School newsletter tells girls how to bind

[ErrolTheDragon]

There's a piece in the Times today ... parents not happy at the content of a newsletter produced by the 6th formers

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nonsuch-high-school-sixth-formers-told-girls-11-how-to-bind-breasts-k7slvrbkr?shareToken=a84af706d3b638e2ea3d2d53ea04e29d

@SteveBuscemisRheumyEye

Wow - we were looking at Nonsuch for DD, this is eye opening

Really? Don’t allow the media frenzy and need for a good story to influence your daughter’s education.

It’s an amazing school, my 13 year old daughter goes there too. I do feel that the school leadership can’t do right for doing wrong. The whole BLM protest that reached the press last year was due to a private student WhatsApp exchange and the perceived lack of support from the school at the time towards this out of school issue. I believe this then escalated to pinpoint an isolated comment from a teacher that was perceived to be racist which then led to the organised protest which I believe the teachers (including the head) had supported in the name of freedom of action/speech and the view that these students should be able to express themselves without sanctions. And a huge campaign by the school followed throughout the second half of last year to date, to ensure BLM issues were addressed and so many channels of communication and change were opened during this time and continue today.
This approach has obviously overflowed into all aspects of school life and there are an increased number of 6th form led newsletters emailed out to students on a regular basis. It appears to be the school allowing students the freedom to speak up and share information on current issues that they might affect teenage girls. Agree the breast binding was a poorly judged link and should have come with a support warning, but it was not an explicit piece of writing from a student.

I have continued to admire the school for their ‘student first’ and also ‘student led’ approach and their huge initiatives towards the girls’ mental health throughout lockdown and beyond. I am proud that my daughter attend this school and I feel sad that the usual Sunday media circus has too easily swayed your perception of Nonsuch. The school I’m sure will comment in due course and do not deserve this retaken the for trying to advocate the freedom of expression in its senior student community.

Excellent post @cakedays

As someone who grew up feeling very at odds with my body as a teenager this is so obvious.

So what is being trans?

Can you give us some diagnostic criteria?

[quote spoonrider]@stonecat “ For a period of years I insisted on having my hair cut short and to be called John. I wore "boys clothes" and was interested exclusively in "boys games and toys". I used to pull a face at "girly" things and genuinely felt like I wasn't meant to be a girl. ”

Hate to break it to you, but that’s not in any way what being trans is, or feels like. You REALLY need to learn mire about being trans before spouting off.[/quote]
Does everyone who's trans feel exactly the same, then? A 50 year old man who wants to be a woman feels exactly the same as a 13 year old girl at school?

Hate to break it to you, but that’s not in any way what being trans is, or feels like. You REALLY need to learn mire about being trans before spouting off.

But it seems highly likely that that's what a lot of the girls currently identifying as trans and then being unquestioningly affirmed as, do feel like. The women who speak of such feelings now often reckon they'd have been likely to take that path to the Tavistock.
I don't doubt at all you're correct to say 'that’s not in any way what being trans is' . Some realise this only after permanent changes to their bodies.

[quote spoonrider]@stonecat “ For a period of years I insisted on having my hair cut short and to be called John. I wore "boys clothes" and was interested exclusively in "boys games and toys". I used to pull a face at "girly" things and genuinely felt like I wasn't meant to be a girl. ”

Hate to break it to you, but that’s not in any way what being trans is, or feels like. You REALLY need to learn mire about being trans before spouting off.[/quote]
What is it then? According to you it's not about being a 'tomboy' or a 'girly boy', although you also seem to think that gender nonconforming children need counselling. (Why?)

What is being trans then? Since apparently very young children can understand what it is and know that they are trans, I'm sure you can explain it to the women on here.

I assume that there must be some diagnostic process as well, since you can't always assume that a child who says they 'know' they are trans is both telling the truth and is not mistaken because of a misunderstanding about what it is.

I'm another one who would like an explanation and diagnostic criteria of what being trans means @spoonrider if not that.

@FightingtheFoo

I'm another one who would like an explanation and diagnostic criteria of what being trans means *@spoonrider* if not that.

I expect to be told that all the information is out there and we should all go and 'educate ourselves' and it's not spoonrider's job to do all the work for us.

In other words they can't answer. I've lost count of how many times I've asked posters like spoonrider this question and I've never had an answer from them.

I'm one step ahead @OldCrone. Went onto Mermaids to try and see if they could shed any light on it and here's the best they've got:

"What is gender and what does ‘dysphoria’ mean?
When you are born, it’s decided whether you’re a boy or a girl, based on the way your body looks. But for some people, looks can be deceiving and they’re given the wrong gender.
So ‘gender dysphoria’ is the uncomfortable feeling some people get when their gender is different from the one they were given at birth.
No matter how someone’s body looks, they might identify as male, female or non-binary. A non-binary person doesn’t identify as male or female, they can identify as male and female, neither, or their gender can change.
If you gender identity matches the one you were given at birth that’s called “cisgender”."

So, err, exactly what @stonecat described then.

@frappucinolight I agree that giving the older girls a chance to express and share ideas with the younger girls is a good idea.

but surely a member of staff oversees what is sent out to girls as young as 11? An adult who is responsible for safeguarding should be overseeing the correspondence going out to make sure that - information or opinion is balanced from both sides of the argument, harmful advice isn't being given and certainly should have checked those links.

[quote Waitwhat23]@frappucinolight I agree that giving the older girls a chance to express and share ideas with the younger girls is a good idea.

but surely a member of staff oversees what is sent out to girls as young as 11? An adult who is responsible for safeguarding should be overseeing the correspondence going out to make sure that - information or opinion is balanced from both sides of the argument, harmful advice isn't being given and certainly should have checked those links.[/quote]
Not to mention that chemsex by definition involves using illegal drugs - how any school (or any responsible sixth former) thinks that safe guides to doing this should be handed out to 11-year olds is totally beyond me.

I'm a school governor and this thread boggles the mind, it's like all safeguarding training and all common sense flies out the window when "LGBT" appears (and I'm LB myself).

@Soontobe60 which of the links on the Queer Questions page takes students to a guide to anal sex? SSA have published all the links included on twitter and I've clicked on them and can't find the link that goes direct to an anal sex guide...

We recognise that we don’t know the trans experience and recommend professional help to figure things out safely. Yet we are told that we don’t understand anything at all.

Why do transwomen claim to know what it is like to be a woman?

At that age - shouldn’t it be more about what’s the law, how to make sure you keep safe (online creeps), maybe iconic figures, artists/authors/actor/designer lives... this is for children.

[quote spoonrider]@OldCrone

“Where were all the 'trans boys' when I was at school in the 1970s?”

Not feeling safe to come out due to societal attitudes and a compete lack of role models?

See also: “where were all the gay boys at school in the 1950s???” 🙄[/quote]
I really would have liked to be a boy when I was a child/teenager. Boys did far more interesting things (IMO), I wanted to play Rugby like my brothers and I wanted to have adventures. I can’t think of a single trans man I’ve heard of who would have done anything but put me off. Most trans men seem not to really want to do very manly things. Wanting to be a man but still get pregnant and have a baby? It would have blown my teenage brain and offended me as much as the nonsensical religious dogma that I was expected to accept. As it was I went ahead and led a life that was not constrained by sex stereotypes.
And sexual orientation is a completely different. For a start, in the 1950s homosexual sex was a criminal offence. This has never been the case for transsexual people. The ones I knew in the 70s, 80s and 90s were generally treated sympathetically as having to deal with a difficult personality/mental health issue, and were pleasant people with no agenda that included compromising women’s privacy or safety.

@FightingtheFoo

I'm one step ahead *@OldCrone*. Went onto Mermaids to try and see if they could shed any light on it and here's the best they've got:

"What is gender and what does ‘dysphoria’ mean?
When you are born, it’s decided whether you’re a boy or a girl, based on the way your body looks. But for some people, looks can be deceiving and they’re given the wrong gender.
So ‘gender dysphoria’ is the uncomfortable feeling some people get when their gender is different from the one they were given at birth.
No matter how someone’s body looks, they might identify as male, female or non-binary. A non-binary person doesn’t identify as male or female, they can identify as male and female, neither, or their gender can change.
If you gender identity matches the one you were given at birth that’s called “cisgender”."

So, err, exactly what @stonecat described then.

Christ, this uses gender (wrongly) in about three different ways, conflates it with sex at some points and not at others, and is completely self-contradictory and also just clearly also not true (no-one is "given" a gender at birth ffs). If you believe the whole edifice, you're 'assigned" a sex at birth which you may feel is at odds with your internal sense of gender. No? Or how do the non-binary people fit in if gender and sex are the same thing? Can you be wrongly assigned a "non binary" gender at birth but then come to identity as a female gender? If not then this Mermaids passage doesn't make sense on its own terms either.

Even Mermaids can't produce anything that makes sense or coheres with other accepted ideas of what trans is. No wonder that there isn't any clear definition of "trans" at all, then.

Even Mermaids can't produce anything that makes sense or coheres with other accepted ideas of what trans is. No wonder that there isn't any clear definition of "trans" at all, then

Mermaids etc say trans is not stereotypes or being born in the wrong body.

The nhs criteria for gender dysphoria requires 6 out of 8 symptoms to receive a dx.

Remove the ones that correlate to the body being wrong and stereotypes and you are not left with enough to tick the 6 out of the 8.

If the body isn't wrong then what is it we are treating ?

Hate to break it to you, but that’s not in any way what being trans is, or feels like. You REALLY need to learn mire about being trans before spouting off.

Funny, I could say the same to trans people about what it is to be a woman.

@Theeyeballsinthesky

Chemsex?? Christ! How can the school not see it’s a massive safeguarding issue? You don’t tell 11 year olds about stuff like that ffs

I am in my fifties and I have no idea what chemsex is ! Also bizarre title, as a friend of Dorothy is a gay man.

So ‘gender dysphoria’ is the uncomfortable feeling some people get when their gender is different from the one they were given at birth.
No matter how someone’s body looks, they might identify as male, female or non-binary. A non-binary person doesn’t identify as male or female, they can identify as male and female, neither, or their gender can change.If you gender identity matches the one you were given at birth that’s called “cisgender”."

According to this bit of Mermaids thinking above, if I decided to bring my baby up as gender neutral and always referred to them as "they/them/etc." from birth and dressed them in gender neutral clothes, and when growing up they eventually decided that because they had a penis and male anatomy they wanted to "identify" as a boy, my child would then be "trans". Righty-ho

It doesn't even make sense under its own terms.

Everyone should be gender questioning. Why would you pathologise that?

Conforming purely to gender stereotypes is restrictive

I feel a generation of girls have been groomed to accept porn and extreme promiscuity.

Makingnumber2 it's this link and then click on Sex Guides lgbt.foundation/sexualhealth