Times: Girl ‘driven out of school for questioning trans ideology’

[ResisterRex]

This seems to be a clear failure on the part of all adults involved, if what's reported here is accurate:

Girl ‘driven out of school for questioning trans ideology’

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/50aac934-d539-11ec-8585-951ab3afb4d2?shareToken=d55c6d8482ff6dde48eb9c33de693f54

Yes, the details of the story are exactly the same as yesterday but they've added in a bit about JKR, presumably for the clicks.

I hope that this young woman has finished her A levels.

My apprehension is that some of her former schoolmates might be feeling ashamed of their behaviour in retrospect, or now that their parents have been exposed to a different view of it, and might be inclined to be vindictive. I would hope not, but I know from family friends just how wretched online bullying can be when it involves school cliques.

The more I read about this, the more the teachers here, as they did with Child C, showed substantial safeguarding failures as well as the drive to model moral behaviour as good citizens.

The link in the op of this thread now goes to the new article. They've changed it.

You're right. That's a bit odd. In the paper it appears as two separate stories.

It does keep the story in the news, however, which is what the paper wants (possibly more important than clicks, as the site is behind a paywall). It's noticeable now that every time JKR makes an intervention on a trans story, it will be reported, usually in Mail Online if not elsewhere. So her comment about the masked bullies at the Manchester rally ended up as a big story on the Mail site. She has real power now to set the news agenda.

A levels don’t actually finish until the end of June. I’d expect the school’s name to be kept out of the news until then - but if the story is still running, it may get printed

@MissLucyEyelesbarrow I agree with you 💯. I was being a bit tongue in cheek, but upon reflection, applying speech laws consistently would highlight how overreaching some are. They are certainly applied with zealous rigour towards anyone with the temerity to say that sex is a real, material thing.

Re accusations by some of making up the story, wasn’t the Guardian accusing the WiSpa story to be made up also? When it was proved that not only had the incident happened, but was perpetrated by a convicted sex offender, there was no acknowledgment, no apology and no sanctions.

Including LOJ who called it a "campaign of lies" and praised the US Guardian's poorly researched take.

What the Baroness did wrong is that according to the girl quoted in the Times article: "She said trans people don’t have basic human rights in this country."

This is not true, and it was irresponsible of the Baroness to give such misleading information to young people. If that quote is an accurate representation of what she said she should reveal her identity and apologise for lying to these children. If it's not, it would be appropriate for her to state publicly that this is not what she said.

The more I read about this, the more the teachers here, as they did with Child C, showed substantial safeguarding failures

Yes agree.

I've been on several safeguarding courses in the past year and I'm wondering what the point of all this training is given that there seems to be no penalty for safeguarding failures on this scale.

The really shocking thing is that the teachers seemed to change their opinion and actions based on nothing more than the word 'transphobia'. Obviously we don't know the full truth of the matter but it should at least be subject to a safeguarding investigation.

What is also chilling is that the teacher who spoke to the paper and TT said that when he asked about the student who'd been bullied out of the school he met a 'we don't discuss that' response. He was asking about the welfare of a child FFS.

This is the bit from the TT website www.transgendertrend.com/transgender-ideology-in-schools/

"When I enquired a couple of weeks back as to how our young student was doing these days (having not seen her around the place since the incident and also having a strong sense that I was committing some kind of crime by asking the question), I was asked firstly ‘why I wanted to know’. I was informed that she was; ‘no longer on the system’ – that ‘the matter had been dealt with’ and that ‘we’re not talking about it’. This to be fair may be simply because sensitive matters these days are always handled on a ‘need to know’ basis. As I wasn’t involved with her in any formal capacity I simply ‘didn’t need to know’. On the other hand, anyone with an insight into the way that ‘mystification’ operates in institutional bureaucracies with their ‘communicating through the proper channels’ and ‘not opening unnecessary cans of worms’ etc, will be able to intuit a whiff of pathology in such language and positioning. I wasn’t happy with ‘we’re not talking about it’ and have discussed it with several 6th and 5th form pupils (on an individual basis.) All admitted that they couldn’t really see what was wrong in what the girl had said on that day."

When asked 'why he wanted to know' he should have said he was concerned about the child's wellbeing (i.e. he was asking because of safeguarding concerns), which is obviously the case.

It's anti-safeguarding to be able to shut down adults with concerns like this.

Yes. Telling the students that trans people lack basic human rights is the Baroness spreading propaganda. It is easily disproved and this should be picked up under discipline actions by HOL. She was there as a Baroness.

Yes, exactly correct. I think there were two articles claiming the story was fabricated 'fake news'. No subsequent corrections.

I'm so glad this story is being given the coverage it deserves, another poster put a link to the TT article in a different thread, thought it seemed significant and like others I doubt The Times are printing idle gossip.

Having been on the receiving end of nasty bullying at school, I can completely see how this could happen. However, this is just new shit for idiot kids to use on others.

As other posters have said, the spotlight is on the grown ups and their inaction plus agreeing with the 'mob' in that awful talk about not tolerating 'hate speech' (of the poor girl). Eurgh, makes you a bit sick doesn't it. Teachers are woefully missing training in this regard.

I don't know Owen, use your journalistic skills? Oh that's right, you're a columnist.

Robin White, the barrister who often pops in here, has just declared on Twitter that the story is a “fantasy” and is waiting for a retraction. Apparently the evidence for it being made up is the Times has taken the story down (is that even true?) I do find it interesting that when these stories come out trans activists immediately say it’s false (wii spa, the woman raped in hospital). Is it because they know if they are true then us gender crits have a point ?

Is it because they know if they are true then us gender crits have a point ?

The repeated effortless shifts from "that didn't happen" to "it's good that it happened" are impressive.

Julie Bindel has tweeted that she is in touch with the young woman concerned, so Robin is behind the times.

Julie Bindel has tweeted that she is in touch with the young woman concerned, so Robin is behind the times.

Ah, but Julie Bindel is a known liar, just like Baroness Nicholson, not a paragon of truth like Robin.

What actual legal rights did this speaker Baroness from the House of Lords say were lacking for trans people? Wouldn’t that need to be evidenced to avoid the appearance of politically lobbying children?

Schools have a responsibility not to platform extremist politics- that’s partly why the government started the PREVENT programme isn’t it? Which is not optional. Are those requirements not applicable to private schools?

Also as much as this story is appalling and important and should be covered anonymously, I can’t imagine the stress of national media coverage on top of the girl’s previous victimisation at school, for the girl and her family just as she’s sitting her A levels.
I wish them all very well

What actual legal rights did this speaker Baroness from the House of Lords say were lacking for trans people? Wouldn’t that need to be evidenced to avoid the appearance of politically lobbying children?

What this usually boils down to, if you press them, is something like "the right to be recognised by the state as the sex they want to be recognised as, without interference".

It's basically a demand for Self ID.

With a sort of nonsensical claim that non-trans people get to be recognised as the sex that they want to be recognised as. (Rather than them just being recognised as the sex that they are).

I mean, it's not totally incoherent - you can take this universalist approach and argue that a particular group is inconvenienced. Eg everyone had the right to marry someone of the opposite sex, but that inconvenienced homosexuals. So the universal right was extended to being able to marry someone regardless of sex. (Whether you're gay or straight).

And what's being demanded here is a new universal right where anyone gets to "declare their sex" freely. But that's a very different sort of demand, because what it actually means in practice is the erasure of sex from public policy, and replacing structures designed to handle sex with something nonsensical - eg sport categorised by "gender".

Allowing people to marry people of the same sex causes no radical changes to provision for other groups, but self ID does.

Was child C the black girl who was strip searched - I did think of her when I read about this case in relation to the school's complete lack of safeguarding.

I also agree that bullying can get out of hand very quickly in schools. Teachers don't lack training on this, they just lack time and motivation to deal in many cases (and then weep and wail when a child commits suicide).

I thought PREVENT only applied to Islamic terrorism. Although this is another form of terrorism.

Great to see that our warrior women are supporting this intelligent and questioning young woman. Hats off to Julie Bindel and JK Rowling.

And Joanna Williams in Spiked knows who the Baroness is:

"It’s worth noting that the school concerned is a Stonewall ‘diversity champion’ and the baroness, who came to talk to students during one of their PSHE classes, is a well-known LGBTQ speaker and activist. Her views on transgender issues would have echoed positions already familiar to the girls – if they hadn’t picked them up from wider culture, then they will have heard them from the likes of trans charity Mermaids, which was invited to address the school last year. The students – 17- and 18-year-olds – were not coming at the issue fresh, then. They have had years of training in ‘correct’ thinking. They were fully primed to agree with everything the baroness said. What their expensive education had seemingly not prepared them for was disagreement with this view. As a teacher at the school describes it, students assumed that the girl who dared to raise questions ‘was thoroughly deserving of the roasting that she had just received’."

www.spiked-online.com/2022/05/17/trans-dogma-has-taken-over-our-schools/

Schools have a responsibility not to platform extremist politics- that’s partly why the government started the PREVENT programme isn’t it? Which is not optional. Are those requirements not applicable to private schools?

All safeguarding rules apply to private schools just as much as state schools. Bullying is a safeguarding issue and the school in question appear to have failed quite spectacularly here.

The views espoused by a member of the HoL probably wouldn't be classed as extremist politics though - baronesses are part of our government. When dealing with political matters schools do have a duty to present both sides of an argument though.

It is probably worth bearing in mind that (most) teachers won't pay much attention to what is taught in PSHE or by guest speakers. It just isn't a priority - even getting teachers to take the statutory elements seriously is quite difficult tbh. Until JKR put her head above the parapet I didn't know many teachers who were even aware of the trans / women's rights debate. Those who are now aware mostly (and naively) assume stonewall = good guys who are probably right.

Personally, I have had to challenge three separate incidents of trans-related misinformation since Christmas. One was quite significant because students were given incorrect "facts" and nobody else noticed.

Well, this story, which is basically an update, is still on the front page of the Times app:

JK Rowling defends girl ‘driven out of school for questioning trans ideology’

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/50aac934-d539-11ec-8585-951ab3afb4d2?shareToken=a8f50462637da166881b96c37d103146