My 14 year old son got into trouble at school yesterday ...

[PippaOwl]

I don't profess to be an expert in all things gender and sex related but I've brought my eldest (now adult) daughter to know her boundaries and I've brought my 14 year old son up to (age appropriately so far!) know how we treat girls, how we behave on social media and all the other stuff surrounding that

A HUGE part of his school experience at the moment is being surrounded by girls and boys who are confused regarding their sexuality and their gender. I've always been very very clear with him on my views - if you have a penis you are a male and if you have a vagina you are female and that's that. I've also explained to him that some people feel trapped in the wrong body and therefore it's their absolute right to express themselves how they want and they deserve respect

Yesterday at school he was in a lesson and got involved in a discussion with a girl. He said to her that girls couldn't be boys and vice versa. She disagreed so a verbal argument ensued. (Not shouting or anything!) She told him to shut up and that he was talking rubbish so he told her to shut up too.

Next thing, he's being taken out of class by the student manager. Who's told him off and issued a 'penalty mark' against him for his views. He argued this and said he was right. She said ... and I quote ... ' the facts are that gender and your sex begin in the brain so you need to be aware of the facts of this before talking rubbish about how your genitals define your sex'

It's all been left now and he has this penalty mark against him (no big deal, but still.. he's a good pupil and he's not had this before!) but am I actually going mad? We have a student manager here who is saying having a penis doesn't make you a man - what your brain tells you does..

I'm unsure how to deal with my son too! Ive told him he must not be rude to anyone and I don't expect him to be telling people to shut up, so he's been told clearly about that. Ive also told him his view is entirely right.

Your thoughts?

Ask a farmer if there is any use in categorising her four-legged bovine creatures by whether they have a penis or not. She'll tell you that it is very important.
And even though bullocks are deprived of their male genitals, you still won't get any milk out of them.

”It's just awful towards a child that is potentially torn with their own emotions and just finding themselves and understanding what makes them happy.”

And does making themselves happy have to involve spouting BS, to the entire class no less, about how humans are able to change sex?!

Aren’t schools, in an ideal world if not yet in reality, supposed to be places where ideas are challenged? Wouldn’t we be better teaching our young men and women how to accept that not everyone will share our POV and that, if our argument devolves to “shut up” after only a couple of exchanges then it’s probably not very robust, and that it’s possibly time for a rethink?

I really hope you email the school and complain. It all feels very "First they came for the communists" these days

It's just that focusing on the phyiscal attributes associated with a person's sex, are not considered a helpful way of defining them any more. I guess focus may have shifted.

We're not defining them. We're defining the words.

For that sentence you've written to even make sense - for you even to raise this objection to "focusing on ... a person's sex" - you have to know what "sex" means.

To me sex is not the dichotomous entity we used to think it was.

Possibly because you misunderstand what "sex" is. It's the classification for reproduction purposes. If you count your parents, you'll note that you have exactly two - one male, and one female. One of each sex. You have four grandparents, two of each sex. And so on.

Having established that classification - which is a very clear classification in humans, with no-one being both - then you can start looking at the characteristics of individuals of each sex.

This classification has massive predictive value. To ignore it would be like pretending that night and day, or seasons, didn't happen. Any civilisation based on pretending that winter didn't exist wouldn't last long. Much the same for sex.

We're finding ever more differences between the sexes. The assumption that findings derived from study of men are universally applicable is proving increasingly unsound.

You may have missed Caroline Criado Perez's recent work - Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. Will tell you a lot about that.

The student manager didn't know that OP's DS is emotionally robust. We know that because OP stated it. She is supposed to be the "safe person" for kids to go to, but she is clearly not treating the kids equally - she has no idea how OPs DS is doing, what's going on in his life. She was angry at him in a way she wasn't with the girl. It's also not his job to understand the mental health of every child he's in a class with and tip toe accordingly. If the girl has sensitives around the fact she can't change sex, why isn't she being told not to discuss it in art class?

If being trans isn't a mental illness, then fine, but then people who identify as trans should be treated exactly the same way as everybody else.

Furthermore, imagine OP's DS was struggling with being gay - aka same sex attracted - he'd now not be able to go to her (so terribly sorry, I'm assuming the pronoun...) without fear of her telling him that he can he attracted to vagina-havers too.

She has completely compromised her position here.

twitter.com/debbiehayton/status/1442368170082328576?s=21

‘Moreover, as in the MMR debacle over 20 years ago it is children who are being put at risk of harm. They have no special knowledge about their gender identity – nobody does – but promises are being made to them that can never be delivered: that they can somehow choose to be a boy or a girl. The flip side of course is the implied threat that if they choose incorrectly, they may go through the “wrong” puberty and never find satisfaction in life.‘

I wouldn't let this go personally. You said you'll accept it for being rude but you don't know that he was. If you let this go all you'll have taught him is he needs to go along with whatever the gender identity cult says or he'll get in trouble because his views are wrong. If these are the views you believe in and what you've taught your kids then don't accept them being told they're wrong and punished. His beliefs are protected under the law and this manager needs talking to.

@FreshFancyFrogglette

I'm a third wave Feminist. What I learnt last year in gender studies, is completely different to the ideas most of mumsnet were taught 20 years ago. Things move on. It's no longer men vs women. To me sex is not the dichotomous entity we used to think it was. Obviously that's very problematic for second wave feminism, which relies on that distinction in order to make its argument. Its still useful, but things have evolved.

Oh darling there are so many things I'd like to say in reply to this but there's just no point. Do me a favour and keep this post, give it 20 years and when you read it back to yourself when you've grown up you'll feel like a real twat for ever writing this 😔 it's always been men Vs women, things never move on, womens rights always have and always will be under threat.

Ooh, THIRD wave feminist, that's nice dear.
OP, I think you are tackling this the wrong way. The student manager needs to know that she has crossed a line. Your DS should not have been rude - neither should his classmate - but he is entitled to his beliefs ( in actual reality ). If you just let it go if she claims it was the rudeness that got him the penalty, then the nonsense continues. It's the fact that your DS and other students can no longer state scientific fact that's the problem. I think you need to tell her what you've been told she said and ask her to confirm or deny. Actually, go past her, and ask the SMT to confirm if that is now school policy. Because if it is they are breaking the law. And if you are worried about "coming out" as GC, well you are just standing up for the rights of students to voice their legally held views.

@FreshFancyFrogglette

It is not a fact that biological sex is purely determined by your lower genitilia. It is also determined by hormones, hence the existence of hermaphrodites. So the initial statement "if you have a penis you are male" is factually incorrect. That's before we even consider the role of gender.

Lower genitalia WTF? Do I have a spare womb tucked under an armpit? Does DH in fact have a second penis securely implanted in his forehead?

How much more of the most basic science has to be mangled to make this fuckwitted ideology work?

ONLY men have a penis. Some transwomen have a pseudo penis.

ONLY women have a cervix. Most transwomen have a penis, very few transwomen have a pseudo cervix

@FreshFancyFrogglette

OK, instead of hermaphrodites, use the term intersex. I refer to humans with ambiguous sex! They exist. Sorry that's inconvenient. The statement men have pneises, woman have vaginas is wrong. As you've just proven by saying that a man who lost their penis is still a man! I can't believe I even have to type that tbh...

Regardless of your feminism and education you seem to have missed out of the updating of such old and ill infomed terminology.

People with DSDs do indeed exist. And they are not hermaphrodites, mules or in any way ambiguous about their sex once their DSD has been diagnosed.

A man who has lost his penis, amputation by choice or accident is still a man, resolutely male. Even those high voiced eunauchs remained male! That you find that difficult is mistifying!

It's just that focusing on the phyiscal attributes associated with a person's sex, are not considered a helpful way of defining them any more.

Really

@FreshFancyFrogglette

I would put money on the fact I've read more on the subject than most people. Men have penises, women have vaginas, is a crap way to teach biological sex to children. Thats it. I've argued this for years on here, but it's the only place online I seem to have to. Most things on here I agree with, but the refusal to acknowledge the last 10 years worth of development in gender studies really irks me.

I'll refrain from pointing out the education of some of the posters across MN, but my own is quite relevant, involving human physiology, biology, health etc.

As an academically published multidisciplarian I also have a good smattering of sociology and psychology too (and have lectured across all of those disciplines for possibly the whole of your lifetime).

The last 10 years of gender studies is interesting and, when taught well, does not seek to assert the superiority of thought over biology. Indeed, the very best courses on the subject used to teach how our current more liberated society, our more leisured, less survival based, society has given rise to a more cerebral reality. That, having been released from the pressures of hunting, gathering, exploring, acquisition of external reward, such leisured human beings look inward and restructure their innermost selves.

Gender has always been with us. The oldest writings, spoken histories, images, include men as women, women as men. It is not a new thing. What is new is that we now have a whole generation or 2 who have so much time on their hands that they can devote themselves to squaring that particular circle.

Now we have machinery, computers to much of what is necessary, the human brain need not learn, internalise mechanics of any kind, Instead it can re-imagine itself exactly as it wants to. And the current zeitgeist wants to be anything it is not; maybe amorphous; maybe (ironically) homogeneic.

If you want to be taken seriously here then your arguments need to be more robust. Often supported by gold standard, peer reviewed research. Thus far you have offered opinion and demanded we take your word on it.

Oh, how much money did you put on it? I'll send you my bank details ....

Most things on here I agree with, but the refusal to acknowledge the last 10 years worth of development in gender studies really irks me.

Angry? I’m afraid I laughed at this. I think you might be overestimating the importance of “gender studies” out in the real world.

I've enjoyed the unexpectedly comic undercurrent to this thread

I wish I'd proofed that better... apologies, newish keyboard and holiday length fingernails!

ONLY men have a penis. Some transmen have a pseudo penis.

ONLY women have a cervix. Most transwomen have a penis, very few transwomen have a pseudo cervix

@pickingdaisies I hear you but I want my first contact with her to be very neutral. Although I consider my son reliable in what he's told me, he's also only 14 and for that reason, I'm not taking his word as absolute gospel.

He did say she'd written notes from the other girl down on a notepad, which she reeled off to him and asked him to confirm or deny that he'd said each thing and that she was REALLY cross

Really cross may well be related to her own cognitive dissonance at feeling she has to “correct “ him when she knows perfectly well that he’s right…

@TheElementsSong

I've enjoyed the unexpectedly comic undercurrent to this thread

Me too. Was in need of a laugh this morning and this thread has provided.

Fair enough OP, I'm not in your shoes. Best of luck!

I'm probably going to regret asking this, CuriousaboutSamphire, but do you have any information about this idea that some surgeries in male transsexuals involve constructing a "pseudo cervix"?

It serves no purpose in the constructed simulacrum of a vagina that is built during either of the methods commonly used, and there are no parts to make it out of.

I do know that checkups for cancer are necessary in those who have the surgery, but it cannot be done within the cervical cancer program, because it's not the same cell cultures and you need to have special training to take the sample correctly.

(Just curious, maybe I missed the latest developments.)

Sorry Charlie, I was trying to follow the general conversation and got carried away. Pseudo vagina would have been the correct term to use.

I REALLY don't want that thought to take root...

... but then again, womb transplants are a real thing - in some minds!!!!

Apologies, I will do better!

I'd be reminding the school that gender critical beliefs are protected under law.

Fair enough no one should have expressed any nasty words or told any one to shut up but that goes both ways.

@PippaOwl
Have you had a response from the school? I don’t agree with the poster, who said you are going about this the wrong way. In my experience, admonishing the school or staff members results in the school closing ranks. This happened when I contacted my dd’s former school expressing concern a member of staff was putting my dd at risk due to her medical condition - I witnessed the woman doing so and said as much (very nicely) yet I was not taken seriously and my observations were denied. In my circumstances, there was no way of saying it in a better way. However, you can do so as your ds is not at physical risk.

@Mummyoflittledragon nothing as of yet. And yeah, I don't want to go in all guns blazing. Plus this isn't a subject I'm particularly au fait with so im going to have to choose my words carefully as it is.

Some of the responses on this thread are fantastic and thought provoking but they're not responses I could use with the school - purely because my own knowledge just isn't there. I like to be on soldi ground when I'm considering taking someone on

I suppose I'm hopeful that she will give me my 'in' but for now, clearly in no hurry to reply to me