Transgender Trend article:
'The New Fundamentalism in the Classroom, by Mike Goodman (a pseudonym) is a music teacher who makes his living by teaching, playing and writing and arranging music. He has thirty years’ experience teaching in schools and is married with three grown-up children. He is interested in the link between depth psychology and spirituality and has recently become increasingly concerned about the teaching of gender identity in the classroom'
(extract)
"In the staff canteen I brought the issue up, asking several teachers what their feelings were about the subject and if there had been much discussion in the staff room about the issues concerned. Not really it seemed, other than instructions coming down from senior management. I confessed to them that I felt slightly uncomfortable. Not by anything in particular, but just a sense that I needed to keep my mouth shut; that just by discussing these issues I was committing a crime. One teacher said to me, “think what you like but be careful of the pronouns you use.”
So what did I think? After some thought, I decided that it wasn’t any particular thing about transgender in itself that was bothering me. There have always been girl boys and boy girls. Or gender dysphoria as it is called. So why was I still having the uncomfortable feeling that something wasn’t quite right?
I then began to get an inkling of what the problem was.
In any healthy educational environment, students, guided by staff, need to be free to discuss things openly – to be able to argue, debate, agree, disagree and whatever. And of course they should be educated on subjects such as racism, sexism, etc. But it is very difficult to establish forums of discussion on topics such as LGBT once the ‘ideology’ of political correctness has been embraced by the institution. This is because the linguistic territory and the terms of the debate have already been defined and set in stone. That is, there ‘is’ no debate.
The 2010 Equality Act protects transgender, non binary etc people from discrimination, but at the same time puts them in a position where they can potentially hold the rest of the population over a barrel. And this seems to be what is happening.
Edgar Friedenberg defines ideology thus:
“Ideology is the system of beliefs by which members of a social group – it may, but need not, be a social class – develop a way of seeing, and interpreting what they see, congruent with what they have come to define as their interests; while denying, or providing no validation – perhaps even no language – for sensations that, if allowed to become perceptions and then ideas, would threaten those interests. Ideology is a powerful force; more powerful usually, than any evidence or even any experience that might oppose it. Argument does not prevail against ideology.”
Friedenberg’s lines are effective in bringing into focus the cultic and sinister nature of ideology. Anyone who has tried to argue with a Jehovah’s Witness will know that it is a complete waste of time. They are never going to say something like: “Now that’s an interesting point – I need to go away and think about it.” But to be told that “there is no debate” feels like a complete shutdown. A punch in the face from an iron fist.
Friedenberg goes on to say that censorship and propaganda are the methods used to protect and further the cause." (continues)
www.transgendertrend.com/new-fundamentalism-classroom/