Help with talking to a 12 yr old about trans issues

[GoingOnce]

My son has a friend whose sister is apparently now his brother. I sense my son wants to talk to me about this and I want to have the right language to engage sensibly in a conversation. He has swallowed whole the ideology that people can change their gender as this has been “explained” to them at school. The child does not attend my son’s school but still attends a girls school - whilst going by a new name, wearing an adapted and having a special toilet assigned just for them.

The child in question (and the entire family) is struggling. There is self-harm and have been suicide attempts. I do not want to criticise them or their child. But I do want my child to realise that they are being presented with one narrative here. (I am quite certain the parents are simply going along with the whole thing because they are terrified of their child’s mental state and what they might do next. I feel very sorry for them).

Any advice for how I can discuss this sensibly? I can’t believe at age 12 we are already having to talk about all this.

by "caught up in this" You mean the audacity of knowing someone who is trans.
Hardly the same.

And by the way, schools aren't transitioning anyone. behind parents backs or otherwise. If you think we are binding kids you are bonkers.

Out of curiosity, did the trainer (was it Caitlin Wood by any chance?) mention the interim Cass report at all? I ask as Mhairi Crawford, CEO of LGBTYS, told me the current ScotGov guidelines “are not impacted” by the interim report. She was very snippy.

And since you’ve just had the training, did LGBTYS tell you to not support social transitions without parental knowledge? If so, that would be a change from their previous training sessions to schools.

And one final question…. did they give guidance to what a school should do when the parents have clinical advice that the adults in the child’s life should follow watchful waiting and not use preferred pronouns?

Yes. I would like to know exactly this too rogdmum. Because one of the teens that was transitioned by their school was under a mental health clinicians care and her parent is a medical practitioner and was under 'watchful watching' and the school still changed that teen's records and socially transitioned them.

I find stopwaiting to be rather uninformed to be honest and they seem to be existing in a 'be nice' bubble. Is it because they work at the school and do not have to then have to deal with this as a parent? Because there is a fucking huge difference if you ask me, and I also do some work with the school AND I am a parent.

There is also the complete lack of acknowledgement that their one school may not be doing this, but we know from the number of posters who post on these board now and in the past, that it does happen. Just because a poster says it doesn't happen doesn't mean that it isn't happening. And FFS we have ministers AND clinicians saying it does and that it should not happen again without parental involvement.

And this poster claims that 'we' have an agenda? Yeah, we have seen that all before.

No, but I'm not in England.

No to the report.

In what fucking world does one be uninformed while working alongside the people concerned?

Helping out at PTA does not mean you 'work with the school'.

The posters claiming its happening aren't relating to dirct experience. I'd believe them if they were.

I don't think you personally have an agenda, but I think others do. Because in the real world, it's not we vs them.

The only agenda I have is to challenge uninformed views on here which all stemmed from a faux "what will I possibly do" post.

There have been repeated claims that we tell pupils they can change sex. I've just spent 2 and a half bloody hours doing the most recent training and this was never said.

In fact, most of the legislation requests that we do not tell pupils anything in the position of a disclosure, and that it is dealt with as part of safeguarding.

I repeat
TRANSGENDER IS PART OF THE CURRICULUM.

Is there a reason you guys use these questioning to show you know better than the bodies who put the language, the behaviour policies and the strategies into schools in the first place?

What you don't realise stopwaitingforpermissiontobeyou is that some of us are those "experts" who write the behaviour, the safeguarding & pastoral care policies, who deliver the training, work in schools and with schools, who deal with mental health needs and the array of challenges that children and young people experience. Just because we have an in depth political analysis of an ideology currently doing so much active harm to vulnerable children doesn't mean we lack compassion - precisely the opposite. What we have is an unerring ability to spot the political activists, the self interested adults desperate to influence children too young to have developed the critical thinking skills to spot when they're being used.

We question the 4,000 % plus increase in girls with rogd. We read the appalling observations about the experimental medical treatment reported in the interim report from Cass. We note the attempts to shut down / dismiss research in relation to these children. We analyse much of the shameful "training" provided in this area and find it wanting.

And we pick up the pieces, supporting our own and other vulnerable children and their families as they try to support them in the hope that they don't take irreversible steps while they're too young to fully understand the long term implications for them.

Your repeated rude dismissals of the informed comments on a long thread like this is akin to the toddler with their fingers in their ears shouting "I'm not listening to you". As I suggested on this thread, maybe have a read of how you respond to women on here and ask yourself why?

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4536037-school-allowing-boy-to-change-in-girls-changing-room-secondary-school?flipped=1

We can use pronouns but not an official name change without parental consent. This has always been the case. Pronouns can be vetoed by an appropriate member of staff and this has happened in the past.

I take my guidance from above, unlike on MN where they half expect me to trample in shouting "YOU CANT CHANGE SEX" at passing pupils.

Hence my constant references to the real world.

Sorry, I don't believe you.

I don't believe that anyone responsible for writing "safeguarding" couldn't posibly understand why I have a different view as a member of school staff. Should I tell my boss to shove their policies?

It's not cricket to bring one thread over to another, but I have nothing to hide.

I respond to people (we dont know theyre women) because despite you, and the other posters who seem to think they reign supreme over these boards, they dont.

While you're making these claims, we are out there working directly with these teens.

I implore you to bring your "data" and tell my teens that they are wrong.

I am a little fish in a huge pond, and far from "being nice", what I am doing is doing my job.

The posters claiming its happening aren't relating to dirct experience. I'd believe them if they were.

Well I am speaking from direct experience and social transition without parental knowledge and/or against clinical advice absolutely is happening in some schools in Scotland.

I know you’re not in England. Neither am I. That’s why I asked you about your LGBTYS training and if it was Caitlin running it. It would be incredibly useful if you could answer my other two questions as that would determine whether or not LGBTYS have changed their training over the past 18 months.

The only agenda I have is to challenge uninformed views on here which all stemmed from a faux "what will I possibly do" post

If you cannot even give definitions /criteria of what the identities thay you claim ti agree with affirming are then yes we are going to consider you uninformed.

What are the terms and they definitions.

What's a girl identity. Does the curriculum cover what these identities are because neither of my 2 kids had a clue when I asked them after theor " lessons"

It never goes beyond " anyone who identifies as a X is an X "..

So we have kids who want to be kind and do the right thing but who haven't even been given the courtesy of an explanation of any of it.

Doesn't that strike you as weird that something can be part of a curriculum but falls apart at the first question because there is no actual definition .

Sorry, cross post. I see you’ve answered my second question. So use of pronouns and no mention of Cass report which describes social transition as an active intervention. Interesting that they are still doubling down on affirmation.

The posters claiming its happening aren't relating to dirct experience. I'd believe them if they were.

Are you serious?

You will not believe posters who are telling you this happens? Do you listen to yourself?

You are telling people to believe what others are saying about their experiences, yet you then come out with this crap?

Helping out at PTA does not mean you 'work with the school'

Nice assumption there.

Jesus christ.

Ill take another tact.

What is your solution? What would you have me do? Stand up in the lesson and say I think this a load of shit kids.

This faux inability to understand transgender as a concept just because you don't believe in it absolutely infuriates me.

Children understand far more than us (unless of course you interrogate them with questions like the above and confuse them even more, which I can imagine is the case).

Their classmate used to be a girl and would now lije to be referred to as a boy. Done. Beyond that is really none of you or your child's business,

Excuse me if I'm doubtful given the claim that they "write the safeguarding and deliver the training" , working for a concept they disagree with. Odd behaviour.

In what fucking world does one be uninformed while working alongside the people concerned?

In what fucking world does one be uninformed as parents with their children directly dealing with these issues every day?

Again, do you actually read what you write?

I'll say it a bit louder this time.

I will believe people who work with trans teens and can give me evidence of these things happening, not people who read about it on the internet. Is that better?

But they're not! That's entitled behaviour. Just because your child is in a class with someone doesn't mean they are entitled to know their business.

My pupils have a wealth of living arrangements, backgrounds, mental or physical health, exemptions, things in place to help them such as leaving classes early or lift passes

Is this fair game to be discussed with everyone at the school gate? Of course it's bloody not.

I worry about children who grow up to be adults who believe that other people's choices are theirs to digress and give their opinions on. We've all met them, and they're not good people.

stopwaiting

Do you not think it is concerning, or at least odd that the LGTBTYS trainer didn’t refer to the concerns raised in the interim Cass report? That they didn’t mention that the report said:

”Social transition – this may not
be thought of as an intervention or treatment, because it is not something
that happens within health services. However, it is important to view it as an active intervention because it may have significant effects on the child or young person in terms of their psychological functioning.64,65 There are different views on the benefits versus the harms of early social transition. Whatever position one takes, it is important to acknowledge that it is not a neutral act, and better information is needed about outcomes.“

Do you feel that given the above, teachers are truly competent to decide whether or not a school should support a social transition? That a lobby group knows better than the Cass Review team?

The guidelines are similar to safeguarding. No leading, no confirming. Signposting, and then we await advice from pupil support and SMT

What happens further up the chain is not my businesss, I do as im told.

Because I'm a staff member, not as PPs claim to be the ruler of MN and therefore all of its topics.

Sorry, I'm not understanding.

You want me to believe anything someone tells me about what they've read on the internet because they have children? strange view to take.

This faux inability to understand transgender as a concept just because you don't believe in it absolutely infuriates me

Believe in what? What is it?

And yes it does concern us and it is our business when it completely destroys the meaning of words and then by default our children's understanding of the world around them.

Of you are teaching something you need to teach what it is. Other wise it's just emotionally blackmailing children to use words in a way you want them.to with nothing to back.it up.

What part of a child's personality is it that is not compatible with being a boy or a girl akd therfore they need to be the opposite?