Propaganda aimed at 'trans kids' in today's Guardian

[Catinaflap]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/16/i-have-some-important-things-to-tell-transgender-kids-today-right-now-youre-perfect

So awful.

Capture complete.

I cannot believe how much we have been cognitivley and policy captured.

I'll die on this feckin hill. 💪

The guardian are having some problems with some writers aren’t they? Trying to appease them perhaps?

Yes tell kids they are perfect - as they are! I agree with that sentiment.

I'd rather somebody told children that they are perfect as they are than that they had to remove healthy body parts. The only bit I object to is the suggestion that most people are 'binary'. I'd love to know where all these 'gender uniform' people are.

I think the writer means well but hasn't really thought things through to their logical conclusion.

Saw that. Imagined what it said. Couldn't bear to give it clicks

What chance have these kids got of growing up to be mentally stable, grounded adults when they are given messages like this?

I have some important things to tell kids today, right now, you don’t have to be perfect. Enjoy your childhood.

Shocking...

Child protection red flags everywhere. "Your community" "Loved by people who haven't even met yet"

What is in the Guardian's Kool Aid. This is bonkers. No...grooming.

I know someone whose teenage DD suddenly announced she was a boy. Parents are almost certainly Guardian readers yet as parents instinctively lean towards watchful waiting not least because they suspect other things (depression, undiagnosed ASD etc) may be going on. It is really difficult given the all-prevailing affirmation-only approaches used by schools, SS and more. Why does the Guardian lack the imagination to see this issue from any perspective other than a TRA one?

'The future is non-binary' - WTF does that mean?

If we're talking of some future where sex stereotypes become obsolete and everyone presents as so outwardly androgynous that women are no longer subjected to sexual harassment from strangers or sexist assumptions and restrictions in the workplace, and new generations of men materialise who have universally rejected patriarchal power roles so society demands that emotional and domestic labour is shared equally amongst its members, and its structures reflect that... Well, bring it on.

If it means that men can appropriate female oppression, fetishise female experience, wear womanhood like a sex-play costume and colonise female spaces, then fuck off.

(Oh wait - it actually means nothing.)

"Don't argue with the chicken"

Even TRA chickens are fond of #nodebate

Loved by people who haven't even met yet

Yes, I found that a bit .

I think the word 'love' is used very lightly on-line, and it's potentially very dodgy.

Chickens eh?

Are they expecting eggs for breakfast?
Are they waiting for the cock to crow in the early hours of the morning?

The farmer will know.

I think their heart is in the right place.

They are lying though. They don’t love my child, don’t want the best for him, don’t even know him. Empty words and no boundaries.

Ugh they express this blatant propaganda in a cartoon..?! Because the issues involving children are just so simple, of course a cartoon is appropriate

I don’t think it’s ethical for broadcasters, newspapers etc to refer to ‘trans children’ at all. They wouldn’t refer to ‘Labour children’ or ‘Conservative children’ or ‘Communist children’ or ‘Fascist children’ would they?

(and IMHO they shouldn’t actually refer to ‘religious’ children either. )

These are all adult concepts, beliefs and labels that kids are going along with.

The kids may well passionately believe in these things very strongly but they are kids - by definition they are without the life experience, judgement or maturity to really understand or possess the freedom to think what they think for themselves, as distinct to what the adults around them think. They are by definition impressionable, highly sensitive to and easily influenced by the views around them. As all humans are but children particularly so.

So instead of saying ‘trans child’ which is a political concept, newspaper should go no further than to say ‘child from a family and/or social environment that believes in genderism’.

Just like they would say ‘child from a Christian family’ or ‘child from a family of long-standing Liberal Democrats’ or whatever.

These are all adult views and beliefs, which the children that the Guardian would irresponsibly call ‘trans children’ are brought up into, and/or exposed to via social media or school.

It should be against editorial guidelines to ascribe political views to any child under 18.

The social environment thing is so insidious. It’s totally the elephant in the room yet we know that (mostly female) kids are being rushed through a system to drug, permanently alter and potentially mutilate their normal natural bodies as a result. Where is the proper psychological support for them? Why is the Guardian not acting more responsibly about this? Do they not know that there is a national scandal brewing and the Times has been exposing via professionals’ whistleblowing, the very very worrying reality for these kids once they are given this label?!

It's apparently in response to recent articles in The Australian exposing the surge in youth trans cases (ie ROGD) & exploring the risks of medicalising gender non-conforming kids.
The part I found most concerning as mother to a kid caught up in this, is telling her that 'the future is non-binary and you are ahead of the curve' when in reality my child is GNC in the same way I was as a child (we're both autistic), but has been repeatedly given utterly regressive ways of interpreting that experience, and taught to denounce any other way of understanding her experience as anything but being a boy born in a girl's body as hateful & bigoted. That's not ahead of any curve - that's way less progressive than my own experiences growing up in the 1970s & 80s!
That he subtly (or not so subtly) reinforces dodgy messaging about 'the queer community is your community... and we are here to help you. Reach out!' is highly problematic to me - my experience is that 'queer' groups are only interested in affirming the rush to 'transition', not supporting kids such as mine to fully explore why they feel as they do, not to explore whether the feelings of gender confusion they experience might have their roots in ASD, same-sex attraction etc.
He tells kids that 'You are well on the way to answering what I call "the cloaca question"' - really, WTAF?! Cloaca malformation is a complex medical condition (that only affects girls), in which the rectum, urethra and vagina fail to separate into separate tubes... Fuck all to do with non-binary, or trans - just more appropriation & propaganda, as with DSDs/intersex conditions.
Am raging that our kids are subject to such blatant propaganda & grooming

They are lying though
They don’t love my child
They don’t want the best for him
They don’t even know him

Empty words and no boundaries

So true, 2BthatUnnoticed, so true.

I just looked up the Guardian’s own editorial guidelines- nothing helpful in there about not providing children with irresponsible political propaganda.

Also can anyone spot the missing groups in this list of important protected characteristics?

12 Discrimination
i) The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental illness or disability
ii) Details of an individual's race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, physical or mental illness or disability must be avoided unless genuinely relevant to the story.

www.theguardian.com/info/2015/aug/05/the-guardians-editorial-code

parents of children who are dealing with this IRL

They don’t love my child, don’t want the best for him, don’t even know him.

Love provided in the form of emojis is very cheap.

On-line support cannot replace the support of parents, but if you are drawing a cartoon, not parenting a child, it's a kind of support that can be offered freely, without any regard for the real lives of children you will never meet.

Wow! Catina I'd not heard of the 'cloaca question' till this: it sounds horribly like obstetric fistula which occurs with obstructed labour which, afaik, isn't seen in the developed world. Or shouldn't be. I saw it in Africa - wouldn't wish it on anybody. Regressive indeed. Or a fetishists dream.

Also, isn't chicken a word used in certain groups for a young boy?

I was confused by the 'cloaca question' - I had to look it up and as Catinaflap says above it's a medical condition - but I didn't understand how it was being used in this context.

At first, I thought it was like the 'It Gets Better' campaign in the U.S. which I thought was great - supporting children who might be bullied or miserable in school so that they know that life can and often does get better. It frequently emphasised how talented, intelligent, hard-working, introspective, deep kids are not the cool kids in school but go on to have fulfilling, exciting, varied lives later.
This seemed.....different.

Starts out great with the you are perfect bit. Then it gets dodgy with "your queerness" the future is non-binary, contact your community!

Appalled this has been published even by the Guardian.

This is Guardian Australia so will be a separate editorial team. But interesting question as to whether they are bound by the same editorial guidelines as the UK team.

Despite it not saying they were pre-moderating, several attempts at commenting about puberty blockers didn’t get posted. I think I’m on a watchlist. Fuck ‘em. If they don’t want to hear what’s actually happening to kids then they are complicit when it all comes out in the wash.