Gender identity teaching in schools

[Serenschintte]

Do DS 14 has just told me that next week he will have two lessons during PE about gender identity.
We are not in the Uk but in Europe. He’s at an increasingly ’woke’ International school where at the start of the year all pupils were asked in all classes for their pronouns. First year this has happened.
Of course he has Pe on Monday. I’d describe myself as gender critical. DS is 14 and with 0 interest in dating etc right now. He’s very geeky and science focused .
Anyway I have asked 1. Why were parents not told about these lessons? and 2. What are they going to be teaching the students?

Any other questions I should ask?

Fortunately I can remove him from the class so he isn’t exposed to any nonsense.
The schools line is usually that they won’t be teaching anything just informing the kids. But given that we have already been told the sex and gender club will be educating the school community I am somewhat dubious of that claim. Thank you

Here you are OP - Safe Schools Alliance have some very good template letters for schools challenging some of the anti science, anti women rubbish being produced by lobby groups for schools. Hopefully there's something here to help?

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/resources-2/letter-templates/

This is part of the letter I wrote (with support of DH)
“We absolutely think all pupils should be supported in whatever difficulties they face, including difficult feelings around gender. Unfortunately, we do not feel the support that is offered by many prominent transgender organisations is appropriate, neither to individual children or to schools as a whole. At the core of the support that they offer is a belief in an ideology which counters biological fact and reality, and ultimately reinforces gender stereotypes. We look to the Uk where in the last years there has been a lot issues with the teaching and understanding of gender identity in schools.

Life is complicated enough for our teens. To teach students their biological sex is separate from their gender identity is a belief and not a fact. We don’t want this belief taught to our son. The idea that human beings have an innate and immutable sense of being a man or a woman is not supported by any scientific evidence.”

And I took DS out for a lovely lunch and mooch around town during the lesson. We had a nice time. Thanks for the information and help on this thread. It helped me a lot.

Homosexuality is real. Blocking teaching of real things is generally not a good idea.

Blocking teaching of religious concepts is quite a different matter.

Teaching people that "some people believe in a thing called gender identity" is maybe reasonable. Although still possibly counterproductive, like teaching about anorexia.

Teaching people that gender identities are real is not reasonable. That's the sort of specifically religious education that should be everyone's right to opt out of.

I do not believe that anaily has the first clue what Section 28 actually was or actually said.

Can you explain to those of us who are 'undeducated and ignorant' exactly what you mean by 'trans' and 'gender identity' @anaily? This will help those parents who don't understand much about this with discussing this topic with their children when they have been taught about it in school.

@Serenschintte - good letter

This will help those parents who don't understand much about this with discussing this topic with their children when they have been taught about it in school.

As a general point, I wonder about the wider public understanding of educational or informative material that is evidence-based or as free of a partial agenda as feasible.

In the real world i will see and meet people of different religions, like i will see and meet people of diverse gender. Being educated about the real world is useful, there is a thread about an employee coming out as non binary in another thread where the op is lost on how to handle it because of a lack of resources or education. This entire forum is evident of that. There is no hope for anything remotely pro trans here, it will be censored and deleted, criticism of gender is allowed while criticism of anti gender is not.

anaily - There is guidance for participating in this sub-forum that governs everyone (it's pinned). MN will have emailed you in re: any deletions.

Your several characterisations would need thematic/conversational analysis and the use of denominators to substantiate them. I look forward to seeing these should you choose to substantiate your interpretation/observations.

My comment was within the guidance, it was slightly pro trans, which was the issue as that's frowned upon here.
In the 80s parents said they don't want their kids learning about homosexuality.
In 2020s its transsexuality. Same thing different era.

My comment was within the guidance

Presumably, MNHQ disagrees with you. Or was that genuinely the reason that they gave in their email to you?

Your assertion that they are the same thing needs to be made out with a comparison/overview and that can be discussed. However, that would seem to be off-topic for this thread so it might be wise for you to start a thread in which you do that, should you wish to lay out your assertions in that way.

Gender identity in schools is also off topic to feminism, majority of the threads have nothing to do with feminism here. There is one about a spiders gender? And employee coming out as non binary at work? How is that feminism?
Should a mother have rights to flexible work hours that fits with childcare? That's a feminism topic, hardly anything is remotely close to feminism here. Withdrawing a child from education is not a woman's right issue, that's a childs right to education.

Oh goody. Someone to tell us we're feministing all wrong.

Depriving children of an education isn't feminism, the feminism board was split if i remember correctly. Just a long time lurker. We hold opposing opinions, just my opinion is of less value.

Depriving children of an education isn't feminism, the feminism board was split if i remember correctly.

My interpretation of the OP's post is that she has challenged the content of the education on offer and, until such time as she is reassured about it, neither of the child's parents consent to 2 specific classes. I do not seen any intention to 'deprive children of education'.

We hold opposing opinions, just my opinion is of less value.

Anybody is free to create a thread to discuss relevant ideas. However, in the case of assertions, it is helpful to have a well made out set of facts or theories to discuss.

That's all good and great, until the child grows up and sees gender diverse people, when the child gets a job and an employee comes out as trans or non binary, they will have no idea what it means and will seek help from forums who also have no idea what it means (ref: the thread about the non binary employee). There are real world implications as shown on this forum. Education is the way forward imo, censoring isn't helpful.

What are you so afraid of? Gender identity is a critical point for some people, and gender diversity is a reality. If any of the children in the class are trans (any identity that falls under the trans umbrella), this class will be very important to them. If any of the children in the class will ever interact with a trans person (and they will, but often won’t know they do) this class will come in handy.
This really remind me of discussion from the last century with parents being afraid their precious kids catching “the gay”. You can’t catch “the trans” in a class just because somebody tells you it exists, just like you can’t catch “the gay”.

I would support any parent questioning the content of education that has been associated a lack of grounding in science.

From a UK perspective, outside of a critical reasoning case study, I'd be very disappointed if any parent consented to a presentation of a ideology that relies upon jellybabies or a Ken - Barbie spectrum as validation of an ideology, if I recall the content of some teaching materials correctly.

I very much doubt that such facile misrepresentation is of benefit to anyone, even in the Pratchett sense of 'lying to children'.

I don't know, but if the OP is satisfied with the pedagogic content of the teaching materials, I should think it's feasible that the parents in question might consent to attendance.

until the child grows up and sees gender diverse people

Given current trends, it would be an unusual child who hasn't already seen that diversity. I'd also hope that is true of people with disabilities etc. as it would otherwise be an unusual school environment. That said, I've no idea of which country the OP is in but it would have to be somewhere with an unduly restrictive mainstream media or very limited access to social media for the lack of exposure to diversity that you posit to be true.

Homosexuality is real. It is as old as the hills.

"Gender Identity" looks to many people a lot like the spiritualism craze of the late 19th - early 20th century, a fad that will pass.

@Jaysmith71 third genders have existed for thousands of years as well, just not so much in Europe.
My personal “fad” hasn’t passed in over 40 years, so if it’s a fad it’s a bloody long one!

@anaily

My comment was within the guidance, it was slightly pro trans, which was the issue as that's frowned upon here. In the 80s parents said they don't want their kids learning about homosexuality. In 2020s its transsexuality. Same thing different era.

"Transsexuality" and homosexuality aren't the "same thing" at all, and to repeatedly assert that they are is both homophobic and transphobic.

Same thing meaning it's the same hostility. Portraying them as a threat, trying to suppress any mention of them. Withdrawing from classes that mention it, trying to make an entire group a social outcast.

No, it's about teaching something that is clearly a belief system as fact, and supporting regressive stereotyping as a consequence. Also making inferences that girls with non stereotypical interests/behaviours/presentation are somehow not girls or less of a girl, or somehow have a "boy brain".

this thread is about the effect gender lessons had on the confused mind of a much younger child, but it shows that such teaching can be really problematic for some kid's mental well being and may be useful evidence for anyone writing a letter to their child's school

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4342720-teaching-gender-in-schools