Girlguiding Issue coming up Good Morning Britain

[WarmWishes]

About to be discussed 7.40am. Suzzanah Reeves & Piers Morgan

Try these threads

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3366960-is-trans-the-new-homosexual

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3366826-Why-trans-rights-are-not-the-same-as-gay-rights

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3374346-How-was-trans-ever-added-onto-LGB

Thank you x

During my Primary School years I was sexually assaulted three times by three unrelated males. Only ONE of those males was an adult.

The first time I was about 5/6 and a boy of about 12/13 tried to coerce me into having sex with him and there was some inappropriate touching. It wasn’t too bad, mostly confusing but it happened due to a safeguarding failure (not at school - I can’t go into details because it’s very outing and a bit of a convoluted story which is not relevant to my point). This boy was known to be sexual abusive and whilst the safeguarding failure was in someways a genuine mistake, never the less I was put at risk because adults under estimated the lengths he would go to.

Assault number two was at school. A boy grabbed my genitals whilst on the monkey bars and I fell off, smacking my head badly. This boy did this to a number of other girls but nothing was done about him until he seriously sexually assaulted another girl in the toilets.

The last time was on a train whilst on a school trip. We, the “good girls” were put in another carriage on our own because we could be trusted to behave, whilst all the teachers sat together in the adjacent carriage (this was in the 80’s btw). Two men came and blocked us in. They were creepy and were asking all sorts of weird questions. I was on the aisle seat and one of them was sat on my arm-rest, he was commenting on my dungarees and playing with the clasps bit stroking my chest area (I didn’t have any breast at that time), he then “played with the buttons that went down and tried to place his hand in my crotch area. My friend opposite was also groped by the other man - we were frozen in fear and trapped. An adult noticed and alerted our teacher and all hell broke loose but we shouldn’t have been in that position in the first place.

Female children are at risk from MALES. Males of all ages and in both public and private settings.

Safeguarding is not an “optional extra”. Things have moved on for the better since I was at school but it’s still not good enough. There are still girls being assaulted in spaces where they should be safe. We can not let this roll back of safeguarding policy go on.

I am one person and it happened to me THREE TIMES. Maybe I just got unlucky but I guarantee there will be other girls who have “my luck” and it is not ok, not when we know the measures that can protect young girls.

No excuses. This is appalling and my daughter will never set foot in GG if they stand by this policy.

Unfortunately I fear this is a win, win situation for the TRA’s though. If parents copituplate and allow easier access to girls - win. But if we keep our daughters away, female’s lives shrink and they get to revel in the “if we can’t have it, no one can”, abusive shitshow - win.

This has me raging, I can’t even tell you. Fuckers.

Yes it’s the win-win for abusers nature of it that has me really upset too.

DD is growing up with two brothers so a majority male household. I really wanted her to have access to a single sex group like Brownies / Guides.

I finally watched the GMB segment just now.

Susie Green really has had some media training hasn't she! She's acting in an incredibly aggressive way, trying to talk over all the presenters to get her scripted soundbites over. It might work with some, but not Piers Morgan.

Yes, the fact of the matter is, the fact is, she sounded very much like Anna Rampton in W1A:

DickTERFIN I'm sorry that happened to you. My first experience of sexual assault was being captured by a group of boys aged 10-11 when I was around seven, and being forcibly undressed to get to the bit of my anatomy they wanted access to. They were not remotely interested in my sense of gender or authentic self or what I identified as; my feelings or personhood was of no relevance whatever. I was in possession of female biology in a public place and they felt entitled to it.

Plus ca change.

Thanks Knicknack, same to you, that sounds harrowing.

What happened to me was not “that bad” compared to the horror that other women and girls suffer - I’m not after sympathy. I just want to illustrate to the “but they’re just kids, what’s the problem, brigade”, that there is a problem, child on child sexual assaults do happen and not as one off, occasional scenarios.

“Trans” children are no more likely to commit these types of assaults than any other child but they are no less likely either. “Transgirls” are male bodied and have no place in female only environments.

I’m not after sympathy. I just want to illustrate to the “but they’re just kids, what’s the problem, brigade”

Exactly. It isn't a case by case thing. And people forget, we may not be talking about your daughter showering with the sweet transgirl that's been her friend in class and coming to her birthday parties since they were three; at a GG meet we may be talking about a teenaged male your daughter has never met before, knows nothing about and has no reason to trust because girls learn very early in life to be wary.

Asking children what they think / want is all well and good.

I was thinking about this. For a variety of reasons, at the age of 15/16 I'd have said I was more than happy to let a trans girl into guides, had I been a member. I wouldn't have even stopped to consider what impact that had on me. I was extremely keen to always put other people above myself and I was very anxious about being seen to be kind.

That came from a place of fear. It has taken me nearly 20 years to learn that it is absolutely ok to say 'no.' Sometimes I still wobble although I'm working on that. You only have to look at the Relationships board on here to see just how big a problem it is for many even grown women to assert themselves.

Teenagers don't necessarily get things right. They can still be hugely vulnerable and need protecting. We have to be strong on their behalf and keep saying 'no this isn't ok. This is a safeguarding risk. Some girls won't be comfortable at having males in this space.'

My ds's girlfriend has trouble saying yes or no to any offer, drops her voice to a whisper when expressing an opinion, struggles to use the toilet with other people in the house, is hugely emotionally supportive to ds who has had a terrible year and refers to herself as 'thick and ugly' Completely inexperienced with teenage girls - i was useless at being one and most of my friends read the Beano into late adolescence. She'd actually benefit hugely from Guides but of course she would welcome and be kind to anyone she was asked to, without even considering whether she was losing anything.

Would be nice to see some men stepping up to create GNC Scouts troops for boys who don't present as boys. Though that does sound more like the woodcraft folk. I was in Folk for a bit and im gutted but not surprised to read their trans policy which starts 'Everyone has a gender identity...'

I thought Susie Green came across as someone a bit mad and capable of doing anything to get her way.

Piers Morgan did a good job of challenging her.

SG seems very naive about children. A relative of my mum was sexually abused by an older cousin when she was a very young child. The cousin began abusng her when she was 3 & he was 12. The abuse went on for several years. This was in the 60s so long before the pornified world children face today. Safeguarding is bloody crucial to protect children from adults and other kids.

The idea that sexual assault isn't an issue until kids turn 18 is just bizarre. I suppose Green would claim that she's never parented a teenage boy, but surely she's met one occasionally. She'd do well to listen to the experiences of women and girls assaulted by teenage boys too., or even just pick up a paper occasionally.

Children abuse other children. 20% of all females experience some form of sexual assault before they turn 18, and not all offenders are adults.

1/5th to 1/3 of all child sexual abuse is committed by other children.

The majority of abuse victims are female. The majority of offenders are male. The orientation of the offender is not determinative of whether or not they will abuse. Opportunity is a determining factor.

This includes violence and penetration. This not just childhood experimentation.

Good gee-awd. How do people in charge of children's sleeping arrangements not know this?

It doesn't seem naive, it seems deranged as though she thinks 'trangender kids' are sexless angels from God who never think a bad thought and can teach all the wayward children with functioning genitals the pure way of light.

Medically 'transed' kids are actually eunuchs not members of the opposite sex. They'll never have orgasms and they'll never have sex in their lives (especially MtF). The best the can achieve if a simulated sex act with fabricated mock genitals.

She is willfully blind. Very few kids in this day and age are eunuchs.

Exactly. Not naive. She’s heard the evidenced arguments but prefers a dogma that is very questionable.

I suppose when you are the sort of mother who merrily takes their child for castration at 16, you have really tied your colours to the mast and there is no way back from that.

She has to go all-in for good; or admit she was entirely wrong from the start.

I shouldn't think she did it 'merrily', but I agree that once you've done that, there can be no way of admitting to yourself that it was anything other than the right thing to do. How would you live with yourself with that doubt?

I suspect my child had an unnecessary appendix removal (something about the weaselly words of the surgeon that they had 'removed what in my opinion may show signs of inflammation'). I feel pretty bad for allowing that fairly minor op without querying the diagnosis. But this...

If I was being super, super generous to Susie Green, she got her own child onto cross-sex hormones (from overseas) at ~14 and then took her child abroad to have her child’s penis and testicles removed at 16, so its possible her child has no sexual feelings or interest in their peers because of the resultant hormonal maelstrom. This doesn’t, of course, mean all trans teens have had such drastic treatment or lack sexual feelings, especially those being managed more conservatively.

I absolutely agree with gendercritter about teens. I remember asking my parents if I could so somewhere with a new boyfriend full on teen strop. They just said no. A small part of me was relieved. I don't want to be patronising but teens (especially ones socialised to be nice and in this gender inclusive world) are not best placed to make these decisions about who goes into what space.

They may get to 35 and wtf did adults allow that..

And given how many prominent 'trans girls' also self-identify as lesbian, it's not difficult to see that issues are going to (ahem) arise...

My DD identified as trans for 4 years - is now definitely not, though still has trouble reconciling some aspects of the ideas.

What got her to start to question the dogma were the transgirl lesbians, aged 12-21, in her LGTB+ youth group. The amount of pressure they put on the young lesbians in the group to have sex with them was unreal. This led to lots of conversations about consent, boundaries and, the most important one, that not all paedophiles/abusers are older than 40.

From my personal experience, there is no way I would let my DD share a room with a transwoman, from her experience DD would also refuse to share a room.

NonHypothetical - that sounds awful for you DD. The sexual pressures on young girls are tough.

When I was young, you could opt out and immerse yourself in schoolwork. Then the papers started having articles about the high flying female maths students that also looked hot (never mind the ones about sugar daddies paying for school fees with no sex involved and being an 'escort').

My friend's DD went to uni and came back declaring herself asexual and aromantic and has spent the last 3 years in her room She really believes that male bodied trans women can be lesbians (as does my DD who did biology FFS, in fact they both did). There has been a lot going on that we parents have been unaware of.

Ugh. So how many self-identified lesbians-with-penises were in the group?