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 a 7 year out of date BBC news article by Victoria Derbyshire about two very confused little 6-8 yo boys who preferred to play with dolls and hello kitty therefore obviously should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

@nightwakingmoon I love your post. I'm in my 60s and am still working out my authentic self. I feel so sorry for your friend whose parents over-indulged him. Boundaries = safety.

We should still be working out our authentic selves. We should never ever stop growing and learning. We should always have the freedom to do that. The whole label thing is ridiculously restricting. Why spend time you could be out there enjoying life , trying to work out wtf you should be calling yourself. It's wasted time. Sounds exhausting to me to even have to think about. Not to mention paranoid, having to do things and look a certain way because complete strangers will be forming your entire back story from every little thing you do say or wear or buy.

I think what I find tricky nowadays is that people seem to think your outer body should reflect your inner self. I mean did it ever? Back in the olden days we had to embrace freckles, the wrong hair, nonexistent boobs, skin that wouldn't tan, etc. Now there is a quick fix for all these minor inconveniences. You can even paint on facial contours. It seems to have become accepted that our body is malleable and should be modified to suit our current tastes, in much the same way that it's become easier and cheaper in days of IKEA to transform your home interior to suit current fashion or whim.

It also seems to have become accepted that it's ok to involve everyone. And/or encourage/show them how to do the same. We are raising a generation who are incredibly needy. Permanent victims . Its no longer ok to just ignore or walk.om by or not get involved and just leave people alone if they arent interested or dont want to participate. Participation has to be permant and public and visible. Sometimes deliberately creating conflict in order to gain sympathy and compell more cooperation /participation.

A lot of this comes out of thinking around bodily autonomy. We become free or authentic by being autonomous over our physical body up to and including (unnessesary) medical treatments and body modification.

The material is from this outfit:
www.dimensionscurriculum.co.uk/
The 'born in the wrong body' is totally against the UK Government guidance which was published a couple of years ago. It applies to England at least but schools are ignoring it at will. I expect even clearer guidance is in the pipeline given the Cass Review findings.

Biological sex is of course immutable. All children should be “non-binary” within the confines of their biological sex. We need to stop telling children that if they don’t look like a surgically-enhanced moron on Love Island if they are a girl or a beefed-up gym bunny if they are a boy, they are still perfectly good boys/girls. It’s pathetic to think that Sam Smith had to change his pronoun to “they” because he isn’t a macho alpha. We need to widen our gender norms, stop buying “kind, sweet princess” t shirts for girls and “roar, monster, little terror” T-shirts for boys, stop banging on about this crap and generally sexualising our little kids, stop using gender-specific and limiting adjectives for them, particularly girls, and start reading stories and going on bike rides. And we need to stop employing morons to teach our children quackery. STOP!!!!!

Agreed. Plus they aren’t being themselves. They are being something that has been fabricated by a group of aggressive, mostly male, manipulative adults.