BBC Bitsize - Pronouns

[OhHolyJesus]

I mean I'm not surprised but Bitesize is used by schools through the country as a supposed reliable, unbiased source of education material.

mobile.twitter.com/SafeSchools_UK/status/1319025713475952641?fbclid=IwAR0rTBD2j5PKOeTKvYSSX90c4RUDmJDo7Zg613qnDBXNaAncv3J8epYWLSQ

You can complain here:

www.bbc.co.uk/contact/complaints/make-a-complaint

Or email your MP and cc MPs Safe Schools Alliance on info@safeschoolsallianceuk.

In the tweet thread there are some people already complaining. I'm not a defund the BBC kind of person but I can see why license fee layers are questioning what the BBC are doing with their money (there is a website 'BBC complaints' that's all about biased Brexit coverage).

That's what makes Genderism extremely ablist @oldcrone. It directly discriminates against those who lack either the social skills or the neurological capability to perform the kind of mental gymastics needed to avoid committing a 'hate incident'.

Can one of those people who are telling us to be 'tolerant' define 'gender identity'?

@Austriana you'd do well to take note of the above too.

And 'woman' doesn't have two meanings. It doesn't. You would like it to but that doesn't make it so.

Well that is perhaps no longer the case, hence this forum. In fact in many ways you could say that ship has long sailed.

It is and I'd like to see it challenged on those grounds. What sort of person would prosecute an autistic teenager for a minor slip? Gender ideology is all about power.

What do you think of the imagery Austriana, the mixed sex changing room and sports team? How does it sit with your feelings about women's spaces?

My post to Rufflecrow of course

This aligns with the PSHE curriculum which is supposed to encourage young people to be tolerant and non-judgmental of different lifestyles and identities.

It doesn't align with the PSHE curriculum in that the new DFE guidelines ask schools to not push extremist beliefs on children (paraphrased).

The idea that literally everyone who identifies as a woman is de facto a woman just because they say so is so clearly absurd that i often see genderists tripping themselves up on their own logic. No one believes that. This is about power, who has it, and manipulating language to serve those ends.

I wonder if any of these people who are in favour of what the BBC is saying will ever give us their definitions of 'gender' or 'gender identity'?

They cant do that as their sex?

I mean they can ballet dance or fix cars without expecting me to lie surely?

I’m all for inclusion, Austriana, but I have reservations about the fervour with which pronouns are mandated.

I’ve posted above about how I’m not convinced that it’s a kindness to encourage possibly vulnerable people to think that people who mis gender them hate them and want them to die. Far kinder to say “look, people mostly won’t be dicks to you, but in the grand scheme of things, if they are, then you can just ignore them, and you’ll be fine. You can’t control their thoughts”.

It’s also not inclusive to people with English as a second language (my second language attaches pronouns to objects rather than subjects and it can be tormenting, and Arabic, for example, genders everything depending on the sex of the person you’re talking to ) people with those languages speaking English are going to struggle already with pronouns. It’s also very much not inclusive to neuro diverse people, like the lad with autism referred to upthread.

It’s not really a zero sum game of kindness.

Probably being humane is a bit too close to being kind for some of you lot

Charming.

Given the whole process is under review, the BBC have featured a dr giving mis information like puberty blockers being harmless and reversible, and signposted to a charity that referred to the services of a dr who was suspended for running an.illegal clinic theres no way we are the inhumane ones...

@jj1968

There are over a hundred genders according to the bbc

Exciting isn't it, what young people are doing. I suspect many second wave radical feminists such as Dworkin and Firestone would heartily approve. How can gender continue to function as a system of social control based on physical sex if there are a near infinite number of genders?

So do there need to be 100 types of toilets to accommodate everyone's gender identity?

I still don't know whether my gender identity 'matches' my sex. I don't know how my gender identity would 'match' my sex if I had a gender identity other than 'man' or 'woman'.

I don't know what non-binary means or how one goes about being binary. Once upon a time a woman being a doctor or a lawyer would have been considered 'unwomanly'. Does that mean female doctors and lawyers have a gender other than 'woman'? Are they non-binary?

I have so many questions and I receive so few answers.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

It is and I'd like to see it challenged on those grounds. What sort of person would prosecute an autistic teenager for a minor slip? Gender ideology is all about power.

He didn't go up to him and ask politely did he? I've had people shout crap like that at me in the street before. It's not very nice as it's intended to draw attention to someone and humiliate them. It's bullying basically. I doubt I'd have much luck getting a prosecution but then I'm not a copper. But if you think this was just some poor confused autistic child politely asking an innocent question then I suggest you are somewhat naive. That's certainly not what the courts found as the verdict means intent to cause alarm, harassment or distress.

Courts absolutely never make mistakes.

@jj1968

And 'woman' doesn't have two meanings. It doesn't. You would like it to but that doesn't make it so.

Well that is perhaps no longer the case, hence this forum. In fact in many ways you could say that ship has long sailed.

That's such insane hubris it actually makes me feel sad for you. There are 8 billion people on this planet. Every single one of them knows what a woman is. That you have convinced a tiny fraction of maybe as much as a tenth of a percent of those people to deny what they know to be true is really not a battle won.

Surely you must know that?

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Courts absolutely never make mistakes.

Of course, I wasn't at the hearing and I didn't see the incident so I couldn't say for sure. But it's certainly not implausible, or even unlikely that this person intended to humiliate or ridicule him.

Okay. For the posters who believe that the word 'woman' has more than one meaning.

I understand 'woman' to mean 'adult human female'.

What do you understand the word 'woman' to mean?

Gender is a system of socially imposed behaviours based on physical or perceived sex.

I think we can almost agree on this. I'd say it's socially expected behaviours rather than imposed though, since we are under no obligation to comply with them.

Gender identity is where we feel most comfortable within that system regardless of physical sex and may also indicate how we internally experience our sexed bodies within a gendered system.

Now this is where we disagree. I just behave as I wish, according to my own personal preferences. I am aware that some of these behaviours comply with what is expected of women, but many of them don't. I don't view this as a 'gender identity', but simply a personality. To describe these behaviours in terms of a 'gender identity' appears to me to be reinforcing sexism and the idea that certain behaviours are only acceptable for one or other sex. In other words, 'gender identity' seems to be reinforcing gender stereotypes.

I'm not going to comment on 'how we internally experience our sexed bodies within a gendered system' because I don't understand what you mean.

Gender presentation is the social codes we adopt, both consciously and unconsciously, which indicate our gender identity.

Again, describing the way I dress or other aspects of my appearance in terms of 'gender' is reinforcing the notion that certain presentations are only acceptable for one sex or the other. A progressive society would accept that people don't always dress in accordance with outdated stereotypes. And obviously, what I wear or other aspects of my appearance can't be construed as indicating my 'gender identity', since I don't have one.

Personally I say abolish it all. But until that is achived it seems most humane to allow people to live accordance with their gender identity. Probably being humane is a bit too close to being kind for some of you lot. But that's what I think we should do.

I think it would be more humane and kind to say to everyone 'dress how you want, live how you want (as long as you are not harming others), but you can't change sex'.

Gender is a system of socially imposed behaviours based on physical or perceived sex.

Gender identity is where we feel most comfortable within that system regardless of physical sex and may also indicate how we internally experience our sexed bodies within a gendered system.

I don't feel comfortable within that system because that system is inimical to my health and wellbeing and that of all women. So that system can do one.

Believing that why would I be expected to identify my place in it? You've just confirmed what we are saying. Gender is the patriarchy. Fuck the patriarchy and fuck gender.

Except that this person has a diagnosis of autism. Do you actually have any empathy? Under the 'be kind' mantra?

That was to this - But it's certainly not implausible, or even unlikely that this person intended to humiliate or ridicule him.