Transing five and six-year olds - the guidance.

[OnlyObjectivity]

Last night I took a look at the latest Schools Toolkit by Allsorts/Mermaids in conjunction with Brighton & Hove Council.

Its case studies are meant to illustrate best practice in:

• Transing a five-year old
• Transing a six-year old
• Transing a eleven-year old

Then they warn that during school inspections Ofsted will pay particular attention to outcomes for a range of groups of learners including ‘transgender children and learners’. and make a particular point of stating that the effectiveness of leadership, management and govenors will be judged.

I wrote a long post critiquing this document, but then I read:

Scenario 2

Parent to school: ‘My daughter doesn’t want a boy changing next to her, what if he looks at her body?’

Underpinning this scenario is the idea that a trans girl is not a ‘real girl’ and this would be something that a whole setting approach would challenge through training and awareness raising. A Human Rights response would be to state that the child is a girl and as such has the right under the Equality Act to change with the girls and to be treated fairly as such.

• at which point I lost the ability to write any kind of measured response...

uploads-ssl.webflow.com/5888a640d61795123f8192db/5b8cdf1e902f3d41b0a81018_Trans%20Inclusion%20Schools%20Toolkit_Sept_2018_V3.pdf

I had such a severe reaction to Clomid after two days on it, I had to stop taking it, contrary to advice. I simply couldn't do it.

A friend of mine had 17 eggs harvested at her first unsuccessful go at IVF. She now has a lovely daughter.

Thanks, deepwater.

I found this:
www.medpagetoday.com/obgyn/infertility/73999
which covers the research I was thinking of - ovarian cancer risks are slightly raised - but in the women who were seeking treatment because of their own problems with endometrial development, etc, not in women seeking treatment because of male infertility.

A quick gander at the eggsploitation site leaves me with the impression (having been through IVF myself) that what's going on is medics deliberately giving women larger doses of the follicle stimulating drugs than they should be because their only concern is a really big harvest of eggs, not the health of the donors, so they're leaving young women with ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome and washing their hands of them.

This is something I know quite a bit about from the medical angle because of my PCOS: it was very difficult for the doctors to know exactly how much of the drugs to give me because they didn't know how my ovaries would respond. In my case, because this was happening in the UK where the regulations are very tight, and I was wanting my eggs for my pregnancy, not donating them to a third party, they erred on the side of caution when it came to dosage, and monitored me very closely.

I can see that in a private medical system like the US, where donation is commercialised, women donors become commodities within the capitalist system rather than patients, that doctors then start playing fast and loose with dosages. It's definitely a case where you can see, in a very direct way, the manner in which putting money into the equation removes any sense of obligation to give the best medical treatment to the donors.

If surrogacy and egg donation in this country were to be commercialised, it would lead to medical scandals like this one in a very direct way!

Maybe we should start a thread on surrogacy and egg donation and collect these resources together. It is a really, really big feminist issue (which tends to be drowned out because often it gets raised in connection with a topical news item, at which point all the couple in question's fans come out en masse and drown out the feminist point with shouts of "but they're such a nice couple, how dare you be nasty about their parenting choices?")

However, back on topic - since the thread is about transing five and six year olds, it's worth reminding ourselves that if these children are then put onto puberty blockers in Tanner stage one of puberty, and then onto cross-sex hormones, there won't be any gametes to harvest (as a PP noted upthread).

You can harvest the gametogonia, I suppose. They are the precursor for gonads. Apparently (Wikipedia tells me) scientists have succeeded to make mAle and female mouse stem cells in vitro (which are a precursor to gametogonia), so, I suppose it is considered feasible (and just a matter of further development of methods) to use gametogonia from prepubescent kids and make gamete?

Hey if doing it from stem cells is possible, you could in the future use babies‘ chord blood as a source for lab-made gamete. I sure wonder, if you could make an egg from a male‘s blood and sperm from a female‘s? It sure sounds like it. (Sources Wikipedia gametogonia and gametogenesis)

Starting a new thread about egg harvesting from a feminist perspective would be an excellent idea.

This thread has gone off topic somewhat.

I take full blame for that as well.

(Sorry, I actually wanted to heed Fermats call for going back on topic, by pointing out that it may be possible to harvest the precursor of the gametes from those kids - that spectacularly failed, being a tangent in itself, haha. Yeah, on a new thread maybe...)

Sorry.

When wholeness cannot wait 'til 5...

https://www.redbubble.com/people/reinstaag/works/17013016-trans-is-beautiful?catcontext=kids-clothes&griddpos=37&p=kids-clothes&rbs=01481eff-4e14-492a-a208-20bc5f721a9e&ref=shopgrid&style=shortsleeveeone_piece&searchTerm=transgender&iaCode=kids-clothes

Proper link: tinyurl.com/y9zoza3p

Jesus Christ. Talk about preconditioning babies.

Placemats, no worries ( if the sorry was intended for me?). I know I get easily carried away with sci topics in particular.

It was intended for you. I enjoy reading your posts.

We should never have to apologise though.

That link Only

WTF?

Ereshkigal Another quote from that 2015 article in Everyday Feminism by the mtf writer:

"It's absolutely crucial that we have someone to talk mother anxieties with. It's already difficult enough navigating all the feelings around not being able to carry children, and the constant (fucked up) reminder that "real women" have menstrual cycles."

Oh god yeah, heaven forbid that anyone should remind a man identifying as a woman that they have a different biological body. How rude to bring up menstrual cycles, you know that thing that means you may be able to conceive. How rude to mention all that when discussing being a mother and having a child.

Please, come over here, have my cake and eat it in front of me.

Ofsted are more likely to criticise a school for failing to meet the standards which require them - by law - to provide separate toilet and changing facilities for children aged 8+

Somewhere I've seen something by ofsted on trans; I will say they will fail a school on the slightest whiff of a slip of safeguarding so I cannot see it being normal practise to let a 'trans child' change with the opposite sex. We had this situation and it was a third space option (except being sen there were several spaces for various characters so quite normal!)

I would really like to see their response to this guidance though in reality. I bet ofsted haven't endorsed it....??

Onlyobjectivity Having clicked on your link Redbubble popped up on my sidebar. Thought I might as well have a browse. Entered "trans" in the men's section. Some pretty rage inducing stuff there. The one that sticks out most was a t-shirt saying "Some men have a vagina, get over it."

Ffs.

A good friend is an Ofsted inspector for early years. I asked her about this today and her response was "You what? Ofsted inspectors are interested in standards of education and safeguarding. That's it."

I believe you and her Vicky. But what advice do Ofsted get about the legal framework for safeguarding? What if GIRES and Mermaids start sitting on key committees? I can't forget Paris Lees saying in their interview with Nick Robinson that the aim was to make this a 'paediatric issue'.

nicenewdusters

Yes I found that item in about 30 seconds browsing, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's a treasure-trove of nightmares...