Gillian Bowditch: Emotional correctness is priority in gender debate

[Igneococcus]

Mixing sex and gender badly:

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gillian-bowditch-emotional-correctness-is-priority-in-gender-debate-8wvzq9mfc?shareToken=53dacaaaf48a54d1d7a906039fc4840f

That article was incomprehensible bollocks, really. I read it this morning and I was not sure the point she was trying to make.

incomprehensible bollocks indeed. Worrying that this is the grasp that a presumably intelligent and educated person has on this issue.

I don't actually think she understands any of the issues. Not even the basics.

But hey, go ahead and write an article anyway.

She seems confused about trans and sexuality too:
'Heterosexual children are not under threat from transgender children'

"A friend whose daughter is in fourth year at a large Scottish comprehensive school reports that her child is one of only two pupils in her PSHE class who self-identifies as female."

How can you write that and still think "well the children clearly know what they're doing, this is fine"?

I probably wouldn't have 'self-identified as female' in fourth year if I'd been told that not feeling like I imagined other girls did on the inside made me something else, and that this would let me opt out of actually being and being treated as a girl. I needed adults to support me through challenging misogyny both external and internal and making the world a less shit place to be a teenage girl and adult woman in, not through saying "ah we can't be arsed with that kind of work but we'll cheer you on if you call yourself 'they'!"

4000% rise in girls identifying as trans males... but there's "no sea change"

Nah, that's just us moral panicking.

I like the way she ruminates on teen years being a time to try on identities. Yes. They are. So let's not medicalise those children eh?

It was bizarre. Wasn't that I disagreed with it; just more that I couldn't understand what the author was on about.

Surprised to see it in The Times.

It was more Pink News level of specious twattery.

I believe the times are trying to show ‘balance’. So for every rational, well argued and researched article they publish they will also be publishing a naval gazing flat earthers innermost musings.

I agree it is for 'balance'. This way they can say 'we let you have your column inch too' when they get told they need to be re-educated.

The comment about only two pupils in S4 self-identifying as female is bizarre.

In DD’s school, they seem to understand the debates around self-identifying - one does not identify as female, one is female, at least as far as I can understand from a distance, and one makes a decision to identify as something else, one does not become it.

So they would know that half the school population is female. I simply do not believe that most girls in the class do not realise this.

And if only two girls in the class believe they are female or identify as female, then there is something odd going on. Would you not be asking why so many young women disavow the biological body, and social, economic and cultural baggage that comes with it, that they have been born with? It is not about saying young women must present or behave like x,y or z.

I wonder if the point is that young women identify first and foremost as people and do not see (yet) gender discrimination hence they do not identify as female - and that is where the author is trying to go.

But that is almost like saying I do not identify as female therefore gender discrimination does not exist. Rather than I am female and I should not be treated differently because I am female. Which is what young people may think equality is, rather than recognising that female people have specific needs and protections which have been fought for and need retaining (which should not be a reason for discrimination either).

That probably does not make much sense either, and I agree that the root of the problem is mixing up sex and gender.

Perhaps it's The Times being even-handed

Clarification always takes place in the comments underneath.

All children should feel safe. If any child doesn’t want to share a room with any other child on a school trip, they should not have to.

Well that’s fine, but why is it that girls expressing concern (if they feel they can) are being told they are the problem and they need to go elsewhere.?

D'ya remember in the 90s when everyone was into crystals and aromatherapy and feng shui? It's like if we had taken all that really seriously and used it as a guideline. Utter sexist bollox, the lot of it.

Perhaps it's The Times being even-handed

It's a comment type piece (less clearly delineated as such in the Scottish section, perhaps) - the Times/ST has a wide range of people who write comment articles. Heck, they have Melanie Phillips.

The writer of this piece appears to be an entrepreneur, no particular expertise on schools or LBGT issues as far as I can see.