Sex ed and belief in gender stereotypes

[VestalVirgin]

The fact that apparently, many mumsnetters' children are gender critical ("terfs") at relatively tender ages, while plenty of people don't even get it as adults got me thinking about what the reason for this might be.

Is it possible that it has something to do with the relative age at which people learn about the biological, factual difference between the sexes, and at which they are exposed to gender stereotypes?

I cannot even remember not knowing the anatomical facts, as far as external genitals were concerned, and I have been gender critical since age 6. (Probably before, but that's when I recall children my age starting the gender stereotyping)

As some threads on sex ed have shown, some people do not feel a need to tell their children anything much about the genitals of the other sex before the topic comes up in sex ed at school.

What does it do to a child to be exposed to gender stereotyping before learning about the facts?

Sure, they see that their mother has breasts and their father does not, but they don't ever see the difference between their own bodies and those of other pre-puberty children, apparently. (And breasts are relative; some women hardly have any, some men grow them, too ...)

Growing up to believe that a girl is a person who wears pink clothes and a boy is a person who wears blue clothes (et cetera, all other stereotypes) and that's the most important difference there is, might lead to this belief persisting well into adulthood.

So, that's my theory.

I'd like to know whether it holds true.

If you have children who are gender critical, did they know the anatomical differences between the sexes at, say, age 3?

And the other way round, of course.

I don't expect it to explain everything (gender ideology has spread all over the world, and in some countries, nude bathing is so normal it is simply not conceivable someone wouldn't know the facts), but I wonder whether it has some influence.

Hmm, not sure. We've never worried about our children seeing us naked, so they'll have been aware of what adult male and female bodies look like from a very young age. They're both girls, but ran around naked with / shared baths with male cousins and friends, again from a very young age (and my 10 year old still has no qualms about stripping down to just pants to play in the sprinkler with her best friend (who's a boy))

My 14 year old has still largely drunk the kool aid, though - although there are signs that she's starting to think more critically. She knows everyone has the genitalia of the sex they were 'assigned at birth', but she believes the whole 'gender is what's in your head, not what's between your legs' malarkey.

She's quite personally invested, as she has one close friend who was born female but has identified as a boy since they were three (she didn't know them beforehand), and another who is considering transitioning. She's a staunch feminist, and some of the conversations I've had with her about the conflicts between feminist and trans ideologies have hit home, but I think the (completely understandable) sympathy she has for her trans friends means she struggles to think logically about the issue.

My dd and ds are less than two years apart, so have known the differences between boys and girls since a very young age.

My dd(13) doesn't buy into trans theory. When she was given the trans talk in year 7, she thought it was odd that for years she's been told the girls can do anything, but here were people saying there are boy traits and hobbies and different ones for girls. She thinks the 101 genders are personality traits. She doesn't know of any trans children at her school, I don't know if that would make a difference.

I think the people doing the trans talk misjudged their audience and used childish concepts and embarrassed most of the class by asking them to define their sexuality and gender. Also, it didn't help that the talk was sandwiched between two sex ed lessons.

Like everything else, it washes over ds.

I wasn't taught anything about sex or my body by my parents. I worked it out by about 12 and got the rest from a magazine a year or so later.

I'd say I'm a gender critical feminist.

I have taken my children to a naturist swimming club from a young age, I believe it is important to grow up knowing what your body is like and what other people's body's are really like, there is a mix there of boys, girls, women and men, as they grow up they should grow up happier with there body's and thierselves

I was curious about whether or not the smalls could work out the difference between fact and fiction. Before the age of 4, they could tell what was a play and what was the news on the TV. We treated it as a game. By that age they could pretty much reliably tell men apart from women as well.
The idea of reproduction didnt come into it at that age. They just knew. We have a couple of camp gay friends and NGC lesbians and they knew their sex without being told.