LGBT Talks in School

[GerbilHeaven]

I've posted this here because I'm aware that many MN'ers are fed-up of the Trans threads popping up everywhere, and frankly, I need someone to put some sense into the way I feel. I've NC - I've been on MN a few years. I am not goading nor trolling.

DD(11) returned from school earlier and announced that they'd had a group of people into an hour long assembly to discuss anti-bullying. She then announced that the biggest thing they spoke about was "Trans- something" (DD's words - please remember she's 11) and that they'd told her that men can have vaginas. One of the speakers said that they were now a man despite being born as a woman and that she encouraged the children to encourage trans and not discourage trans. I asked DD what she'd learnt and she said that she'd found the whole event to be less on anti-bullying and more on "Trans". The speaker also told them that they (the children) should now educate their parents and teachers and challenge anything that they said.

I have to admit I'm a bit baffled and pissed off about the whole thing. I don't consider Year 7 to be ready for anything like this and considering that they send home sex-ed permission slips, I'm wondering where the hell they didn't warn parents about this in advance. I would have like the chance to discuss this issue with my daughter before she's met with a large powerpoint proclaiming that Men also have vaginas.

I'm not expressing myself correctly here, and there's no doubt I'd cause an almighty shit storm if I posted this elsewhere, but I truly, truly don't feel comfortable with this aspect of education.

Yes, it really is, because what you wear and do is entirely up to you (with a nod to societal pressures) it's just so regressive to tie that up to what genitals you have.

If the corner stone of being trans is gender dysphoria and that means that these are peopel who are disgusted by their genitals, then why is it that it is not what is taught in schools?
Why are we going on about 'felling like a woman/a man' when the issue is, 'I cant stand my penis/my vagina'?

After all school is THE place where teaching can happen and in particular, this is the place where you can explain things to children and explain how what they hear on TV/YouTube and whatnot is NOT the reality.
I find it frightening that in this case, school isn't up to the job tbh.

IAmAmy thanks for that!

I'm agreeing with you choc

hummus

I've no idea why the focus has shifted onto gender roles specifically. I think that is what is so damaging. There is another thread on here about a two-year-old on a TV magazine programme. The parents think the child is trans. I didn't see the program, but the thread indicated it was just because of gender roles. I don't think gender dysphoria was even mentioned.

A bloody 2 year old.

That 2 year old's parents need some social services input/psychiatric evaluation ASAP.

Thinking a 2 yr old is trans because of what the child likes to play with is nothing apart from a serious case of homophobia

If you are genuinely trans-gender, maybe it does start when you're very young. The point is, there needs to be a very specific set of criteria and liking the opposite genders toys isn't one of them.

I can see pounds everywhere peering at their children wondering.

It's such a mess

• parents

• parents

Maybe it does but how would anyone tell if a 2 yr old was trans?
Tbh I'm not sure that being trans is anything other than a social construct, presumably in young children heavily influenced by their parents.

I've not had a satisfactory response from the school - there isn't an email address on the website so I've telephoned 3 times today, twice yesterday and NOBODY has returned my calls. The last message I left with the clerk was my asking for the name
Of the staff member who authorised this talk and a request for the PowerPoint that was used.

From various other pupils and parents, I can confirm that one of the slides did say that Men can have vaginas. The speaker also encouraged kids to be themselves even if it means not washing, dumping clothes on the floor, drinking red-bull to stay up all night gaming as they had done (this had won them a lot of applause ).

To me, this is about taking away MY right as a parent, to have a good honest talk about biological truth and the shades of grey in between. I felt that my DD wasn't ready for that and I'm having to answer a great deal of difficult questions. She isn't traumatised by this, but she is a bit bemused and confused.

It's speaking volumes that no-one is getting back to me.

ageingrunner. I want to agree with you because I also think that in some cases it is. Frankly the reasons for transitioning seem to be manifold.
From the 'genuine' who live out their lives, at peace and happy as the opposite sex. From those who have mental health issues, for whom nothing will ever be right. From those who feel more liberated as their gender presentation changes regularly on mood. To those with gender dysphoria. And the transvestite link set.

That's what polarises the opinion. Everyone know someone, and they are all different.

GerbilHeaven

Keep at it. Make them accountable. They are obviously wondering whether they have done the right thing. Well done, don't give up.
Red Bull and gaming indeed. What the fuck happened to the idea of role models?

DD took a sneaky peak at the teachers and she said "Mam, they didn't look too happy". "One had her mouth open and her hand over it".

Good Lord. gerbil there is another current thread about political correctness. You might want to post on that.

Christ almighty this makes me wonder what 'biology' textbooks will consist of in a few years' time.

IAmAmy - I don't honestly think you're even attempting to separate my personal belief in non-binary gender where male/females can express themselves however they like from a professional role that involves explaining how trans people feel/experience things because you keep asking me to explain what a girls/boys mind is (as if I personally believe in narrow gender definitions) and tell me that I hold damaging views that limit girls (when I know for a fact I don't).

So i'll clarify again. Im not trans. So I can't get inside a trans persons mind where they feel like they are a girl vs a boy. But I do know that feeling like you're in the wrong genders body is what many trans people report feeling. So when I explain what trans is like, I take my cues from people who have experienced it and wouldn't dare invalidate their experience.if somebody says "I feel like a girl in a boys body" that's their experience. It's not for me to say "oh I'm really sorry and you might feel that way, and that's a real part of your existence but really you're just misguided because you can do whatever you like as a boy so shouldn't feel that way" or say to children "here's somebody's experience but lets be critical because really it's not an issue. they just need to stop thinking of girl vs boy"

I've just read through this all and it's so refreshing to read properly thought out posts about this subject that aren't just shouted down.
I have a sibling who is ftm trans and I've reached my limit with it all. I'm supportive in all ways I can be but at the weekend when he started telling me that I didn't understand the trauma of having a period with his identity I had to walk away. He's 16 and everything he tries to 'teach' me sounds exactly the same as the crap your DD has heard. The worst part is when I'm almost labelled as transphobic because I disagree with his opinions.
I'm exhausted with it, and if I have to hear the word identity one more time...

Actually, I'm with Amy on the issue of personal experience. Here's a piece someone posted on the political correctness thread, from Vox.

"Herein lies the folly of oversimplified identity politics: while identity concerns obviously warrant analysis, focusing on them too exclusively draws our attention so far inward that none of our analyses can lead to action. Rebecca Reilly Cooper, a political philosopher at the University of Warwick, worries about the effectiveness of a politics in which "particular experiences can never legitimately speak for any one other than ourselves, and personal narrative and testimony are elevated to such a degree that there can be no objective standpoint from which to examine their veracity." Personal experience and feelings aren't just a salient touchstone of contemporary identity politics; they are the entirety of these politics. In such an environment, it's no wonder that students are so prone to elevate minor slights to protestable offenses."

And therein, to my mind, lies the problem. A transactivist says "I feel like a girl inside even though I was 'assigned male at birth'." A gender critical feminist says "I have spent my whole life just feeling like me, neither male nor female, just a person with a disparate range of interests, and usually when people have turned to me and said 'but surely you should be interested in XYZ because you are a girl,' this has turned out to be an attempt to constrain my interests to a narrow range based on my sex." Whose experience are we to privilege here? If all we have are the internal feelings within our own heads, how are we supposed to communicate at all?

And furthermore it becomes dangerous, because how do we base law on the internal feelings inside people's heads? As many people have said, the problem with self-identification lies not with genuinely trans people but that it then becomes impossible to police. Say we have a man with a string of convictions behind him for indecent exposure and voyeurism. On his twentieth arrest he says "Ah, but I have realised what was going on on those previous 19 occasions you arrested me. I have been unjustly convicted. I now realise that I am in fact gender fluid, and identify as a woman half the week." Now of course I know he's taking the piss, you know he's taking the piss, and what's more his actions will cause problems for genuinely trans people. But if all that matters in law is an internal mental feeling (which is private to the person having it) and the only access the rest of us have to that mental state is the person's assertion that they genuinely are having such a state, what can we do other than take their assertion at face value?

I understand why trans people don't want mental health professionals acting as gatekeepers - it must be awful to feel that your acceptance depends on external validation from some authority figure. But the alternative - that we must take all assertions about internal feelings at face value, and they cannot be subject to scrutiny or requests for clarification - results in a free-for-all where the baby gets thrown out with the bath water.

what the fuck happened to the idea of role models?

The problem is, your idea of what a role model should be will be very different from what other parents think. And teachers have to tread a very fine line, respecting parents views, meeting statutory guidance and dealing sensitively with teenagers who are trying to process it all. That is hard when dealing with subjects like smoking, where many children will have parents or other relatives who smoke, or may have known people die from smoking related illnesses but at least we can all agree that children shouldn't smoke.

It isn't quite so clear cut with gender and trans issues. With governments backing gender recognition certificates and self identification it would be really risky (professionally speaking) for a teacher to publicly disagree with the trans narrative.

If I were asked what was meant by "body and personality don't match" I would be honest. I don't really understand it, because I have never felt it, but that is how some people describe it. I don't have an internal feeling of being a boy or a girl but some people do.

M0stlyHet

Great post.

We're up to 76 different genders and counting. Life isn't tailor made for each individual. Society would just fall apart.

People can customise their own lives, based on their internal feelings. That's great. It only becomes a problem when it relies on everybody else's perception for it to work.

AmeliaLeopard

I was largely talking about an LGBT lecture endorsing red bull and gaming for 11-year-olds. I understand they need to bond and get them on board, I just think it was an odd choice.

Maisy I'm not sure where you got that impression from. You stated that you tell children, not trans children but children you teach, that somebody might have the body of a boy but have the personality and mind of a girl (and other way round). You are presumably telling this to girls and boys who aren't questioning their bodies/identity (at least until that point). So what would you tell them if one asked what "the personality and mind of a girl" is? It's not exactly beyond the realms of possibility one might ask, it's quite likely I'd have thought, so what'd your explanation be? This is nothing to do with dismissing anyone's experiences, I want to know what you believe "the personality and mind of a girl" is seeing as you're a teacher who is telling the children you teach one exists and they may well wish to know the answer.

M0stlyHet great post!