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?

[ShortcutButton]

Does say what that person has done to get themselves arrested does it Xx?

Can't be good if they are being kept in custody

And when did we start using 'women of colour' in the UK?

[TheXxed]

The whole thing is deliberately vague also I agree shortcut people.generally don't go on remand for first time or minor offenses.

[thecraftyfox]

Can't find any more details but one of the signatories claimed to have witnessed the event with 5 police officers and 5 security guards involved.

[LassWiTheDelicateAir]

Much outrage amongst the signatories. I wonder if they realise it is quite easy to avoid being arrested and remanded in custody. I'm a "cis" woman and oddly in 56 years of being a "cis" woman I've found it remarkably easy not to be arrested.

[TheCountessofFitzdotterel]

To be fair Lass, it is easier if you're white, middle class and don't have mental health problems.

[PosieReturningParker]

Not a single parent, and so don't feel as sensitive about flys post. I read that there was a recipe of situations that may have lead to these children identifying as trans, not that their mothers were to blame.

[PosieReturningParker]

I feel like signing that petition just to make a comment

[WilLiAmHerschel]

Me too Posie but there's no way I would sign.

[TheXxed]

I want to write to the prisons services directly

[TheXxed]

I posted the same thing on two different threads which why I asked for it to be removed, but since people have been talking about it, its seems a bit weird for the link to be there.

So here it is again.
www.change.org/p/hm-thameside-prison-hmp-thameside-director-john-briggin-of-hmp-thameside-thames-magistrates-court-jim-fitzpatrick-mp-rushanara-ali-mp-trans-women-of-colour-housed-in-men-s-prison-and-denied-hrt-in-custody?recruiter=483656122&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink

[ShortcutButton]

We could start a counter petition??
To keep TW with penises out of women's prisons

Its interesting mno one has started a petition for Davina Ayrton

[TheXxed]

shortcut there is such a strength of feeling about this subject that i don't think it stands a chance.

[Clonakiltylil]

I am up for doing it. Most people believe that a trans-gender woman will have undergone genital surgery. The reality is very rarely discussed and as a result there is little realisation that men with penises are asking to be placed in a women's prison where most of those incarcerated have suffered abuse - mental, physical or sexual - at the hands of men. These are traumatised women who deserve protection from potentially violent pre-op transexuals.

[Atenco]

Getting back on the subject, I really feel for all the young people who are being mutilated and receiving unnecessary medication because of this strange phenomena.

And its surge is particularly strange. We had a change of mayor here in Mexico City three years ago and suddenly there were advertisements all over the place about the importance of not discriminating against transgenders. There have always been transvestites in Mexico City and they are reasonably well integrated, while the people who are really discriminated against are the indigenous, but not a word about them.

[Gummydrops]

Thw recent trans movement in society,media is interesting. It feels like within one year someone said right this is the new ussue we need to focus on. So much so that in 2015 there have been numerous documentarys, articles,movies, posters, debates, organisations speaking about this. The subject if Trans issues in it self is not a problem but the large amount of propaganda is amazing. This is a very interesting thread.

[Gummydrops]

Interestingly when Germaine Greer challenged Caitli Jenner hardly any if at all feminists came to her aid. In my view what is the pointof feminism if we are too scared to stand up for Women and the essense of what makes us women.

[PalmerViolet]

It feels like within one year someone said right this is the new ussue we need to focus on.

Anything to stop women being allowed to focus on their own wants, needs and desires. The lesson here is the same as it's always been, that women must centre men at all times, especially when those men decide that they're going to call themselves women.