So my dd had a LGBT assembly this morning

[MrsFogi]

and this evening asked me if I knew that if you felt you were in the wrong body you could take some pills when you are 16 and that would change your body to a boy's body.
Cue about an hour of her hearing my views on the subject. I am so sad that she already seems to be getting a very narrow view on transgender issues and horrified that she is of the view that she cannot challenge or question any of the teaching because she tells me she would be bullied for being transphobic.
I am beginning to fear that it is too late to stop this trans-juggernaut.
And before anyone asks - my dd is 100% clear that I have no problem if she wishes to live as a boy, is straight, lesbian or bisexual.

And if you don't think that children like the OP's child are not widespread, think again.

2000 children are year showing up to gender clinics. 1900 of them have got nothing wrong with them.

Ask yourself why they are there?

OP, tell your child's school that sexual orientation and sex carry equal weigh under EA law as the protected characteristic gender reassignment. And ask them what sort of impact assessments they are doing for those other protected characteristics.

Slight derail, but this utter madness reminds me of when I was at school in the 90’s, aged 14/15, Catholic school I might add, I got kicked out of the classroom during a discussion on abortion, The teacher (in his 20’s at the time surprisingly) would not not accept that abortion was ok under any circumstances! I got kicked out when I got really angry with him and some class mates for insisting that even rape was not a valid reason to abort a pregnancy!!! (Perhaps not a massive shock that those arguing with me and shutting me down were male...) It makes me angry even now! My point is this crazy dogmatic adherence is very familiar to me in what we are seeing now with schools encouraging a culture of silence by anyone who doesnt agree with the bullshit being shunned and humiliated. I despair, I really hoped we had moved on from this kind of crap. Teachers need to ensure that kids are never afraid to debate any contentious issues, debate and freedom of speech is the foundation of critical thinking and it is a scary world we enter, when learning through debate is discouraged.

Some parent showed it to head of year who quickly pointed out the flaws in the language and obvious bias, agreed by other SMT.

I don't believe you. There is no way that a random school in a random town had a random parent show brand new guidance produced by a niche website to a random head of year and the random head of year and another random SMT had a perfectly formed response ready to go.

You are making it up.

If you personally don't like the Transgender Trend guidance, just say so on your own behalf.

Lang I am inclined to agree, it does all seem rather convenient...

I find it extremely unlikely that, having actually read the guidance, anyone could find fault with the language. However, the language has been criticised by some of louder TRA mouthpieces on Twitter, most of whom admit to not having actually read it either

You are making it up.

Well yeah, that's what I thought. But when they go low, I go snarky...

FUCKS SAKE EVERYONES BODY FEELS WRONG AT 16!!!! IT'S CALLED ADOLESCENCE AND IT SUCKS BUT IT PASSES

Scary shit

Well my 14 yr old DS got his ‘talk’ in a PHSE(?) lesson a few weeks ago. He said he felt so sorry for the teacher because the kids were guffawing at the suggestion that a man can have a vagina and a woman can have a penis but the teacher obviously HAD to deliver that message. Obviously they completely tied themselves up in knots as lots of pupils started accusing her of using stereotypes and being sexist when she tried to define what feeling male and feeling female meant.

This really needs handling better. Simply parroting the standard trans literature is doing nothing to truly protect the trans kids from bullying and I’m sure some of these kids would be good allies if they just dropped all this male and female penis bollocks. Let’s talk about allowing expression, non conformity and stamp out homophobia but not by doing this ridiculous double speak, and ‘believe in my beliefs or you’re a bigot’ stuff.

Luckily my DS and I have had lots of conversations on this subject. I’ve talked to my 10 year old DD about it too when I had to explain to her how there was a boy in her Rebel Girl book but they thought he was a girl because he liked Pink and Princesses and her re Amex himself Coy (yuck!) after the rest of the book had been doing a great job of counteracting all that gender stereotyping too.

lots of pupils started accusing her of using stereotypes and being sexist when she tried to define what feeling male and feeling female meant.

This makes me happy/hopeful

Renamed not re Amex!

Do you know if the assembly was delivered in-house by the teaching staff? Or were outside speakers were brought in, eg Gendered Intelligence, GIRES?

Simply parroting the standard trans literature is doing nothing to truly protect the trans kids from bullying

Exactly. I imagine in many cases it makes it worse because it draws attention to what a load of bullcrap (GI Joe to Barbie, FFS) it all is. Far better to concentrate on anti-bullying than to bash them over the head with sanctimonious lectures about how special a classmate is in comparison to them. If that isn't a recipe for piss taking and resentment, I don't know what is.

I imagine in many cases it makes it worse because it draws attention to what a load of bullcrap (GI Joe to Barbie, FFS) it all is. Far better to concentrate on anti-bullying than to bash them over the head with sanctimonious lectures about how special a classmate is in comparison to them. If that isn't a recipe for piss taking and resentment, I don't know what is.
For the very young it is also a recipe for identifying into being praiseworthy.

Cue about an hour of her hearing my views on the subject. I'm sure your daughter would have already been well informed on the subject matter as I can tell it's very important to you, which is why if I knew that if you felt you were in the wrong body you could take some pills when you are 16 and that would change your body to a boy's body statement doesn't ring true.

I'm so worried about this. My son has autism and has a very scientific and fact based mind. We have recently had cause to discuss trans issues a little bit and he was very clear how biology works and that you can't change sex. He finds it very distressing when things don't appear to make any sense or have a rational basis. I'm very worried about any adults in positions of authority attempting to preach this nonsense to him and any repercussions for him if he responds negatively to it.

It doesn't sound like she's wildly off - it sounds like she was taught about how you can take hormones etc to make your body match your gender and has just given you a very potted recollection of that? Maybe she just needs a bit more info about the various processes that may be involved in transitioning etc.

Sounds like mermaids. Their leaflet mentions kids playing with toys typically associated with the opposite sex could be an indicator of being trans.

Which is of course at odds with the excellent advice given in the transgender trend article on gender non conformity which actually encourages children to play with toys usually associated with the opposite sex.

This is where the problem of no debate comes in. If schools dismiss out of hand the advice given in the transgender trend leaflet they are missing out on some excellent information. And the stuff on, i think page 14, of that transgender trend article is fantastic advice for any school or parent. I don't think anyone could argue with what is said on there.

it sounds like she was taught about how you can take hormones etc to make your body match your gender

But you can't do that. You can take hormones to make your body superficially resemble the opposite sex but you cannot physically make your body match the opposite sex. And you don't need hormones to be free to have any kind of gender expression (something the rest of us call personality).

If a child is being taught this in school, it is being taught a religious belief with no basis in fact.

As @LangCleg says, cross sex hormones don't make your body match your gender. They will give you an outward appearance of the opposite sex, and potentially make you sterile. I wish that adults wouldn't preach fiction to children like this.

I think that I'd like to find out what was said/shown for myself before deciding whether to take my concerns to the school.

No hormones are going to give me a mans skeleton FFS

angryattackkittens thanks for giving me a good laugh, not many laughs to be had around this issue!

As much as anything else, the standards of the education make me weep - I'd expect a 16 year old to be taught a more nuanced understanding of transitioning from M to F than you pop a few pills and bob's your uncle.

I agree with the person that said adolescence is a very difficult and uncertain time where we try on things but do not necessarily know who we are, I can't think that you should be allowed to make serious changes before the age of 21 really, wrt gender reassignment.

and MrsFogi, please go talk to the parent council and the board of governors, if you can.

If my kids were still of school age - particularly primary school age - I would enquire what resources were being used to teach this stuff. One whiff of Mermaids or GIRES and I would be withdrawing them from those lessons and not being quiet about why. Now the Transgender Trend resource is available, I would also be saying we would be using the time at home to go through this resource.

It’s not just schools either. Organisations like Scouts and Guides are being trained by the likes of Mermaids and Gendered Intelligence and their policies updated in accordance with the pro-trans lobby groups resources/propaganda. Scout & Guide Leaders are expected to abide by the updated policies without question.

The Transgender Trend pack could be sent to your kids’ leaders, local commissioners etc - this topic is bound to come up at some stage with any group of young people and organisations have a responsibility to be truthful and honest with their members about the reality of sex, gender and the process of transitioning.