Teaching of Biology using trans friendly language

[nellieellie]

I’m in the process of writing to my MP. I did the consultation - using loads of info gleaned from these pages, so thanks for that. . I have become more and more flabbergasted at the verbal olympics and the re defining of factual terms, (women can have penises) the introduction of new terms (cis women).

Anyway, point being, I wondered how sexual reproduction would be taught in schools if regard is to be had to this new language? Will there still be diagrams of ‘male and female reproductive organs’ or will this all need to be changed -?like the strange and bizarre unicorn diagrams I’ve seen. I want to do a really comprehensive letter to my mp, providing links to all relevant issues. So if anyone has come across any TRA suggested materials, Id love to see it.
Obviously my main concern is safeguarding in female only spaces, but I think this appropriation of language is really sinister and has gone largely unseen.

Human reproduction is grounded in fact not fiction.

My daughter did GCSE Biology. I can assure you, it is still firmly rooted in reality and ‘biological fact’. No safe spaces in biology class.

I teach biology with diagrams of male and female systems, and GCSE also covers genetics e.g. XX and XY chromosomes.
Epigenetics is covered at A level.
No redefining of anything so far.

Not sure you'd have many biology teachers lining up to teach about the unicorns.

Ok, thanks, that’s fine. Shinynew name, I agree reproduction is fact. It’s just that from what I’ve seen, that’s not bothered the TRA agenda so far!

In Canada apparently some schools are teaching anatomy without mentioning the words "Male" and "female".
Let's hope none of them want to be sheep farmers or any other type of animal breeder. It might get tricky.

In Canada apparently some schools are teaching anatomy without mentioning the words "Male" and "female".

How is that even possible? What words do they use to differentiate sexual difference in human anatomy? Or do they blur out the offending bits in the images in textbooks?

Canada is a basket case. Biology either no mention of male or female fgs.

Worse. It's Planned Parenthood Ottawa so presumably something along the lines of our PSHE / sex education (without mentioning the word). How to teach about std's, safe sex, contraception without mentioning the words???

No biology is still biology - I have concerns too but people posting on these pages are getting rather obsessed and now imagining all kinds of scenarios which simply won't happen. My dh is a geneticist, our chromosomes won't be changing this his lectures won't either (I've seen the university guidelines and it's about ensuring that trans students are not abused or discriminated against eg in halls, access to societies etc not the content of lectures!)

I looked up Planned Parenthood Ottawa, and found this:

mobile.twitter.com/KnowPPO/status/864921424611483649

It’s safe to say that people are not happy. Someone says that this is why his kids go to a private school. I’ve wondered for a while if this whole movement is some kind of neoliberal push to deal a huge blow to the welfare state by using transactivism to (a) bankrupt the NHS through medicalisation of healthy bodies, and through the inevitable lawsuits, (b) scare parents away from state education, (c) turn public sector and charitable organisations into enforcers of trans totalitarianism to a point where there is such a public backlash that they are removed altogether.

worth being aware of some of the 'BISH' school resources:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3357713-BISH-proudly-supported-by

meanjin.com.au/blog/the-period-of-choice/

That's an article written by someone who identifies differently to the sex they were assigned at birth.

Its about the challenges of living with the female reproductive system:

"Each one of us at one point in our lives has taken oral contraceptives, and for a range of reasons: including dysmenorrhoea, an irregular menstrual cycle, to assist with potential PCOS symptoms, or in my case as part of my hormone replacement therapy as a trans woman (an affair that heavily relies on hormonal medication produced for other purposes). We often ask each other why this isn’t easier."

Another quote. The person is including their reproductive system within the narrative of the female reproductive system.

"Early last year, I found myself sitting around a table of women comparing battle stories. We often end up here, strung out after a long week (or increasingly a long decade), recounting like war journalists our recent medical histories. The conflict in question—our own reproductive systems—is as unresolved as any we see or hear about happening out in the wider world today."

There is this - it's, written from a pro-trans perspective.

It has some good stuff at the start, like distinguishing sex and gender. It's good I think to be accurate and use male and female instead of man and woman when doing genetics problems for example, and being very clear in teaching that biology is about sex, and that gender is a sociological phenomenon which isn't really the business of Biology.

It goes off the rails, in my opinion, around slide 95 where it starts to talk about how since SRY doesn't determine sex in some non-human species that the model taught for sex determination isn't "accurate" or "inclusive". Then it has a rainbow colored bell curve that is meant to imply that sex is a spectrum.