more issues as puberty approaches, and when the children start going on residential trips (no policy on whether 'she' will share a dorm with the girls, or if the girls parents will be informed). But most of all they have not questioned AT ALL this child's right to self determine, despite the fact that 'she' does not have legal consent for anything else until she is 16. I can't help but find the school's approach collusive, bordering on abusive. It is likely, after all that this child will not transition in adult life and may well have questions about why the significant adults in 'her' life allowed a child to make such an enormous decision without any context or understanding.

So, really what I am asking is how do we begin to talk to schools and other organisations about gender critical approaches to trans issues without being immediately dismissed as transphobes?

[SisterMoonshine]

I had a workplace training thing today where the Equality Act came up.
Transgender is within the Act. As they should be, they have a right to be treated fairly and not discriminated against.
But the trainer went on to bring up the-shocking-case-of-the-woman-in-the-mens-prison etc and that transgender women are women and should be treated the same as women.
It was not the time and place for me to say anything, how would I have looked? It would have looked like I was going against The Equality Act - how horrible a person would I have sounded?
The same as the OP here not wanting to sound 'anti trans'.
This politeness is silencing us.

[SisterMoonshine]

What I mean is, I think that Equality Act is being misunderstood by a lot of people and rather than trans people being a protected group, they are lumped in with existing frameworks (because it's easier, cheaper?), but that clashes with women's rights.
Like the Olympics thing. The prisons etc.
Really, trans people are probably being let down here as much as women.

And I don't know if it's because he was a bloke, but our trainer only saw the trans woman in prison as a women - no question. I think he had a touch of 'man - not man'.

[venusinscorpio]

I'd have had to walk out. I would have had a severe, sudden need to run to the loos after being struck down with a mystery illness. I totally can see why you couldn't say anything, but I'm not sure I would have been able to just sit through it.

[venusinscorpio]

And I totally agree, and also think it will backfire on trans people. Particularly including non-binary, pangender and other rubbish, with serious issues like intersex and gender dysphoria.

[SisterMoonshine]

And it's the putting up with people with influence's ideas as being right.
Like the OP - school telling children. And the trainer at the workplace.
They think they are saying the 'right' things, and there's legislation to back them up. Just, I think they are understanding it all wrong.

[venusinscorpio]

Not that intersex is linked, but they will get lumped in by idiots as the trans community often uses them to prove debating points about who is "assigned female" and who gets to be defined as a woman.

[venusinscorpio]

I agree, and this was always my bugbear when I read articles about PC gawn mad in the DM. The legislation was (mostly) fine and there was a very real need to protect people's rights, but unfortunately many people didn't really understand it or have the critical judgement skills needed to apply it correctly.

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

There is a trans-girl at my son's school. He is in Y4.

His Mum is a lecturer in Trans studies. Co-incidence?

You couldn't make it up.

[venusinscorpio]

Poor kid.

[LurcioAgain]

It would be wonderful to ask the trainer whether, if they thought it was right for Tara Hudson to be housed in a women's prison, he also thought Davina Ayrton should be housed in a women's prison. Of course, if, like me, but work in the public sector, it would be literally more than your job's worth. The situation is Orwellian.

[venusinscorpio]

Are we all going to be required to sign something to say that we believe black is white? Because that seems to be the way it's going. It's awful that we have to have this cultish, ideological bullshit foisted on us everywhere we go.

[LilacSpunkMonkey]

I wonder if this special assembly would be given minus the Trans element? Or is being LBG passé now?

Why are our children having this shoved down their throats at primary school when they have no chance of understanding it.

[QueenLaBeefah]

I really feel that there is a strong undercurrent of homophobia to all of this.

A little boy who likes to wear dresses, fairy wings and play with dolls is still a boy. Some little boys like this (not all) grow up to be gay men.

I'm curious as to why the gay community don't seem even slightly concerned that children are having puberty (and future fertility) suppressed when the likelihood that they are trans is far from certain. How does anyone know what they want when they are 8/9/10 yrs old?

[Lottapianos]

Absolutely Queen. I have met dads who feel very uncomfortable about their 3 year old son playing with dolls, who have hinted very strongly that they are worried they will turn out gay because of it. Like that would be the worst thing ever, like being gay is something you can be influenced into being, like there's something unmanly and not quite right about a little boy playing gently with a doll and pretending its a baby. The mind numbing stupidity of it all. This nonsense about gender stereotypes and 'hardwiring' is at the root of all sexism and homophobia

[venusinscorpio]

Indulge my flights of fancy...

It's as if we suddenly stopped being a secular society, and reasoning and critical thinking went out of the window, and blasphemy became a crime again. Even the mere suggestion that you might not fully embrace the dominant religion would be a thought crime. And however much you screamed that it wasn't progress at all, but quite the opposite, people kept repeating that it was, and that you're the one in the wrong and must be evil, or reeducated against your will because all good people believe. Orwell, we need you! I bet they'll take it off the set texts.

Yes, I have a vivid imagination but I can see how it would happen. It's more of a dystopian allegory than an analogy I guess!

[Thistledew]

There does seem to be a correlation between the rise in the past 15-20 years of the 'girls toys' vs 'boys toys' dichotomy, and the rise of trans. I'm not a sociologist so don't know how you would set about analysing whether correlation relates to causation, but it seems to me that they are unlikely to be unrelated. It's not just toys as well- when I was a girl (and I'm only 36 now) boys and girls wore pretty much the same clothes - jeans and a baggy t-shirt. But children's clothes now are much more copies of adult clothing with tight jeans and tight tops for girls from a young age. Even books for children are frequently divided into 'girls books' and 'boys books.

[venusinscorpio]

Catching the gay would be the worst thing. Much worse than finding out your son was a girl trapped in a boy's body.

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

My gay friends are actually quite wary about the "rise of trans" - there was a petition they supported to remove the T from LGB and a number say that they'd have been brainwashed into taking hormones as children when they were trying to "not be wrong".

My one friend also believes that most trans people are strongly homophobic, particularly against non butch gay men - and that the reason they're so adamant they're women is because they loathe unmasculine men and hate the idea of being one. The problem is, saying this in some parts of the gay community can get you ostracised.

[MyFavouriteClintonisGeorge]

I do worry that we are quietly sleepwalking into turning in to Iran, where you can't be gay (death penalty!), you have to be trans.

Of course, some people (how many is an interesting question) are trans, but for them too, transitioning would be a whole lot easier and acceptance much more forthcoming if everyone could be a lot more gender-critical.

Valid discussion in a week where a vile pick-up artist who states that women's only value lies in their attractiveness, availability and willingness to defer to men announces he is coming to the UK.

[SisterMoonshine]

And Lelli Kelly shoes Thistledew.
When can boys properly enjoy some sparkle?

[TheXxed]

I know of lots of butch women who 'pack'. Which means they wear a dildo inside their trousers and there is a lot of pressure for butch women to 'pack' .

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

But where does the pressure to pack come from TheXxed? Surely the attraction for lesbians is women not men? Can you not be butch without people expecting you to be a man?

[SisterMoonshine]

Maybe we need a 'let boys be girls' campaign.

[SisterMoonshine]

...or not

[ShortcutButton]

I would ask that my child be removed from such presentations in the future