Unlimited potential: Report of the Commission on Gender Stereotypes and Early Childhood

[HecatesCatsInXmasHats]

From the Fawcett Society:

UNLIMITED POTENTIAL: REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON GENDER STEREOTYPES AND EARLY CHILDHOOD

Society teaches our children life-limiting stereotypes from the moment they are born. Our expert Commission on Gender Stereotypes in Early Childhood came together in 2019 to build a new consensus on the impact gender stereotypes and intersecting inequalities have in our children’s formative years and how, together, we can end them.

On the 15th December we are publishing our final report. We set out the case for change, the evidence about how gender stereotypes are perpetuated, and promote practical solutions to change childhood and change lives.

Speakers include:

Gillian Keegan MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Apprenticeships and Skills at the Department for Education

Professor Becky Francis, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Fund

Jess Day, Campaigner with Let Toys Be Toys

Owen Thomas, Future Men

Janeen Hayat, Co-Founder of You Be You

Chair: Sam Smethers, Fawcett Society Chief Executive

www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/Event/unlimited-potential-report-of-the-commission-on-gender-stereotypes-in-early-childhood

some children are trans

What does this mean Manderley?

So alignment with opposite sex stereotypes is only seen as an indicator of a tran identity in the case of a child who themselves claims to be trans.

And why would they claim to be "trans", in the first place? When Mermaids types describe how their children "knew" they were meant to be the opposite sex they always describe it in terms of stereotyped likes or behaviour.

But this still doesn't answer the question about what a gender identity actually is. I've been trying to work this out for years, and I still feel no closer to understanding. yes I agree, it doesn't address this. Which is why I think the religion/god/soul analogies are quite useful.

The way it's explained is inadequate & depends on us all having one - that we don't notice ours because it matches our 'assigned' sex. I saw one tra trans woman explaining it a bit more convincingly - more like a mismatched sex identity. That depends on the existence of the two sex categories (to identify with/as) so contradicts the 'sex is a social construct' idea. But I don't think that goes down well with the other trans activists.

But none of it, however it's explained, means a male person is actually female, or that gender identity (whatever it is) should overwrite sex in policy and law.

But the thread is about the Fawcett's stereotype research, and there is alot in there which is useful to us & others who are keen to relieve the pressure on girls, the princessification & later the hyper sexual femininity.

Until someone can actually explain the set of feelings/emotions/tastes that as a woman I am supposed to have (and share with my fellow women around the world), then gender will remain a fluffy idea around ‘boys like blue and girls like pink’ and have nothing useful to offer.

But someone who is not GC could believe gender identity is innate but the expression of it follows stereotypes set culturally. In that reading, the natal little girl and the trans little girl both love pink and sparkles because they both believe themselves to be girls so they subsconciously (or often consciously, based on my own childhood) follow the girl stereotypes. So the girly stereotypes in the trans girl are proof they are a girl because only girls naturally like this stuff, but evidence they may identify as a girl and therefore aligning to those stereotypes.

The problem is that take away the sparkles and nobody seems to be able to explain what gender identity is. What is this innate thing that I am supposed to share with Caitlyn Jenner but not Stephen Whittle?

Which is why I think the religion/god/soul analogies are quite useful.

They are. I accept my disbelief in an innate gender identity that can sometimes be found in the wrong sexed body is a belief rather than something I can know. Just as I cannot know there isn't a flying teapot orbiting the Earth and if someone tells me there is, I might be sceptical of this claim.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot

I still see no reason to believe in innate gender identity, because I've not heard any rational argument which has convinced me I should.

I know what you mean blibby and agree.

In the end though whether this internal sense exists or not, and whether the stereotypical preferences etc are cause or symptom. Is irrelevant. Because biology exists. And if it was all about names and clothes and even pronouns then ok. Not much fuss. It's the bit where biological sex becomes irrelevant and men get put in prison that there's a problem.

If there was no interest in accessing stuff meant for a sex, based on gender instead, then everything would be ok.

If there was no interest in accessing stuff meant for a sex, based on gender instead, then everything would be ok.

And if children weren't being given harmful medication and being persuaded by adults that their healthy bodies need this medication.

I don’t find the God and soul comparisons useful.

They have a limited use in the sense that as gender identity is being described as neither based on the body nor the personality the only remaining realm is the supernatural.

It is not useful in the sense of if you haven’t experienced it is incomprehensible and nebulous. God and the soul have got descriptions that are cohesive enough to create religious doctrines. If you ask what God is there are descriptions of him/her/it.

I am still waiting to hear a description of a gender identity.

The best comparison is one I heard recently on a podcast. Someone claims we all have multiple personalities. Some people say they only have one. The people who think they only have one are wrong; it’s just that in their case all of their personalities are identical so they don’t notice them all.

That’s the same as the notion some people don’t notice their own gender identity.

They cannot possibly know we all have gender identities, and even if we do, they need to explain what one is.

I find the comparison with religion fine. Or if not religion, spirituality. A feeling there is it must be 'something else'.

I don't have that feeling and I can't imagine it. My friend does, she can't imagine not having it. I can understand that she has this feeling and say ok. But what she can't say is that this is a universal thing because it clearly isn't. Or that it's unusual not to have it. Or that everything should be organised as if it's a defining thing about humans etc.

So for me it's helpful.

Yes, I agree it is helpful in that way.