Urgent help please! Trans lesson in primary school

[CantSayNothing]

Evening ladies of the feminism board

I am in urgent need of your help. I have been a lurker on these boards for a long time and read the intelligent and rational arguments and counter arguments put forward by countless posters (some of whom are regrettably no longer around) about the explosion around the transgender issue in recent years.

I absolutely believe in biological sex being fixed and real and anything else is personal preferences, personality, presentation. So far I have been a quiet, petition signing GC supporter, but I fear I am going to have to put my money where my mouth is and come out, as it were, with a bang.

I've had notice that my daughters primary school is planning to run a course of sex education lessons next term (she is year 6) which I have no issue with in theory. BUT one of the lesson plans has completely floored me.

Called: Gender Issues Relationships, it reads like an absolute trans gender woo manifesto with enough red flags to decorate the entire school in bunting .... 'assigned female at birth' ... 'gender identity' ..... 'in the wrong body'... 'discuss the difference between transgender and transvestite' ... 'clothes appropriate to the opposite sex' ....

They will also be 'introducing the idea that intersex people have anatomy that is not male or female, in the same lesson.

The clincher for me is the link they are recommending the teacher uses to introduce transgender children ... a 7 year out of date BBC news article by Victoria Derbyshire about two very confused little 6-8 yo boys who preferred to play with dolls and hello kitty therefore obviously should be actual girls. The srticle helpfully suggests contacting mermaids for more support :

bbc.in/1yQCpRw

My initial response to this lesson plan is "absofuckinlutely not!"

I will 100% not give consent for my daughter (who has already expressed some gender confusion and mooted the idea of being non binary and then reverted to her biological self after a while of dressing slightly gender non confirmingly) to have her confusion endorsed and promoted in this way, even have her signposted to organisations that have supported so many children in extraordinary acts of self harm.

But i also feel very strongly that this lesson should not be presented, to impressionable 10 and 11 year olds, by an authority figure like their teacher as though this ideology is in any way based in fact rather than stereotypes and confusion at all.

I feel it could sow some very dangerous ideas for their teenage years, coming on the back of a set of 'sex, friendship, and healthy relationships' lessons and given the same weight and authority.

I want to go and speak to the headteacher / safeguarding / whoever i need to, ideally to get this lesson removed from the course, if not at minimum highly amended so that it focuses more on:

'you all have these wonderful biological male/female bodies that can do amazing things, which will be going through some unsettling changes pretty soon, and it is normal to feel confused about where you fit in and question your feelings and emotions.

'You can like what you like, wear what you want, style your hair and makeup however you like, take part in any hobbies, have feelings for people of the opposite or same sex, but this does not mean that you are "in the wrong body" ... you are your body, and your feelings are all ties up in the same self '

Please please could someone (Or many someones) help me take this apart so I don't get tongue tied and incoherently babble about gender stereotypes being pushed at our children at unprecedented levels in society and no bloody wonder there's an explosion of young female children wanting to stop the noise.

Thank you so much

For those with older children, this is damage that happens to teenagers who socially transition as their bodies develop and the disconnect between reality and fantasy collides - psychologically catastrophic. Every secondary teacher unthinkingly pushing this ideology at children should read it.

www.transgendertrend.com/teenager-says-theyre-transgender/

Copy in the chair of governors, the Head, ask for details of the school safeguarding lead. Don’t let the message go to one person who can try and see it under the carpet.

ask for the source of the materials (and see if they have copied the Brighton and Cornwall material, which is old now) mention the Michael Webberly being struck off, ask them what research they have done on both sides of the issue.

Confusion, anger and upset are normal responses to growing up and to experiencing puberty. These feelings are to be approached with compassion, empathy, and understanding and worked through. They are not symptoms to be fixed. That is the grown up and loving approach as a parent. As is trying to help young people navigate the plethora of misinformation and pop science they are all subjected to now, at schools of all places. OP I am with you 100%.

They hadn't been harassed at that age don't be dramatic. They can live as they want quite happily and thankfully have supportive parents and a supportive school. If they decide they want to be female again that's fine too. They're happy and surely that's the main thing we all want for our children. It would be sad if one of your children were confused like this and had to push their own feelings down for fear of rejection by their loved ones. Reminds me of poor gay children/young adults in the past

This is an excellent thread. Hopefully plenty of useful material here for teachers and parents who want to speak out.

Same as gay kids? No it’s really not.

Ah put a sock in it!

Yep that's exactly what we've done thanks and they're now out the other end of that particular misery and very happy now

@Looneytune253 Please stop equating the trans ideology with homosexuality. It’s a false comparison.

Gay kids in the past I mean obv where they were rejected and bullied by people like those on here. It's abhorrent really and you're bringing the next generation up to be the same as you, or rejected if they're different themselves

Ironically, of the 80% of “trans” children who desist with watchful waiting (instead of affirmation), a large proportion turn out to be simply gay.

And 11 is still a child. Teenage/adult is when you can’t disguise the sex of a person. It’s easy enough i would guess to present a child as the opposite sex (with a dose of stereotypes). But when they enter adulthood - what’s the plan?

I work in state primary and that is NOT what we teach. Even for 11 year olds!

How sad that children are being encouraged to not accept their own body as being theirs. It's so much like the anorexia and body dysmorphic social contagion that these poor kids are susceptible to. The internet and social contagion are so damaging. And the way it's positioned as being like being gay or lesbian is such a lie.

OP, also send the materials to Transgender Trend. You can also bring this up with your local sympathetic mp who may be able to approach the school for you.

Nobody is bullying anyone. People are offering support and advice to this thread in order to keep children SAFE by ensuring that materials used in schools are legal and free from biased ideologies that actively push a particular agenda onto young, uninformed minds.

My sister niece and cousin are gay. Sorry to tell you but that are all cool - no drama.. stop trying to equate some peoples sexuality with what is an issue where a small minority of people demand we accept that people are in the wrong body. Where people with male bodies demand access to female only spaces

No it’s not the same. People wailing ‘section 28!!!’ Weren’t there.

When I was a child, I was referred to as a 'tomboy'. I liked to play with Meccano and train sets and a woodworking set. When my breasts stared to grow I was acutely embarrassed, menstruating was also embarrassing. Oh, and I wore boy's jeans and insisted on having very short hair . The difference was that I didn't think I had to 'become a boy', no-one suggested that any of that was unusual or non-female. I got over the embarrassment, still prefer to do practical things, and have lived my life quite happily as a woman. Would it be different today? Would I be hauled off to the doctor as my parents tried to make sense of me? Would I be told that perhaps I was really a male trapped in a female body? I don't know, but I am concerned that we don't allow kids to be kids and not worry about such concepts until they can deal emotionally with the situation.

How do you change your mind when every body you know has been forced into going along with it.

How do you at 11/12 tell a tech awesome who went to all the effort to speak to the class amd change all the paperwork and all your friends and family went to all the effort to play along and its been forced ti be a part if everyone else's life too, simply back out.

That child has been backed into a corner by adults who should know better.

Oh and an ideology that tells girls lesbians have a penis is as homphobic as you can get. As you are so worried about rhe gay kids...

Your post is so articulate OP, could you not write all that in a letter?

It wouldn't have been 'all cool' in the 90s 80s and before. That's what I mean. The trans rejections now are what we're going to regret much like the homophobia of the past. Surely we can just accept them for who they are

@Whatwouldscullydo no one backed anyone into a corner, literally just stepped back and listened and supported. Thankfully the younger generation are much more accepting and some live male/female day to day so I don't think changing to female again in the years to come will be a problem. Only a problem for the old fogies

This was from the 70s. if you were our mum today you would have my sister my brother.

She refused to wear ‘girl’ clothes, has her hair cropped and always played with ‘boys toys’. She has a boy play name. She loves action man.

She is a very happy lesbian. modern trends present another option to being gay. Some parents still ‘can’t have a gay child’.

At 11 I wore trousers, had short hair, only hung out with boys & my favourite toys were my castle with soldiers & a chemistry set

fortunately though that was the 70s where it was accepted girls could do all those things & not be boys

Old fogies? Are you just trying to goad?