Have I bought the wokest book?

[IamThereforeIdontIdentify]

I bought "Stories for Boys who Dare to be Different" for DS7 who has listened to "Bedtime Stories for Rebel Girls" and kept asking for one about boys. Fair enough.

Person number 3 is about a trans man. The first to have surgery apparently to match how he "felt inside".

I skipped that story because it's Christmas and I don't feel like giving a biology and politics lesson to my 7 year old (and his 5 year old sister who is also listening).

We continue.

Four stories later, another trans man. Now really, there are very few trans men out there and I think they're generally courageous, in part because they have to be due to society. However, two out of the first seven men who "dare to be different" aren't actually men!

Interestingly, the second one was a pole jumper who had to stop competing after altering their biology.

Alan Turing was in there and pretty well written up, so it's not all bad.

I'm wondering if there will be any boys who dare to be different by wearing a dress..somehow doubting it...

Well Lucille certainly benefited from Alan's aquired male privilege. How different things could have been if only she'd been allowed to have short hair .

I wonder whether any of this is mentioned in the Amazon reviews? I'd send it back, if I were you!

Yeah, I bought a copy and stopped reading for this reason. Not teaching my boys that, thanks.

It was a thread on here which told me that the Rebel Girls book included trans women and so I’m not surprised about the Boys Who Dare to be different including similar. While I have every sympathy for individual trans people and admiration for anyone of whichever sex who has achieved amazing things, I don’t believe that people can change their sex so I don’t want a confusing story for my child as a sort of bedtime story. I would prefer a mixture of sexes but I wouldn’t want to have a transgender conversation with him until I felt he was old enough for it to be useful (though keeping an eye on other sources around him). A lot of my friends have these books and I’d been previously tempted thinking it would be good for him to read about the challenge of gender stereotypes and strong women (we read a lot of books as bedtime stories with main female characters) but if he gets these for Christmas this year I will be getting rid of them immediately.

Scipio I've read all of the Girls book and don't remember a trans woman..but perhaps I skipped it too! Might take another look.

I won't send it back because DS is sooo happy to have a boys one. I won't read any about trans men though as a trans man isn't exactly a role model for a boy - they haven't been a boy!

I think I may read about them together at some point in the future in the context of some people don't feel comfortable in their bodies and, psychologically, need to alter them (in some cases), but not "Hey 7 year old boy who very specifically wants a book about boys and men, here's a woman who felt she's a man, who changed their name and body to resemble a man, so you should aim to have this man, who isn't a woman, as a role model". I mean, it doesn't even make sense when it's written, there's no way my 7 year old is going to fall for it! And I can't be bothered with that discussion.

I mean trans people obviously exist and have every right to, but there are FAR more people with disabilities, serious illnesses, who are or have been homeless, displaced by war, who are brave or done incredible things and I'd rather spend my time discussing them with young kids, than a very tiny, already disproportionately represented section of the population.

Iam it’s on this thread, raised by silentcrow

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3451466-badass-books-for-little-girls?msgid=83328248

I then went on to read Amazon reviews and a lot confirmed it, but I can’t remember if they have specific examples of who the trans woman/women was or were.

I agree one can definitely pick out what to read and not - no point throwing baby out with the bath water if it’s working for you. I bowdlerise some books we read aloud to make them less sexist and sometimes I raise sexist points as we read, so could definitely see myself using trans narratives to then discuss things. I just guess I have a problem with the books as I don’t agree that the people included are ‘boys’ or ‘girls’ (or vice versa, depending on the book!). But things like Enid Blyton are arguably just as problematic so I’m not sure I’m very consistent!

Well Im glad i ordered it from the library and not from amazon. Thanks for the heads up.

Laughed my head off at the thread title - was pretty sure what it was before I read the OP!

So yes, to confirm, Rebel Girls has one transgender child, an MtF called Coy Matthias, p46, born 2007, whose greatest achievement to date is to get their parents to get a judge to declare the girls' school toilets mixed sex and throw a party with a pink sparkly dress to celebrate. A suitable achievement to stand next to Hatshepsut, Angelou, Bly, Kahlo, Ginsberg and Hadid, I'm sure you'll agree.

Heads up for those considering this book; it also features Thatcher and Aung San Suu Kyi. So avoid if you're not into discussing their politics.

I would recommend Women In Science by Rachel Ignotofsky instead. Read it yesterday and it actually made me really cross because despite having two science degrees I hadn't heard of half these women. Great resource for KS2 and I plan to track down the Women in Sport version shortly.

Silent oh yes! I recognise that page now. We skipped it for pretty much the points you make!

Scipio thanks for the link. I'll have a read.

Shit I bought this for my DS too. Will have to edit carefully.

Definitely writing an Amazon review too!

I've heard people glue the two pages together in Rebel Girls. Can you do that in the other book?

Good idea.

I wonder why they didn't pick someone like Ben Barres as a trans man example? en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Barres

I've leafed through the book in the bookshop but not entirely convinced on a quick browse that the men in the book were so significantly different from male bios in any random book about history, science etc which so often have dozens of men and one token woman. Would be interesting to hear how your DS likes the rest of it OP!

I'd probably not have bought it if I'd leafed through it in a shop. It seems like a rip off of the Rebel Girls one. Quality of paper and drawings not so good - and neither is the writing. Rebel Girls seems to cover the main points of someone's life in summary form but for children but not talking down to them. This one has a different tone.

DS likes the dates (although this one doesn't list the countries individuals are from and he liked that in the Girls one) and hearing about different people. But he seems a bit flat after each one. His interest hasn't been spiked about anything from the first seven (minus two). We'll see.

silentcrow's extract above - do people not say 'no to their kids anymore? What kind of lesson are the girls having to learn when some over-entitled child and their* equally over-entitled parents weaponise the endemic misogyny of the justice system against them so their spaces can be invaded and their feelings overridden?

*I hate this fucking self-censorship. I'm not a liar and I don't appreciate being forced to lie. It'd better blow over soon.

When I hear about books like the one mentioned in the original post, I thank all the gods that I was raised by my father, whose bedtime stories were discussions of what I would study at university and what I would do for a living when I grew up.

I love you, Dad. You are the best.

My dds were given that book, and i found it recently with “and one horrible boy” scribbled over his face. They were outraged at the time that the women had done amazing things while what this boy had done was force the girls in his school to share their space with him.

The writers have a bit of a problem because the nature of rebelling against conformity for women and men is so different. Women have been legally restricted to domesticity, so 'rebel women' climb mountains, enter politics, are scientists, get an education etc. etc. the list goes on and on. In many cases being 'gender non conforming' has involved breaking the law or actually pretending to be a man.

Boys just don't have the same issues. Want to become a midwife? Take charge and call yourself a gynaecologist. Fancy doing some cooking? Become a chef!

For men being gender non conforming only really means behaving and appearing like a woman according to the conventions of their time, and for centuries that has meant not doing anything that anyone would write about in a history book.

The first to have surgery apparently to match how he "felt inside".

A concept which, at this festive time of year, makes as much sense as Father Christmas.

My dds were given that book, and i found it recently with “and one horrible boy” scribbled over his face.

You are raising them right, SirVix - that made me smile to read! I feel so sorry and cross for children and young people today being gaslighted. I used to read all this science fiction in the 80s which would say ‘for boys aged 11 and over’ on it (it mostly came from 60s and 70s as my mum had a vast collection) and frankly I’d rather go back to those days of books where I could roll my eyes at it and read on than this insidious, Orwellian gaslighting where girls can’t have a book full of actual girls.

"Heads up for those considering this book; it also features Thatcher and Aung San Suu Kyi. So avoid if you're not into discussing their politics."

Lol I bought the girls one for DD and then when I got home realised 3 things

Thatcher and Aung San Suu Kyi. While I am up for disconnecting the difficulties faced by women gettign to / keeping power from whether I think they were "good" or not, the way it's presented in the text did not sit right
I realised it was too young for DD
I realised that it was something I wanted her to read rather than something she would choose

So I took it back

Scipio , i totally agree re the overt sexism of old versus today’s gaslighting. I find the current landscape much more frightening. When i was growing up, many men openly talked of women as silly and ornamental, but now there is a seam of true loathing and jealousy, hidden and denied. We can feel it, but it is harder to pin down .

Nothing yes, the whole book runs me up the wrong way, tbh, these women and their worlds are too complex for the age range it's written for. This is one I regret getting online; I think if I'd had a good look in a shop I wouldn't have bought it. I've avoided most of the genre since; Kate Pankhurst is a notable exception and the ones I've read in the Little People, Big Dreams series so far are ok.

Jenni Murray did Thatcher well in her book, worth a read.

Well, I was very delighted to come across this book today:

As far as I can tell, the boy is allowed to totally rock being a mermaid and is still Julian and a boy.

(Stupid link sorry)

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Sorry...,

www.amazon.co.uk/Julian-Mermaid-Jessica-Love/dp/1406380636