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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

8 year old boy wants to change with the girls

749 replies

FairytaleofBykerGrove · 06/03/2020 02:45

I’ve been informed that a boy in my daughters class ‘feels like a girl’. He’s been wearing dresses to school for a while (fine) and now wants to change with the girls for swimming. Apparently the children will all accept it no problem and they’d like the parents to do the same. He will be under a poncho towel so we don’t have to worry about his privacy(?) I am really very unhappy with this. Which is why I’m up at 3 in the morning. The other parents I’ve spoken to don’t seem to care either way. I can’t understand it at all. Do you have any advice for me?

OP posts:
WeetabixBananaHipsterFFS · 08/03/2020 21:13

^^

Who’s this weirdo?

Kit19 · 08/03/2020 21:13

Indeed Just - it’s pretty gobsmacking that anyone could read that and then continue to lecture us about how wrong we are to insist on boundaries

WeetabixBananaHipsterFFS · 08/03/2020 21:15

Direction arrows disappeared. I am of course referring to the strange ‘sexy’ fellow.

TheElementsOfMedical · 08/03/2020 21:16

it’s pretty gobsmacking that anyone could read that and then continue to lecture us about how wrong we are to insist on boundaries

It's that holy zealous certainty of being on the Right Side of History, probably. Or, they didn't bother to read the thread before bestowing their obviously superior and devastatingly winning opinion.

StampMc · 08/03/2020 21:16

You can’t run in shouting “I’m a lesbian” as some sort of get out of debate free card if you aren’t willing to define the terms. Are lesbians same sex attracted or are they not? Are straight women lesbians? Can a straight man be a lesbian? Can a gay man? In other words, are you going to out yourself as a terf or a homophobe?

DuLANGDuLANGDuLANG · 08/03/2020 21:17

Repost of comment up thread:

ChickenonaMug

I have posted about this before but I just want explain why I think that it is so important the school actually uphold appropriate and consistent boundaries for all children.

I was being sexually abused by an adult male relative from about the age of 7yrs (my earliest memory that I can date). The abuse continued until I was nearly 14yrs.

At the age of 10 I was sexually assaulted by two boys who were in my class at school. It happened on at least 2 occasions with them both and on one further occasion with one of them. It happened at the house of one of them, the one I had known since we were both babies. At the time that it happened I did not think that they did to me was wrong, although I did think that if someone else had seen it then they would think that I was pretty disgusting. I had an incredibly confused idea about appropriate boundaries (who should see my body and who should touch it). My understanding of boundaries at that time seemed to boil down to thinking that it was shameful if people saw my underwear or something when I was playing and then at the same time completely believing that if anyone (or at least anyone male) wanted to see or touch my body then I shouldn't be bothered about that and that I should ignore any sense that this wasn't right. So I suppose I saw boundaries about my body as something for others to define and decide, therefore anyone who wanted to see my body - then that was for them to choose and for me to oblige and if anyone didn't want to see my body or underwear then it was my shame that I had somehow accidentally inflicted it on them.

What I really needed to understand, as a young child, was that boundaries were there to help me be safe and to keep me comfortable and that they were not actually there to stop people being disgusted by my body/underwear. I also needed to learn, through having boundaries demonstrated and upheld in places such as school etc, that my boundaries about who saw or touched my body, were not for other people (especially males) to decide.

When schools teach girls that they must allow a male child to see them get undressed because they need to be kind to that child, then they are teaching those girls a very dangerous lesson about the unimportance their boundaries. If they are also teaching children, for example the NSPCC PANTS rules and telling them that nobody should ask to see their privates, then the result will be very confused children who are unsure when the PANTS rules apply and when they don't. When children are confused then they are more at risk of being groomed. It is more likely that a predator will find a way to groom a young child who is either confused and unsure about her boundaries or who thinks that kindness is more important than her boundaries.

If there is a girl who is already being groomed or sexually abused in the class then she is probably relying on school to teach her how to understand, develop and assert her boundaries. In my opinion, where a child is being groomed by a manipulative and much more powerful adult predator then this is highly unlikely to achieved in a one off lesson about the PANTS rule, but it may eventually be achieved if other adults and and the school demonstrate what boundaries are for and that they should always be respected. The situation described by the OP most definitely fails in this regard and therefore it is failing all the girls and especially the most vulnerable girls. This is what makes it a safeguarding concern.

FrogsFrogs · 08/03/2020 21:19

It's safe to extrapolate that given you're asking 'moms' (where are all the Americans coming from in the last year or so on MN) and given the stats around % women who are lesbians in the population (old definition) + heteronormative society etc etc (another topic) that the vast majority will indeed have interacted with dick.

Fortunately women in the UK mostly able to choose who they fuck and I'm guessing a vast majority would choose not to interact with the dick of a man who referred to sexy moms and beautiful laydeeees Grin

The belief of lots of men, that a woman who has sex with a man she chooses, is available to any man, is at the root of a huge amount of the oppression women all over the world face all the time. So there's that...

NiceLegsShameAboutTheFace · 08/03/2020 21:20

women feared gay women.

I didn't. I suspect most women didn't.

FrogsFrogs · 08/03/2020 21:22

Dulang thank you for the repost.

I think the answer to this situation usually, from our gender > sex friends is, that is bad and shouldn't happen, so should be stopped, hmmkay? And... That's it.

Michelleoftheresistance · 08/03/2020 21:24

How has a thread about children's boundaries and support for an OP for her daughter become about homosexuality?

Unless filibustering is a useful thing to end a thread that's getting inconvenient to those who think the rights of little girls, including rights over their bodies, are what's left over after a male child has been given everything he wants.

FrogsFrogs · 08/03/2020 21:25

I have no doubt that lesbians got shit from women, and continue to do so, hopefully less than in the past.

I have no idea why this means we should open the doors of all single sex stuff to men.

Certainly the women at Hampstead ponds, which is apparently popular with lesbians, weren't super keen on men being allowed in on their invisible internal gender feelings.

The men at the gents pond, well known as a gay friendly place, weren't having any of it at all when self id men wanted in.

Kit19 · 08/03/2020 21:29

And yet isn’t it strange Frogs how the men were able to retain their pond being single sex but the women had to allow TW

FrogsFrogs · 08/03/2020 21:30

Michelle true it's a derail.

It's really interesting that so many schools are acting against the law, without a seconds thought.

Law says children must have single sex toilets and changing from age 8.

Why are they all unaware of this, or ignoring it? It's baffling.

And also shows that laws have no teeth if no one is arsed with enforcing them.

FrogsFrogs · 08/03/2020 21:31

Kit yes really really odd.

WorriedAcademic · 08/03/2020 21:44

Hopefully the OP will remind the school of their legal responsibilities and make it clear she will take action to have them enforced if need be.

I suspect the school are hoping nobody makes a “fuss”. Because we’re all so conditioned to be kind!

Durgasarrow · 08/03/2020 22:00

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Durgasarrow · 08/03/2020 22:00

And this is why this whole situation makes so much damned sense. #2020

Changename5000 · 08/03/2020 22:12

.

BeetrootRocks · 08/03/2020 22:19

Not sure about the references to testicles = brave on this thread TBH!

DodoPatrol · 08/03/2020 22:26

I'd go for short and sweet with the school:

'No, I don't consent to this. My daughter has a right to single-sex changing facilities from the age of 8. If XXX needs extra privacy, perhaps he could take his poncho into the boys/ changing room.'

Blackbear19 · 08/03/2020 23:11

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LastTrainEast · 08/03/2020 23:33

If it's so unimportant then why is it important for the boy to be changing there? All those saying it doesn't matter can explain that to his parents.

We should not be fooled by people 'casually' saying 'it doesn't matter'. There's nothing casual about it. It's a strategy for winning an argument.

StampMc · 08/03/2020 23:37

Trans activists always ends up pretending LGB activism and BAME activism are the same as trans activism and it’s always homophobic or racist but depends on people so desperate not to be homophobic or racist that they end up agreeing with the most bizarre things.

There was an article in Time magazine this week saying you couldn’t define woman as female because black women were excluded from women’s toilets during segregation so “woman” was dependent on being white. Therefore men can also be women, whatever “woman” is. Guess the gender identity of the author.

There will be people who have read that who actually believe that if a white woman isn’t actually racist enough to refuse to use the same loo as a black woman then she has to share a shower with a random man and to refuse is somehow racist, even if the man is white, or lesbophobic, even if the woman is a lesbian and the man is a man. This is where dumb purity spirals go.

Luckystar777 · 09/03/2020 05:23

Totally out of order.

30 years ago, the boy would have been told off for even suggesting to change with girls.

What on earth has changed?

NOTHING. They are STILL boys and they should NOT be changing in with girls.

Blackbear19 · 09/03/2020 05:36

Lucky star your right.
30 years ago a boy would never consider going to school in a dress or skirt. There parents just wouldn't allow it or encourage it.
The boundaries have been pushed but there needs to be a line which will not be crossed.