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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

What do educators make of what is happening in our schools?

147 replies

imwideawake · 09/07/2018 21:03

I wonder what Head Teachers, teachers (and anyone else involved in the nurturing and educating of our young people) are really thinking about the worrying way in which activists have turned their attention to children and have successfully infiltrated the school system, to the point they seem to be having having a very real and disturbing influence on young impressionable minds and their bodies.

What do they make of this mass bombardment of our children - encouraging children to go down the trans route, instead of leaving them be - to dress and behave how they want to, and to grow up with minimal interference to their minds and bodies.

The constant scaremongering of parents by so-called experts. The rolling out of dubious stats as a threat as to what might happen if the parents don't listen to the current advice.
Children taking hormone blockers when the long term effects haven't been properly tested.
Children being encouraged to mutilate their perfect bodies.

Frankly, I'm horrified that children appear to being used in some massive social experiment and I would would hope that people involved in education, more so than most, would at the very least question the advice that's being given out instead of blindly following things without questioning as to whether those things are right.
I appreciate that schools are sometimes bullied into following the current guidelines and are stuck between a rock and a hard place - we live in an environment, whereby to question and go against the flow could cause a person to lose their job, but what are they really/privately thinking?

Surely they can't all have been brainwashed!
These are serious times.
It really is a case of
Leave them Kids Alone!

Maybe this should have gone in Staffroom.

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enoughisenough12 · 09/07/2018 23:08

The advice for schools coming from some organisations is dangerous. SarahCarer is right - these are misguided rather than bad people. But their push to separate gnc children from the mainstream and from their parents is wrong. Telling teachers that they must breach safeguarding rules about confidentiality for GNC children is wrong. And it's not just wrong, it's dangerous. Dangerous for a child who may not be protected despite having told a teacher something worrying and professionally dangerous for an adult who may keep a confidence they had no business keeping - the teacher could well be sacked for failing to follow safeguarding rules. And then there's the drugs and the suicide statistics and the pink / blue brains and undermining parents and ........

Why on earth the government repeatedly funds and enables groups peddling this dangerous stuff I can't imagine? My guess is that no one ever actually reads what they are churning out or quality assures it in any way.

Toomuchsplother · 09/07/2018 23:09

Mermaids scared the bejeepers out of me!

Starkstaring · 09/07/2018 23:10

Sarah you are very clear and thank you for repeating your thoughts - it can't be overemphasised how vulnerable children and young people on the spectrum, especially girls, are to thinking they are trans.

enoughisenough12 · 09/07/2018 23:13

And yes LanguageAsaFlower
Yours is exactly the right attitude. Schools MUST support all children and protect them - schools should not be playing out these discussions with vulnerable children. That's why the Transgender Trend advice about making sure that adults remain neutral is important - they shouldn't be critical nor should they be celebrating / rescuing.

Voice0fReason · 09/07/2018 23:14

This is definitely more prevalent in some schools more than others and it's more secondaries. One of my local secondaries has a significant number and it seems to be constantly increasing.
I really worry about autistic teens who don't feel like they fit - this is such an easy step for them to believe will help them belong.
I really worry about the long-term harm of puberty blockers and the trans lobby's refusal to be honest about detransitioners. It's like a drug company only reporting the positive stories and pretending that the harmful side-effects aren't real.

SarahCarer · 09/07/2018 23:17

Thank you starkstaring and languageasaflower thank you for the work you are doing and the line you are holding. It is so encouraging to hear. Can I add that children with ASD often have issues with proprieception and dyspraxia which literally make their bodies feel alien to them. Wrong. They don't understand why other people seem to feel at home in their bodies. This is all part of how they get exploited by this narrative.

LanguageAsAFlower · 09/07/2018 23:18

@enoughisenough12

Who's telling people to break safeguarding? I want to warn people about that. It's nearly always younger teachers that students disclose/come out to, if they just google for advice I want to make sure they aren't taking that advice!

chocolateymilk · 09/07/2018 23:44

As a parent of an asd child, with a turbulent school existence, I think teachers are mainly trying to get by and catch up on the huge amount of paperwork. SEN teachers especially in my experience are so busy trying to navigate through the day, trying to do the best for the kids that they just go with it. My teenage child although very academically able, literally sums up a person and decides if they are worth conversing with, or not within the first meeting. When he first went to his asd base there was only one girl who thought she was trans. My child only connected with one other person there and he is now she. (there are only 15 kids in the base). My child asked me what to do, as he thought it was weird. (I'm hugely gender critical and recognise the autism link so he defo knows the difference between sex and gender) I told him to accept this person, as they were obviously struggling with who they are. My son understands that autistic people don't conform, (conformity does not change anything!) His friend asked him what he thinks about him now being she and he said, 'I know you as he, so you are, but I still think you are a nice person', his trans friend said, 'that's cool, im glad we are still friends'. I thought that was beautiful. We are all humans trying to get by. You cant change your sex. It really is that simple

Wanderabout · 09/07/2018 23:49

But their push to separate gnc children from the mainstream and from their parents is wrong. Telling teachers that they must breach safeguarding rules about confidentiality for GNC children is wrong. And it's not just wrong, it's dangerous. Dangerous for a child who may not be protected despite having told a teacher something worrying and professionally dangerous for an adult who may keep a confidence they had no business keeping - the teacher could well be sacked for failing to follow safeguarding rules. And then there's the drugs and the suicide statistics and the pink / blue brains and undermining parents and ........

imwideawake · 10/07/2018 09:43

I know the school is on the Stonewall champions list,

I caught a Sky interview a few days back in which a person from Stonewall openly admitted that a good proportion of money they receive is used to train Transactivists to 'spread the word'.

Schools are supposed to be shit hot on safeguarding and against radicalization and yet they are being encouraged to take advice and follow procedures th t may cause harm and may possibly not be in the best interests of the children.
It's a massive fail of Safeguarding, whichever way you look at it.

Anything that involves children, should be questioned, questioned and questioned again x100, before being rolled out.
It's shocking.

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imwideawake · 10/07/2018 09:49

It's good to know that a good proportion of people, especially those involved in education (at the coal face as it were) are questioning things, even if they have to do it privately or autonomously for fear of losing their jobs.

Awareness is Key.

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imwideawake · 10/07/2018 09:50

anonymously

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MaisyPops · 10/07/2018 09:59

Secondary teacher here.

I also don't see the mass trans thing in school.

When we do LGBT issues in tutor it's 'some people feel their body and brain don't match up and they opt to present and live as the opposite sex. Don't bully people for not conforming to gender stereotypes. Be kind. Any questions?'

Students (in my experience) are actually accepting that people identify as trans whilst being quite gender critical. (E.g. but i wouldn't be a girl if i put a dress on would i? What do you mean to 'feel like a boy'? But miss, if a transgirl has her penis and a boy dates her then does that make him gay? I'm not being funny or mean, people can do what they want, but I wouldn't want to have to be all... you know, with a penis because I like... well, girls'.

We debate the issues and I facilitate the discussion.

We've got some students who've identified as trans. School are very low key and make arrangements. Students are very accepting and get on with it. They accept trans people as part of life and seem very capable of putting their personal thoughts on gender to one side when treating someone with respect. If anything, the biggest fuss about trans status actually comes from a couple of the trans students.

School and students are very much 'ok you're trans, put things in place, moving on life as normal'.

SuburbanRhonda · 10/07/2018 09:59

This is probably a good time to repost my story about having an email spat with the PSHE consultant for our LA about this issue. I sent her the link to the TransgenderTrend document and she said I was not permitted to share it with colleagues as it contravened the Equality Act (I had already shared it). She also said she would no longer communicate with me on the matter.

I have recently contacted the DfE over their new document entitled “Gender separation in mixed schools”, pointing out that, despite the title, the document speaks exclusively about sex and should therefore be entitled “Sex separation in mixed schools”. I’m waiting for a reply (normal wait is 15 days).

I’m doing all I can from my lowly position of a family support worker in one primary school Smile

Lsnowe · 10/07/2018 10:51

I echo @MaisyPops

I've been a secondary teacher and latterly senior leader and trans issues are not a big deal. We just teach tolerance and respect and the kids get it.

I really don't get the obsession and vitriol about trans issues here on Mumsnet.

Lsnowe · 10/07/2018 10:52

Sorry meant to say I've been teacher/ SLT for 12 years

enoughisenough12 · 10/07/2018 11:00

It's good to hear from secondary teachers that trans issues are dealt with calmly and with tolerance and respect - that's absolutely as it should be. Young people's choices should not become an ideological battleground - in or out of school. In my experience, as long as schools are left to navigate their way working with parents and children, then generally things progress smoothly. It's when activist organisations intervene inappropriately with schools that problems arise and schools (and their students) end up in the middle of an unhelpful media storm:

www.transgendertrend.com/who-is-making-policy-for-schools/

SuburbanRhonda · 10/07/2018 11:17

I really don't get the obsession and vitriol about trans issues here on Mumsnet.

Can you post any evidence of the vitriol about trans issues in Mumsnet, @Lsnowe?

I have seen any myself, and as far as “obsession” goes, anything that’s currently in the news, such as the consultation on the GRA, Brexit, The World Cup, etc. is sure to be discussed extensively in a site with over 12 million users.

enoughisenough12 · 10/07/2018 11:23

@LanguageAsaFlower
You asked who was advising teachers to 'break safeguarding'.
An example produced by GIRES in a training pack - in an exercise a teacher is told by a 13 year old girl that she knows she wants to live as a boy. The reader has to identify the 'correct' answer from four possible responses - unbelievably the 'correct' answer is for the teacher to offer help and to reassure the girl that she can talk to the teacher in confidence. The teacher is advised that only if the child is distressed and there is evidence of self harm, should this be reported.

Every single adult in schools knows that you never keep a confidence like this - individuals will not have the background information / context to risk assess the child. Telling a teacher to assess levels of distress / self harm is totally inappropriate, outside their professional expertise and exceptionally dangerous - to the welfare of the child and the professionally for the adult. It's such a fundamental breach of everything promoted by 'Working Together' and yet there it is - and irony of ironies - this training pack is promoted by Health Education England and various NHS trusts.

Why is this happening?

SuburbanRhonda · 10/07/2018 11:27

I’ve done the GIRES online training for schools and I’ve been a designated safeguarding lead for ten years.

The only way I could get the correct answers was to ignore everything I’ve been taught about safeguarding.

OiWhoTookTheGoodNames · 10/07/2018 11:49

First school I had my kids in had the head stand up at the new Reception parents induction and do a whole speech about how children who said they were the opposite gender would have the absolute right to be treated and accepted as such and anyone criticising it would be deemed to be a transphobic bully and dealt with as such considering the school never dealt with any other bullying it was particularly shit For various reasons we are no longer at that school.

I'm concerned about it but can't really stick my head above the parapet if I ever want to get another teaching job.

NowtSalamander · 10/07/2018 12:00

Teachers who are saying that you only have to be tolerant and this really isn’t an issue haven’t done enough research and haven’t thought about it enough.

These are the things I have witnessed in the last few months:
Year 7 pupils talking about where to buy breast binders
Assemblies promoting the most extreme examples of this ideology with staff frightened to challenge because bigotry
Teenagers who are clearly lesbians trying to convince themselves they are actually boys and the school having to listen to what they say even though they are legal minors and in every other case serious decisions about their lives are taken by adults.

This is one school. What I’ve read about elsewhere and the potential outcomes I can imagine happening as this goes on (given how quickly it’s arisen there are probably other outcomes I haven’t even had time to consider) is much worse.

I’m afraid I don’t think tolerance of an extreme and harmful ideology is ever a viable solution.

Tackytriceratops · 10/07/2018 12:01

We've had a lot of safeguarding training recently. Over dosed on it. I must say, knowing our staff and the training, we'd see through some of the stuff the tras push. But we are primary (Sen) so I doubt it would come near us.

Tackytriceratops · 10/07/2018 12:02

I am interested though to know what the outcome of the HSE consultation was from earlier this year and what new guidelines will say.

We/Mn should brace for that one.

I sincerely hope there are some sensible people on the job.

Tackytriceratops · 10/07/2018 12:07

Teachers who are saying that you only have to be tolerant and this really isn’t an issue haven’t done enough research and haven’t thought about it enough.

This is why mn is a valuable place for these discussions. And why posters must keep posting. It doesn't occur anywhere else in a way a teacher might take notice. TES forum possibly but I last heard they were a bit pants and clueless.

Though perhaps some of us should try posting a bit in TES....