What’s going on with Natasha Devon?

[Sentimentallentil]

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/i-received-rape-and-death-threats-after-i-suggested-schools-use

What’s going on here?
I don’t find it too hard to believe that the press would mis quote her in order to create click bait.

Also I think it’s terrible that a woman would recieve rape threats to try and silence them.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/i-received-rape-and-death-threats-after-i-suggested-schools-use

Link?

The root of this seems to be her saying in a conference speech:

“To give you an example, I never walk into a room in an all girls’ school and say ‘girls’ or ‘ladies’ because it is patronising, but also because there might be transgender people in the room."

and then in a later press briefing:

I was asked: "Can you talk more about the part where you said teachers shouldn’t use gender pronouns in case they offend transgender children?"

This is, quite clearly, not what I said. And I could see where this conversation was going. So, I decided to try and emphasise the benefits of using neutral language for all young people, rather than framing it as an inconvenient concession we have to make for the benefit of transgender people, alone.

The threats she received are completely wrong. As a separate matter, having wandered into a swamp of words and their meanings she seemed to be distancing herself from what she said in a slightly weaselly way.

Not making a distinction between the words boys and girls does not stop society making a distinction between boys and girls.

I have no problem with gender neutral language. But it’s a bit of a meaningless acknowledgement of a problem, without addressing the actual problem.

The backlash against her seems pretty nasty though, so you think she’d have been treat the same if she was a man?

No, and she wouldn't have been treated like that if she were trans either.

I agree, had this come from a man, the response would have been completely different.

Of course not. Men get away with it.

I’m struggling to get a proper angle on this. Who did the rape threats come from? Is she being considered transphobic? Or PC gorn mad?

Rape threats generally come from TRAs and MRAs.

I think it’s really frightening that no mater what your opinion is if you’re a woman you’re a t real risk talking about it in public.
You can’t really win.

I would guess she was perceived as having been "politically correct", and especially with respect to children, and the threats will have come from the rabid "PC gone mad" frothers.

I think MRA’s off the back of the daily mail article and Peirs Morgan’s rant.

I agree that the threats have come from the MRA twitterers etc. And teachers have always been open to changes in language and meaning. I reckoned what she said was not particularly controversial.

What I would be interested in is her take on the pressure to trans children below the age of consent, the misuse of suicide statistics in relation to children and the free access to schools that transgender pressure groups have been given to promote their own agenda.
I wonder how she sees this?

She said:

So, I decided to try and emphasise the benefits of using neutral language for all young people, rather than framing it as an inconvenient concession we have to make for the benefit of transgender people, alone.

Still struggling to get an angle here. Obviously not using gendered language goes against the trans-ideology.

I’m wondering if she is mindful of the maths teacher who was suspended for getting it wrong.

Trying to find a gender neutral way of including everybody. Which the trans lobby won’t like, but I don’t see how they can complain about it.

At the same time she is clearly gender critical. As she sees gender being harmful.

I know, I can’t really grasp what’s going on. Just that woman said something about gender and people didn’t like it.

To be honest even if I don’t agree with what she said (not that I can quite work out what that is) I think I would like to show support for women publically having this debate as who fucking would.
She also says sex is between the likes and gender is between the ears, I don’t think she knows what she’s saying so lord knows what her point was.

I think she’s a little confused about the trans aspect. But wants to be gender neutral as gender is damaging for girls.

Then the press jumped on it as PC gorn mad.

She has my support not to be threatened, and given the nature of the threats it might justify the police being involved.

Separately what she's saying looks really muddled. For example she seems to think that referring to a girl as a girl is gendered language. But then follows that up with It’s also important not to conflate biological sex and gender.

I don’t think she knows what she’s saying so lord knows what her point was seems like a fair summary.

Yeah and I watched that Courtney Act video that she linked and I was like I totally agree with this, except that it is peoples business

Sorry posted too soon.

Except that it is peoples business what’s between your legs when it comes to protecting women and sex segregated spaces.

It kind of felt like she’d just thought of the idea or had seen a video about it and then mentioned it without any thought about it.

I also don’t think calling a group of girls ‘girls’ is patronising unless you think being a girl is an insult.

I also don’t think calling a group of girls ‘girls’ is patronising unless you think being a girl is an insult.

It's not relevant in a classroom though. You wouldn't refer to a group of people with blonde hair by reference to their hair colour for instance.

But you wouldn’t put a group of blonde haired people together for learning.
It might not be directly linked to their learning but it would be strange to group the girls together (say in an all girls school or for pe) then not be allowed to call them girls.

I get your point about referring to girls in an all-girls school and see no problem with that but in a mixed school there is no need to split into boy/girl groups.

Why would you group girls together but not the blonde haired people unless you think girls learn differently to boys? (And there are many teachers who DO think boys and girls learn differently, there was a big effort to understand underperforming boys while I was doing my PGCE which mainly consisted of stating that boys are more active than girls, boys like non-fiction not fiction, boys like cars and trucks and dinosaurs and superheros and various other stereotypes that we should cater to in the classroom).

But she wasn’t talking about that, she said that in a girl school they shouldn’t refer to the students as a group ‘girls’.
I agree there’s no need to split up boys and girls for education except for pe.

I think she is talking about the effects of stereotype threat - there is research that suggests that if you remind students of their sex before taking a maths test, girls perform worse on the test.
So if you are in an education environment and you're constantly referring to your pupils as girls or boys, you may be reminding them of their sex, triggering stereotype threat and affecting their education.

I think it's another example of how the whole debate is being deliberately revved up by people who have something to gain from pitting trans people and women against one another.

What she said was entirely reasonable - using gender-neutral language is courteous and no great imposition on anyone.