Disappointing article on transgender in TES

[FreiasBathtub]

Urgh. It's like transgender bingo:

• Questioning the way things are going == being a horrible homophobe, section 28 etc etc etc (bonus point for linking to Owen Jones article)
• Why are feminists so obsessed with genitalia?
• Nobody is cutting bits of children or pumping them full of chemotherapy drugs, promise!
• 'history will judge you...'
• Transitioning is always a long, painful, difficult process (with the implication that it involves surgery, drugs and a significant change to lifestyle)
• Women are worried about men pretending to be women in order to take over their safe spaces which would never happen because see above

Plus some exciting new angles I haven't seen before, including:

• Feminists, it's YOUR attachment to gender roles that means boys can't wear dresses
• Transgender people 'are the last people who would encourage gender reassignment on a whim'

I mean, even a very cursory glance on Twitter would show how completely batshit most of these assertions are.

A fact free, evidence free, comprehension free essay which unfortunately has been published in a 'reputable' trade journal for teachers who are already being told they should break fundamental safeguarding rules when a child discloses that they think they might be trans.

Does TES have a right of reply? Letters page? I'm too close to this sector to write anything myself as it would, unfortunately, be professionally damaging.

www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/transphobes-are-driving-childrens-confusion-about-gender-not-trans

Forgive me if this isn't the correct place but I didn't want to start another trans thread. I've been lurking on the board for a bit now don't think i have commented yet.

I fell down a buzzfeed rabbit hole earlier and some of the comments on an article were on about cultural appropriation and I thought isn't this exactly what the trans gendered people are doing?

They take things which are stereotypically part of female or male culture and claim them for their own. They even go as far as to surgically mimic body parts. How is that not considered at least as offensive as Kim K's braids?

How is this different from the misogynistic comedy sketches of years gone by with gossipy bosom hoisting characters?

You could argue that gender being a protected characteristic needs to be protected for the people born of that gender

You're absolutely right. One thing they definitely don't identify as is "consistent", though.

Me three Nouser. I don’t understand how it’s not on a par with other forms of appropriation especially when used against women. Appropriation (to me) is objected to where it reduces the individuals of (insert disadvantaged group) to cliched stereotypes, hereby insulting and negating their individuality. This appropriation thus demeans their serious issues that they face as a group. It sounds exactly like what is happening here basically.