My Princess Boy read to year 6

[TheSteveMilliband]

Link with book - short YouTube clip. This was read to a yr 6 class as part of no outsiders. Meant to promote tolerance. Interested in thoughts. I'm uncomfortable with certain aspects but trying to pin it down so thought I'd ask the wise women of FWR.

I wonder if anyone in Hampshire County Council actually reviewed this programme to decide whether it was fit for purpose.
Transgenderism should be excluded as only gender reassignment is included in the EA 2010. with primary school children.Feelings and thoughts are not gender reassignment , they are simply exploring gender roles in society and part of growing up.

Teaching children their feelings re gender are protected under the Equalities Act is an outright lie. With the inclusion of toilets, this programme is simply teaching children that their boundaries do not matter, that boundaries are trumped by someone else’s feelings. Dangerous.

Of course they had to shoehorn fucking toilets in.

Andrew Moffat’s interpretation of the Equality Act reminds me of another Andrew. Mr Wakefield and his now discredited anti vaccination stance.

Could they not find a proper book with the opposite of Famous Fives George?
Def needs to be books and films with boys who are non gender confirming.

Boyish girl = tomboy, perfectly acceptable
Girlish boy = sissie or jessie, not so acceptable needs to change

Exactly what I was thinking.

My princess boy appears to want love and respect for being pretty and no that's not going to work for me with either a boy or a girl. Yes I'll praise all children for actually doing something. Jumping high, baking cakes, being kind or good school work. But preening yourself and prancing around in a dress isn't impressive regardless of whether you are 4 or 40.

Bizarre book for that age group whatever its content. Year 6s are typically reading alex rider, hunger games, divergent, percy jackson etc

What a strange choice of book, even some of the 4-5 year olds I have taught wouldn't be engaged by it. There is no story and the prose is very contrived. Not that they would care if boys wore dresses. Have you ever seen a group of reception children when the princess dresses appear, it's normally the boys fighting over who gets to wear them not the girls.

I also don't understand the point to the supposed story? The princess boy doesn't do anything but wear a dress. The people in the story are only saying he looks pretty not that he is good at anything or that he has worked hard at anything just that he is pretty because he is wearing a dress.

A few BBC videos on the No Outsiders programme came up on my FB feed this morning. It is frustrating because the focus of the videos seems to be on the LGB rather than on the T, and it's the T that is the truly dangerous. Mind you, I don't think that specific LGB lecturing is necessary either.

My two children never had LGB lessons or specific books in the 90's and it wasn't even necessary: by the time they had grown up society had changed so much it just wasn't an issue. Nobody bats an eye now at gay couples. It all happened gradually, which is how society develops.

www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-47776736?fbclid=IwAR2f_UND5PPFvtHhfzXJGdke9gNR1Kq2w8d03W5XdEaWXRedgxeSdzz6SRM

The video (early in the article) tries to show how innocuous the books are and (I guess) to show up the objecting parents as being intolerant.

To me it's irritating that the trans issue is subtly shoehorned into schools with this programme. Parents are made to feel guilty for ANY protesting; the message is that if you are tolerant of LGB (as most people are now, except perhaps the Muslim community) you must also automatically be tolerant of the T. Whereas they are two completely separate issues. It seems the books are Trojan horses for T.

How are parents to protest the last letter and not the other three?

I think this is awful - there is an underlying message that girls only like pink, sparkly, pretty things and infers girls are inferior. Insidious stereotyping of females.

If No Outsiders wanted to teach about tackling sexism (the sex protected characteristic in the Equality Act), this is the crappest book at doing that. Sex discrimination laws were not created to teach boys they have the 'right' to the worst aspects of sexist stereotyping of being a girl - wearing pink sparkly dresses. It was to tackle the sex-based disadvantages that women and girls - the female sex - face. If No Outsiders really wanted to tackle sexist stereotyping for boys, then they should focus on behaviour not superficial BS like pink dresses. For instance they should promote books that encourage boys to be caring and nurturing. Or about boys who want to be nurses or teachers.

No Outsiders are not interested in tackling sexism and helping girls, as it is led by a gay man who is forcing his agenda down the throats of angry local parents.

I am worried that 1) schools (wrongly) think they have a duty to preach this trans dogma in schools, 2) that trans lobbyists have leapt into fill this gap, 3) they are too over worked to thoroughly check it all out and see how dodgy it all is

It's up to parents to raise a stink about this regressive and sexist brainwashing to schools, heads, their local education authority, and to local and national politicians.

Hear, hear sunkisses.

It's written by two TRAs.

The trans lesson plan, to be clear.

Absolutely sunkisses.

No Outsiders are not interested in tackling sexism and helping girls, as it is led by a gay man who is forcing his agenda down the throats of angry local parents.

I was initially astonished by the number of women who seemed to be cheerleading this sexist agenda. Having now realised how homophobic it is, I am stunned by how many gay men seem to be pushing it. What will it take for them to see that many of them would be transwomen with no sexual function if this had been pushed when they were children?

You've summed it up perfectly, Sunkisses.

Loving this t-shirt from Primark.

Loved Tyke Tyler, I remember it being read to us at school. That's genuine freedom from gender stereotypes. However that was a story. This is just a vehicle for indoctrination of highly, highly debatable ideas and orthodoxy, with a high risk of severe damage. Especially if the child being read to is a girl.

Hi sunkisses- yes Hampshire. I suspect we know each other! You've put beautifully what I hated about it. On the plus side, I'm reading tyke Tyler to the kids and looking forward to the big reveal!

I’m also Hampshire. Would very much like to know if this is being taught in my children’s school. Do posters know if it is just year six at the moment?

RHT, looking at lesson plans, looks like it's for all years in hampshire primary schools. Most of the books looked pretty innocuous (beegu, lots of oliver jeffers, Elmer etc.). In the plan I saw (in our school) it didn't have a trans lesson plan at all, I'm not sure if other schools would be any different. Message me if you want

I like the message that boys can be 'feminine', too, but the repeated "my princess boy" somehow sounds super creepy to me. Just say princess. And they are just stereotyping, everything this boy does is "girly". If you want to push the message that boys can wear dresses, too, but then say those are girls' clothes, you are contradicting yourself.

And why is this mind-numbingly boring story read to year 6??

My DDs head teacher (in Hampshire County Council area) has said that Dept for Education have just issued guidance to schools saying that they no longer have to teach this stuff in schools - so they won't. Has that got in the press yet?

Thanks for the recommended book mornington have just bought it too.

That is great news *sunkisses"