Boys can enter girls' dormitories at state boarding school

[pisacake]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-boys-to-board-withgirls-at-gordons-school-qrllwztm3

"Gordon’s School in Woking, Surrey, is drawing up guidance for pupils saying they can ask to wear the uniform of the opposite sex, be addressed by a different name and/or pronouns, use gender-neutral ­lavatories, grow their hair long if they are boys, change their accommodation and wear make-up and jewellery."

Note that the uniform policy says:

www.gordons.surrey.sch.uk/uniform

"Make-up and nail varnish are both not allowed. This includes all make-up.
Girls are only allowed one earring in the lobe of each ear – no other piercings are allowed. With the exception of the above rule, jewellery is not allowed."

So it appears they are allowing make-up in order to cater for boys who want to dress up as girls. Line edited by MNHQ

"The school said it had acted because it had “become aware of students who would ‘come out’ after leaving the school”. It wanted pupils to feel safe to do so while still in their care."

Being safe obviously means allowing boys to sleep in the girls dormitories which are supposed to be safe spaces for girls who may be thousands of miles from their parents (most boarders are army children).

"The Boarding Schools’ Association has issued guidance to schools saying that if a boy intends to change gender he should be offered the chance to sleep in the girls’ dormitory and vice versa."

"Not all parents are happy about such changes. On Friday, parents at Highgate, a coeducational London private day school, received a letter from the head teacher, Adam Pettitt, apologising for the introduction of gender-neutral lavatories. Some younger pupils, he admitted, had felt “less comfortable and happy at school” as a result.

Highgate brought in the lavatories “to support gender-fluid pupils”, only for parents to ask if the change was “proportionate” given how few such students were at the school."

OrderMeACurry
I also didnt say getting rid of gender would be bad? I agreed that would be a great way to live.
To me its like you are argueing that there is not such thing as transgender/gender dysphoria and that there are just girl or like 'boy' things and boys who like 'girl' things, after saying you are transgender.
Could you explain what you mean?

I have gender dysphoria (which would be more accurately described as sex dysphoria) which has caused me severe distress at times and made me feel that my body is wrong and that I need to 'fix' it. However was I literally physically born in the wrong body? No of course I wasn't. I do know that being referred to as 'she' and by my female name helps ease that distress.

I found asking myself how I knew I was a woman really interesting.

Basically I don't. I know I am female because I bleed every month (well actually I don't because I have a hormonal coil in my cervix but i certainly felt my female biology when they inserted that thing!), I have breasts and a vagina, I don't have children but I have a womb and ovaries and I know this because I've seen them on a scan.

Other than my biology I know I am a woman because society treats me like a woman, Ive felt this much more as I've got older and since I got married (not from my husband but from the outside world).

Other than that there's nothing else I can put my finger on that doesn't resort to gender stereotype and for every female one I also can think of a male one. I like make up but I also do the diy in my house.

Obviously gender dysphoria/trans people exist. I exist.

I think people should be allowed to dress how they want and be interested in whatever they want without society suggesting this makes them trans or that there is something wrong with them.

Gender dysphoria is no different to hating your nose to the point where it causes you distress and makes you not want to look in the mirror. Except it's your sex and what goes along with that that you hate.

Are you agreeing with the previous posts that you only identify as trans in order to conform to gender stereotypes, do you not actually feel as if your gender and sex dont correlate?

Ah, I see. You think gender is an internal sense of something not dependent upon stereotypes.

I have never, in my entire time talking to trans-people had that described to me. Because it's impossible.

Originally transwomen did talk about stereotypes. They felt more feminine, liked long hair, make up, etc. Until feminists pointed out that those are socially constructed ideas, which change across history, geography and time. And then they had to stop saying it.

But they can't replace it with anything else. Because there isn't anything.

One transwoman told me he felt more vibrant as a woman. What he meant was society allowed him to express himself that way, but only as a woman. But again it's society, not an actual innate essence.

With children it's always about stereotypes. Every single time.

Imagine a boy at the edge of the playground not wanting to play football or climb trees. Glancing across to the girls in their princess dresses and sparkly shoes, playing with dolls houses. He wants to play with that. But he can't, because he's a boy. He will be called cissy, lame, gay - all as slurs.

He can't play with those toys because society genders them. Society genders everything, particularly for children. Clothes, shoes, hair, cakes, birthday cards, wallpaper, curtains, duvet covers, towels, backpacks, plates, mugs, photoframes. All of it. This is for girls and this is the boys. And you cannot crossover. Unless you say you are the opposite sex. Then you get it all. Plus people think you're brave, wonderful, and everyone falls over them self to accommodate you.

I was thinking about this the other day and was wondering about why someone who believed gender was a social construct would also want to transition and it made me think about the reasons why women have cosmetic surgery. I could simultaneously know that I wanted a labiaplasty because I live in a pornofied culture and that the labia I desired did not reflect a 'real' image of a woman (whatever that means) and still be very distressed about my labia and feel better once I had 'fixed' it.

I'm not sure it's an exact similarity but I think people's desires around their bodies are not driven by logic and social constructs are powerful, it's not that gender isn't influential it's more that as a social construct we could dismantle it and create another structure.

I've been thinking more about how I know I'm a woman and actually I don't like make up, I say I like make up and I wear it but what I really like is the way that society treats me when I wear make up.
In reality it bores the fucking tits off me and it's expensive.

SentimentalLentil

I've wondered that too. Gender dysphoria is such a difficult thing to understand. curry calls it sex dysphoria. Distress over your sexed body. And likens it to any other body part.

The problem is, your sexed body, is not just any old body part. It represents so much. It can dictate your behaviour, because of stereotypes, and it can dictate how people treat you.

And if we got rid of gender, everyone will be treated equally, and you could behave any way you like. You will still have people who have disassociative conditions but I'm sure they would manifest in a different way.

I wonder if anorexia is anorexia because of society's obsession with slimness, for instance.

I have exactly the same attitude to make up. I know it's not an intrinsic like, because if I'm on my own in the house, I don't bother.

So I've spoken about this before but it might have been under a different username.
My mother tried to bring me and my sister up as gender neutral and it was awful, really distressing, but that was because my Mam and her partner hadn't really thought about it much and in their minds 'gender neutral' was actually male. So we weren't allowed to play with female things (except Polly pockets weirdly) and had to have our hair cut short like a boy and wear boys clothes. We also weren't allowed to do things like shave our legs and had to wear boys deodorant.

This caused us a lot of distress because our peers didn't know what to make of us and we didn't fit in at school and we were considered very undesirable and bullied relentlessy. I also don't think it worked because society still treat us as girls, just butch ones. Also we were having parts of our personalities squashed because we weren't allowed to follow any 'female' persuits, for example I wasn't allowed to join the netball team because it would have meant wearing a skirt.

I think in the persuit of gender neutrality we need to be careful not to allow an internalised hierarchy of traits and persuits show.

Not that anyone is doing that here, just felt like sharing.

You're quite right. And your experience sounds awful, very distressing. But it is still easier, I think for women to act masculine, then is for men to act feminine.

Although, in your case actually being forced to do it is dreadful.

I think the reason some people go towards masculinity is because it is seen as punching up, rather than down. Another symptom of our stupid, gendered society that says women are lesser.

Oh yeah definitely harder for men to present as feminine than a female to present as masculine.

It's much more visible when a man does it as well.

I think in the case of my mother and her partner it was a case of my mothers partner being a very butch woman herself and her trying to save us from womanhood.

But they obviously weren't breaking down the patriarchy or gender because we didn't live in a vacuum and they were in a weird way reinforcing the patriarchy as they were telling us that being female was bad.

I remember a dinner lady I had at school when I was about 6 was convinced I was a boy and I would say 'I'm a girl' and she'd say 'course you are son' and shake her head 😂

It happens a lot though when the default position is male, and female is the exeption.

There is a man who wears a skirt working at m my local station. Is he trans or just a man who wears a skirt?
(hypothetical question, I realise it's absolutely none of my business and I'm not actually interested in th e individual, just in the question in general)

Poppl
'cis'
'bitchy'
'frothing'
'hysteria'

No one banging a drum here, except you.

temp

You are making it far to complicated.

We can't technically get rid of something that doesn't exist.

Toilets etc are separated by sex.

What we can do and what I'm trying to do is raise our families to be kind decent honest people. To accept people for who they are. That clothes are just pieces of matetial. That jobs toys music sport etc are for everyone.

I fully suport a person's right to do with their body what they wish. And to dress and act how they wish (within the confines of the law)

And I of course support the right to be free of discrimination and violence and ridicule.

We should encourage children to be themselves and not defined by their body parts.

But we should not indulge stereo types and the idea that liking something means you should be something else.that is not helpful to children.

Spaces are not defined by gender.

Meet Pippa/Phillip Bunce, he literally does decide whether he's wearing a skirt that day and whether he's a woman or a man so which toilets to use.
He also is one of the top 30 women in business according to the financial times.

No, he's not. He's a man.

To erase societies constructions of male and female. So we will have gender neutral names, clothes, toys, toilets, changing rooms etc. Unless another person is your sexual partner you are going to have no idea if they have a penis or a vagina

Rofl - we're not Pratchett's Dwarves - I really don't think that we're going to have much trouble telling the difference between most men and women.

To erase societies constructions of male and female.

Or to put it another way; make sex only relevant where it is relevant; e.g reproduction, health, sport, and yes toilets because males and females use those differently.

In the vast majority of cases being male or female should not having any bearing on what job you do, what interests you have, what colours you like, how much of the housework you do or any number of other aspects of life where people are put into boxes because of their sex.

stealth

No idea at all, it would completely depend on him. Maybe he's a man who likes to wear dresses, or maybe he's trans. There's no way to tell and it's not really anyone's business.

fairy

Well yes he is still a man, I was bringing him up because temp said there wasn't people just swapping between the two willy nilly (pun intended) and there's no way that someone would just put on a dress and then demand to be treat like a woman.

Sentimental I completely agree. And don't actually care about this individual. But the agenda now seems to be that if you're a man who wears a skirt, you need to be saying you're a woman.

stealth

I know, it's really sad.

The issue that Poppl has is the exact problem with this. They are being confronted by the reality. And are having to deal with it.

Tying themselves up in knots trying to write guidelines that accommodate everyone. This is the problem. You can’t accommodate everyone.

Commonsense, women’s/girl’s rights, gut feelings, science. None of those stand a chance against the unthinkable crime of not accommodating a child who says they are trans.

She’s looked for support, references and guidelines. There are none. There can’t be. Because it is the black-and-white issue she is suggesting.

You can’t accommodate trans-without sacrificing women.

There is a small chance, that in a school, it’s possible. Because these are still children. If, and only if, the parents agree, a third space is an option. If the parents disagree, she’s had it. If the parents want to recruit help from any trans organisation, the school will be forced to comply.

Because we all know what happens when you go against it. The threats and persecution are relentless. The dubious suicide statistics, the invoking of LGBT rights, etc.

Who wants to attract that kind of shit storm to their institution?

Women are being sacrificed out of fear. Fear of men. Again.

It takes a certain kind of courage to withstand that onslaught. I profoundly, desperately hope that poppl finds it. Questioning even a small aspect of the ideology means you have to question all of it. Because at the heart of it is the fact that changing gender is essentially meaningless.

Finding a practical solution for a child, in this issue, means taking on an entire ideology.

poppl. If you’re still reading, might I suggest that you just say no. Say gender is not the same as sex. And then let the fight come to you.

Forcing the ideology to prove that gender and sex are the same is key.

And this child can also be told the same thing. Personally I would feel reassured by the fact that you are only letting them know something that cannot possibly damage them.