Michael Rosen, queering children’s literature

[LiterallyProblematic]

I could cry.
twitter.com/wwwritingclub/status/1217210625153290240?s=20

To all those saying "it's just stories about having two mums or dads", you are being woefully naive and are not paying attention. Queer Theory is a postmodern discipline which seeks to dismantle and transgress boundaries. Boundaries like safeguarding and those silly old fashioned taboos like adults not having sex with children, or incest. Shelley Charlesworth also did an an excellent analysis of the Queer Theory roots of No Outsiders: www.transgendertrend.com/no-outsiders-queering-primary-classroom/

Ahh, of course Imnobody4. I did know about that but had forgotten. I suspect that unconscious knowledge fed into my reading of his tweets as being faux-naïve and disingenuous.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09r4k4l

It's still up if anyone wants to re-listen

Familiar with the problems with the all-women shortlist and the BBC newspeak

I didn't know he worked at goldsmiths. That makes it look more like faux naivety on his part, but that's not a bad way of responding. He could easily have just ignored, or replied that everyone are just bigoted and if only people would be nice. This way it does allow some discussion of the issues on twitter etc.

Or he's creating a record of tweets that can be spun as being sympathetic to gender critical views should the right side of history not turn out so right in the end.

I suppose it depends what noun the verb is acting on - queering the classroom could just mean the discourse/environment, but to me it also encompasses the children within it, so it's implying affecting the children themselves. Maybe I'm being too literal.

No, I don't think you are being too literal. I think they are looking to change the narrative with the idea that if you do that, it will change the people. Something that is particularly powerful when you do it with kids because they are really not aware of other ways of thinking, they take for granted what they are told.

Education properly speaking should mean becoming aware of your own bias or narrative, so you can actually hold it in a meaningful way, or discount it, in a meaningful way. But education generally now is about teaching particular narratives as an orthodoxy - it seems to have been that way for at least 15 years. I think this is what has lead to a lot of the problems in universities and political discourse.

@nauticant @Melroses
Listening to it now. Disingenuous.

The exclusion was attributed (by the LEA themselves in media releases) to the boy’s wider behaviour in school combined with his choice to post video secretly filmed in school and clearly identifying a member of staff on YouTube.

The video was pretty damning. So ultimately that is what he was excluded for, protesting/whistleblowing his treatment for expressing the fact-based view that there are only 2 biological sexes.

However it's being reclaimed as it usefully encompasses a range of nonbinary characteristics in people's identities and relationships.

What job is "nonbinary" doing here? I'm starting to see a bit of mission creep with this term. It was used on that viral Twitter thread a few days ago about kelp to mean "intersex".

If you mean "not conforming to sexist stereotypes" it's not a particularly progressive way of looking at everyone else, is it? But it seems to cover more than that. So what "binary" are we talking about?

The video was pretty damning. So ultimately that is what he was excluded for

You clearly don’t know how exclusion processes work! The thresholds for permanent exclusion are very high, and require a documented history in detail, a trained exclusion panel, and potentially an appeals panel.

Stating as if it were fact that “a boy was excluded for saying there were only two genders” is out and out false.

It was an act of whistleblowing. It doesn't matter how "high the threshold is" for an exclusion. They looked idiotic, ideologically captured and incompetent, basically. The exclusion was clearly down to him making and posting that video. And that video showed the response to him saying there were only "two genders" (sic). So it is true to say that is why he was excluded. I see no point in equivocating. The salient point is what was said to him on that video. It was quite shocking.

"Second thoughts: I can see there are tweets directing aggressive stuff at me about gender. I’m a 73 year old whose political attention has been elsewhere. My bad. So be it. I will block people picking on me simply because I’m here. Thanks and goodbye" says Mike.

Called it. He can't be arsed. It's only women.

Exactly, Eresh.

The reaction of his teacher was awful - no teaching, or discussion, or even explanation offered - just an out and out "you cannot say this."

The teacher said "I am not putting my opinion out, I am stating what is national school authority policy"

"Policy."

That word should tell everyone exactly how schools have been captured by the likes of Stonewall training progams for schools.

Not facts, not science - but policy.

This boy was kicked out for not adhering to the doctrine dictated from on high, when the teacher told him to.

Full marks to him for resisting the brainwashing, and having the courage to say so.
www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/07/03/student_kicked_out_of_class_for_saying_there_are_only_two_genders_gets_banned_from_school.html

Can't say I'm surprised that Rosen has turned out to be another Jolyon Maugham.

They're all for women, until the women actually want their rights enforced, or their children protected from this sexualised queer theory crap in the classroom. Then, it's oh no, "you're being nasty let's all just be nice" - while turning a blind eye to the rape and death threats meted out by some of the TRAs. Same old same old.

It's not the most important thing that literature for children can do.

it was an act of whistleblowing

Also not true.

Whistleblowing is for workers, and applies in very specific scenarios that don’t apply here at all.

The student no bout had a grievance, and would have been quite justified in making a compliant to the school leadership, but he is not a whistleblower.

www.gov.uk/whistleblowing

Does the usual insistence on facts, evidence and sources not apply when it suits your position?

Again, there would need to have been very clear grounds for exclusion, and there’s is a rigorous appeals process. Posting the video might well have formed part of the grounds.

Saying stuff in class that goes against a school policy is not grounds for exclusion, and you’re being really misleading and manipulative by insisting that’s what happened.

Imagine how many kids would be out of education if schools could exclude for saying something in class. Every homophobic remark, every bit of casual racism... it doesn’t work like that, as any parent knows whose kid has been on the receiving end of verbal abuse in class.

That's a clever tactic by Rosen. I wrote:

Or he's creating a record of tweets that can be spun as being sympathetic to gender critical views should the right side of history not turn out so right in the end.

To which had can now construct a narrative of "But when I looked and asked questions I got an aggressive response and so, naturally, I withdrew. I tried, honestly, I tried."

It takes a brave "progressive" celeb to discuss this issue critically when there's a risk it will affect their brand.

Whistleblowing is for workers, and applies in very specific scenarios that don’t apply here at all.

Yeah, we're going to have to disagree on that. The word "whistleblowing" has a wider cultural meaning.. It's in the public interest to know what is going on in our schools and that teachers are gaslighting pupils. You're pointlessly splitting hairs based on the words people are using. The point is that what was said to him was shocking. Who would have believed him if he'd complained? He'd have been laughed out of the office.

We can argue about this much more, but I think your objections to my words are petty, and so there is not much point continuing to repeat this. Let's agree to disagree that what Murray did was a reasonable act of protest and in the public interest.

I don't want to derail the thread further.

You're pointlessly splitting hairs based on the words people are using.

Which is what people often do when they know they don't have a valid argument.

It takes a brave "progressive" celeb to discuss this issue critically when there's a risk it will affect their brand.

But Michael Rosen isn't a progressive celeb. He's an old school materialist socialist - except, as we see here, when it comes to the "identities" of XY persons. He knows, and has always known, exactly what the issues are.

Was anybody on the feminist side actually rude to Rosen? Because all my experience of these debates suggests that the hate and aggression comes entirely from the other side.

If everyone stopped pretending that leftist and "progressive" are the same thing that would aid greatly in clarifying issues.

Rosen has described himself as having progressive values. He's also on the Left.

Was anybody on the feminist side actually rude to Rosen?

No, not that I saw.

But there were lots of "don't listen to them Michael, these are the same people who wanted S28, and caused the gay panic of the 80s." - which can be enough to deter some people from looking at the deeper issues.

The fact that I've never come across a gender critical feminist who is a) homophobic, or b) in favour of S28 - doesn't seem to mean anything. It's pure slander against us.