Caitlin Moran in yesterday's Times magazine

[WhenIsTheEasyBit]

Sorry, can't link, but she addressed the Parkfields School row and in her usual, brilliant way dismantled any arguments against teaching children about same sex relationships or bisexuality.

I completely agreed with every word. Except, that throughout she referred to LGBT. Her argument and all her examples demonstrated that children aren't taught to be L, G or B. But there in the abbreviation about education was that T again, which a poster on these boards recently described as parasitically attached to LGB. I am not for one moment wanting to describe people who are T as parasites, but the activism movement has attached itself to a wholly different cause and Moran's article really brought this home to me, because it does seem, from the massive rise in cases, the clustering of spikes, that identifying as T can be taught or at least significantly externally influenced.

Just when I think that sense is prevailing and we're hitting peak-trans, something like Parkfields comes along and is labelled as being about LGBT: bingo, people like the deputy head of Ofsted and multiple slebs speak in support of teaching about "LGBT relationships" and it feels like a massive step back and more potential allies lost.

I think that personal, relationship and social education (teaching understanding about differences in family relationships and against stereotyping, discrimination and bullying) is important at all ages. and should be mandatory.

There have been some legitimate concerns raised about particular content (re accuracy of wording re Equality Act, some of the stuff on gender identity and (unmentioned here) some not well written links to the Prevent agenda) but all children have the right to education (separate from the rights of parents)

I'm aware of an infant school who asked gay couple for them not to come together to a parents event as it would confuse the children. It's this sort of attitude that's the problem.
Having said that I think the labelling as LBGT rather than something more inclusive like all kinds of families, or everyone is different which I think how it's approached in reality. Labelling makes it look like today well learn how to be gay, what gay people do and how they're different from everyone else.
It's the trans that's the problem, particularly as there's no anti gender stereotyping sessions mandated.

Agree teaching there are many different family configs etc is a AOK

It would be great if they could try to tackle gender stereotyping which is so prevalent everywhere that is goes unnoticed

Telling primary school kids that boys can have periods, there is such a thing as girl brain, and a girl brain can get in a boys body and then the body needs changing etc is not on.

If they take challenging gender stereotyping seriously and are comfy with kids who are gnc that would be great for primary school? Children who have dysphoria need to be helped but these are small in number next to kids who are gnc etc.

That would be really good.

The whole barbie to gi Joe stuff is off the scale awful.

I'm aware of an infant school who asked gay couple for them not to come together to a parents event as it would confuse the children. It's this sort of attitude that's the problem.

I find that bizarre - when I worked in schools all kinds of pairs would rock up to parents' evenings, e.g. Mum plus her mum, sister, friend, oldest daughter, etc as well as the occasional gay couple. No-one gave it a second thought, least of all the children.

Most reception children will depict mummy as cooking and daddy as going out to work, despite the fact that it may be the other way around because by 4/5 children will do the same as their peers when it comes to socialising in order to fit in.

I used to stand next to my best female friend as our sons came out of the classroom. It didn't make us a couple, despite the fact we were both divorced.

In fact, we used to greet each other with a hug. I like her and love her too. We are both heterosexual.

DD has been aware of gay men since she was about seven. We watched Modern Family together (Cameron and Mitchell, and their daughter Lily) and she has never questioned it. Her classmate had two mums, again, she’s never questioned it. Her DGFs neighbours are a gay couple. Whatever. Now at a secondary girls school, she has noticed a few lesbian relationships in some students in more senior years. Doesn’t bother her.

If you raise your kids to see, to know, or to have knowledge of LGB relationships, they see it as normal and don’t give it much thought. They are also not as scared at accepting who —they— are. I want DD to be able to tell me anything. If topics are banned, she may not feel she can raise her fears with me, and then as a parent, I would have failed to make her feel safe and loved.

Transgender is more of a leap though, because I find trans more complicated to explain. DD knows what trans is, but not too much about the issues. She’s only 12 though! Even I cannot explain everything about trans, I am still educating myself.. So if SRE can help DD understand why a minority of people are trans, I am happy.

For the the record ---phobia doesn't just mean a fear of. It also means repelled by or has an aversion to, such as something that is hydrophobic will repel water.

They don't need to learn that people exist? Okay, homophobe.

What utter nonsense. Honestly, the level of debate here is non-existent.

I think reasoned thought, logical argument and debate needs to be taught in a far more structured way, myself. So many people seem unable to construct a logical argument these days, including those at university.

I can well see that attitudes towards homosexuality could suffer a back-slide if many gay men are not careful in aligning themselves so stridently with radical trans ideology. Radical trans ideology does nobody any favours, including gay men - even if many have not sussed that yet. First they came for the lesbians......then they came for the children.......

I find this all tremendously frustrating. I think that just basic, two mummies stuff should be woven into fabric of a life - it should be something you don't bat an eyelid about, and if that starts in primary school so much the better. For that reason I am both in favour of more education, and rather suspicious of the kind of education that makes gay relationships a 'special' thing that needs to be highlighted.

I would so like everyone else's personal business to be treated with a shrug and a "so?" from all kids. But I accept that there is a gap to be closed wrt gay visibility, so I err slightly more on the pro than the con.

I knew I liked girls when I was young, starting around 9ish. I felt like a bizarre freak, and it did lead me to question whether I was, in fact, a boy, because only boys could kiss girls.

For that reason, I think it's absolutely appalling to try and book the T stuff onto LGB visibility and elements of education, as, as I have said more times on this board than I can remember, Trans ideology is homophobic at base, and it's not right or inclusive or helpful to young people who are questioning their sexuality to promote a teaching that would suggest that a youngster who is gay is wrong in their body or their mind.

I mean, seriously, that is pure conversion therapy, and I will keep challenging every single bastard who denies this to show me why its not.

I think quite a lot of children DON'T have first-hand experience of gay couples / families, and it's good to tell them that these things exist.

My children are in a market town bordering a rural-ish area. DH and I have some gay friends and colleagues from university and big-city working days, but not now living close to us and none have had children. No family members are in same-sex relationships. I can think of one acquaintance and from a toddler group who was in a lesbian couple. I can't think of any school parents that I know are in gay relationships. All of our local friends are in straight couples. It's quite likely my kids (at top end of primary) have never encountered this in real life.

They also don't have the same degree of experience of different ethnic & religious backgrounds that children from cities would be used to. It's just the circumstance of where we live.

So I should clarify - I think it's important to tell them that it is perfectly normal to be a gay adult, because I assume that there will be classmates etc that are gay (maybe even them, who knows), but it might be a while before their horizons are wide enough to encounter other (knowingly) gay adults first-hand.

Trans ideology is actively preventing potentially gay children, from going through puberty, accepting their sexuality & being happy gay adults. I genuinely believe there is no no such thing as a trans child. Only after reaching maturity can an adult make the decision they are transexual.

Even I cannot explain everything about trans, I am still educating myself.. So if SRE can help DD understand why a minority of people are trans, I am happy.

The problem is, they're likely to be given the 'born in the wrong body' narrative. Either that or something that reinforces gender stereotypes.

Have you considered that the reason you don't understand it is because it doesn't make sense?

'What utter nonsense. Honestly, the level of debate here is non-existent.
I think reasoned thought, logical argument and debate needs to be taught in a far more structured way, myself.

@Justhadathought

And there lies the problem. You seem to think that teaching children that same sex couples exist should be a matter for debate, I do not.

What's nonsense is that gay people are still having to justify their very existence. On Question Time this week there was a question 'Is it morally right for 5 year children to learn about LGBT issues in school?'.

Turn that on its head: Is it morally right for 5 year olds from same sex households to be taught that their familial situation is nothing to be ashamed of?

Unsurprisingly, people don't like being called homophobes, but there have been many instances of homophobia displayed on this thread.

Primary school children aren’t taught about sex. They are taught about relationships - ‘do as you would be done by’, bullying, maintaining boundaries, etc.

Some families have two mums or two dads - why wouldn’t you include them in discussions about families?

The irony is that gay couples are far more likely to have adopted or conceived a child in a way that doesn’t involve sex.

Yes I agree it's fine to expose kids to the possibility of varying family structures but think all children have a right to be informed of thier biological roots from a young age. The bottom line is that every child was conceived from a male and a female gamete and LGBT inclusive education should not disguise or deny that fact.

There is a huge problem in linking LGB and T in primary lessons because they are presented to children in completely different ways.

Hearing that some children have two mummies or daddies is unlikely to trigger a declaration of being gay from a 4 year old. They are not asked to think about whether they find male or female bodies attractive, or to place themselves on a scale of sexuality between completely male or completely female attracted. Imagine a parent announcing their 4 year old male child is gay and sexually attracted to other males! Quite rightly, we let sexuality wait until children are much older.

However, teaching about Transgender issues actively states that children know their gender identity and encourages them to think about it (GI Joe and Barbie scale). Therefore it is completely acceptable for a parent to announce that their 4 year old is transgender. The fact that these children are the GNC children who would probably interpret their feelings differently once puberty hits and sexuality awakens is what troubles me the most.

If the teaching was more along the lines of "people can wear or do whatever they want, and some men choose to look like ladies" without encouraging children to think too much about it then I'd be absolutely fine.

I totally agree that putting the T in this is wrong and that taking commercial/pressure group packages or training as a whole is HIGHLY likely to lead to 4 year olds (who already think that anyone can change sex) thinking that wearing a princess dress will make you into a girl.

I also agree that alternative (as in, not 1 bio mum 1 bio dad living together) models of families need to be made visible to even quite small children. They may see Freddie with his two mums picking him up and Freddie will tell them that those are both his mums, and that they are married to each other.
But Georgia may also be picked up by two women who she calls "mum" but they may be her mother and her stepmother. And Harry may have a dad in the house that he calls dad and another dad that he never sees but he also calls Dad. And Imogen may be picked up, and live with, a woman that she doesn't call Mum but never sees her mum because she can't live with her any more because of some bad choices her mum made. And Imogen may not want to make a Mother's Day card for her mum, and may rip up the one that the school suggested she make for her gran.

Likewise my DD came home with her Mother's Day card saying "some people have two mummies and some have two daddies" and while I knew why they'd said this, and I didn't say anything further, my DD does in fact have two mums because she has me and her birth mum, whose name she knows and who she's met a few times.

So for all these children, it's important to specify the relationship between these adults in their children's lives. I'm really not sure how you do that, but my DD's two mummies and Georgia's two mums and Harry's two men he calls Dad are NOT married to each other and do NOT love each other except in the most vague way.

And when they are a bit older (well, I'd argue at the age of 4 is fine, but I know some people differ on this) they need to know how they got into the world and how a birth mummy and a birth daddy are needed for this, however the household you live in is composed.

So really, it is NOT as simple as "some children have a mum and a dad and some have two mums and some have two dads and la la la fairies and unicorns and everyone is happy".

I'd warrant there are MORE children who have two mums who are NOT the child of a lesbian couple that live together, than that ARE, if we include children with a mum and a stepmum and with an adoptive or foster mum and a birth mum.

However, teaching about Transgender issues actively states that children know their gender identity and encourages them to think about it (GI Joe and Barbie scale). Therefore it is completely acceptable for a parent to announce that their 4 year old is transgender. The fact that these children are the GNC children who would probably interpret their feelings differently once puberty hits and sexuality awakens is what troubles me the most

Exactly this

And there lies the problem. You seem to think that teaching children that same sex couples exist should be a matter for debate, I do not.

No! That wasn't what I was saying. And it wasn't what the poster I highlighted was saying either. The poster was saying that children needed to be taught that trans people 'exist'. One of the big trans 'beefs' is that by debating trans ideology people are denying their existence. Nobody is denying anyone's existence.

The teaching around homosexuality; that some people are gay, is being conflated all of the time now with being trans. The LGBT teaching now always assumes the T bit is taught too. And yet every article I've read recently on LGBT teaching has at no point mentioned the trans bit. It seems always assumed it just means making children aware that some people are gay ( in age appropriate ways, of course).

This logical fallacy I refer to is that nobody is denying anyone's existence, but many are unhappy with teaching young children that it is possible to be born in the wrong body. This is harmful and inappropriate. Most radical trans activists have not the least bit of logical coherence to their arguments. Anything which questions trans ideology is automatically transphobic, or you are a 'terf'. That people can feel one way about themselves is not the same thing as their feelings having any basis in material reality. This is the lack of reasoned rigour that I'm talking about.

Turn that on its head: Is it morally right for 5 year olds from same sex households to be taught that their familial situation is nothing to be ashamed of?

That is not in dispute. It is the T bit of the LGBT that is. And this is what i mean when I say that the conflation of trans ideology with the LGB of old is damaging and counter-productive for all. And certainly for children. If children are potentially gay - then being told that they are in the wrong body is harmful and wrong.