The time has come where I'm required to teach gender identity...

[OldChinaJug]

What the hell do I do about this?

It's all stereotypes (obviously) and talking about people having the right to express their gender preference. Now, I don't mind teaching that some people believe it (because they do) and I have no objection teaching kindness and tolerance.

But I have a huge issue with teaching gender identify itself as some kind of 'fact'.

All I've got so far is calling in sick 😫

Late to this, but want to say 'well done @Francesgumm!' It sounds like you really did your homework and so demolished the opposition.

I hope your lesson goes as you would wish OP. And do let us know.

It’s something that appears to concern young children BECAUSE schools and SM ram it down their throats - as we see in the OP.

@Francesgumm Well done!

Thank you - now DD has just started secondary school so I’m going to send an email to request the RSE lesson plans for Yr 7 - and do the same again! (I am the most quiet, non-assertive middle aged woman and hate confrontation - but on this subject I feel very passionate and feel I need to do my small bit).

I’m going to refer to Suella Braverman’s speech which I thought was very good.

Can anyone here remember struggling with ‘gender identity’ as a school kid? It’s no coincidence this has all started up the more they’re ‘educated’ about it.

Anyway - when it was actually taught, the sensible (middle aged) teacher apparently simply said something like ‘there is female sex and male sex and some people believe they are the other sex - these are transgender people - but you can’t actually change sex’ and that was that.

👏👏👏

I love this. It's all pretty simple at the end of the day. I hope this madness will cease soon.

No. Because it’s made-up BS that has no place in schools. Any teacher worth his or her salt would have the critical thinking skills to question it and to see it for what it is. It makes me wonder about the intellectual calibre of the generation who has entered mainstream school teaching over the last ten or fifteen years.

Yes. It’s always a good idea to ask to see RSE plans and check they’re in line with DofE guidance. Perhaps have a chat with the teacher delivering it and checking he / she isn’t conflating sex with gender.

Can anyone here remember struggling with ‘gender identity’ as a school kid?

Yes, I was skinny and had a very short hair cut in upper primary so other kids said I was a boy. I knew I wasn't though. I loved my short hair because it saved me from agonies of combing out tangles every morning and it dried in a flash after swimming. And it was quite smart. I've had all different lengths since then.

It’s no coincidence this has all started up the more they’re ‘educated’ about it.

I don't know what I would have made of it if adults started suggesting I could have a male gender identity. Doesn't bear thinking about really.

Can't you just teach it like a religion? "Some people believe " in front of everything?

I had endless snide comments about being 'a boy in a skirt' in upper primary and secondary. I wasn't; I was an autistic girl who couldn't get to grips with what was expected of girldom.

As Gender Identity can’t actually be defined - because ooh no, it’s not about stereotypes, ok? 🙄 then I’d approach the topic totally factually and focus on gender stereotypes, emphasising that we don’t have to comply with them. For example, boys can have long hair (show some examples), girls can play football, be scientists, like dinosaurs, etc etc.

i think this is critically important because now so many children seem to be boxed in by very rigid stereotypes, and this is causing them to feel they’ve failed at ‘being a girl’ or ‘being a boy’. Such black and white thinking nowadays 😞

So, the message should be that we all have a sex, that sex can’t be changed, but your sex doesn’t define how you should live your life, and there’s no right way to be a girl or a boy. I’d give lots and lots of examples and get the children to think about any assumptions they might have eg assuming a plumber will be male, thinking that boys can’t wear make up, etc etc.

Sadly, I think the comment upthread that we will all look back in amazement on this time in decades to come can't necessarily be relied upon. The movement of genderism has gained traction through the education of the young. Older generations need to stand for the right of children not to be miseducated at primary school. The arguments need to be had now - using logic and articulating proper definitions of words.

All this work was done in the 1970s thanks to the earlier waves of feminism. The hard work has been undone over the last 20 years. It’s nothing new to tell girls they can be a plumber or play with cars or boys can wear sparkles or be a hairdresser yada yada….those of us over 45 or so grew up knowing this already.

Why this work needs to be done again will no doubt be the subject for sociologists, feminists, social historians etc in the future. I’d love to know if there’s anyone out there already looking into it. But it’s really disheartening to know that “girls can be scientists too, you know “ is again being pointed out in schools.

These are the facts:
Humans come only in two sexes, male and female: chromosomes
You can't change sex
There is masses of scientific evidence to support all this.

Some people believe in a thing called gender ideology. Explain gender ideology.

There is no scientific evidence to support this belief, it is a feeling some people have — very similar to the way in which some people believe that god exists because they say they feel it. Many people don't believe in a god. There is no scientific evidence to support the existence of god.

We accept that some people believe in god and gender identity, but we don't have to believe it ourselves. We have freedom of belief in this country which means people can believe what they want, but no one can be forced to believe something they don't believe in or expected to pretend they believe in something they don't.

I'm not a teacher. Bugger fairness and impartiality, no teacher should ever teach children to believe in something that doesn't exist/ isn't true.

You should say that as a cisheterowhiteprivilegedablebodiedneurotypicaletcetc woman you don’t feel your voice should be centred speaking over Black Trans women and you couldn’t possibly take up space and centre yourself on this topic. And you hope everyone takes the time to reflect on their privilege and educate themselves about cis oppression and silencing. And also that queer and Trans youth in your classroom are the lives experience leaders on this topic and speaking over them is offensive as you would not presume to explain their lives to them. Then you become the most socially just person in the room and can tell everyone to you’re not here to do the work for them but they should unpack their own privilege. 😂😂😂😂

The problem is, everyone is suggesting eminently sensible lessons.
But the OP is having to deliver a lesson planned by someone else.

OP. What would you do if you had to deliver a lesson planned by someone else that had factual errors in it? e.g. If it claimed the area of a circle was pi times diameter squared, or that the holocaust wasn't true or 'intelligent design' in a science lesson? Then follow the same guidelines (e.g. correct before the lesson, use alternate materials or whatever).

So. Take a red pen to the materials and mark up every belief stated as fact, or every reinforcing of stereotypes, everywhere that goes against DofE guidance. Keep a record the lesson wasn't fit for purpose.
And then deliver something brief but accurate.

This.

You say that you're obliged to teach what's in a previously prepared lesson plan but step back a bit and consider what you would do if you were asked to teach some other subject that was factually incorrect. How would you approach that situation? I'm sure your managers would not let you go ahead and teach incorrect history or geography. Whatever you would do with those subjects, do it now.

This is where it leads to. Scary.

Teachers face ‘significant challenges’ to avoid outing trans pupils to parents

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1c01ac90-3a90-11ed-84dd-c16384999350?shareToken=c5d985b26d54858d0ec1c271a881a5e6

Great thread, good luck OP. Our primary didn’t go near this but DC1 is y7 and I’m bracing myself for when it comes up, esp for DC2.

I looked into it a bit further yesterday.

The main premise is not that people.can change sex but your sex is what you are born as and your gender is what you can choose - your personal preference. The main focus of the lesson is tolerance and accepting people as their preferred gender rather than focusing on their sex.

It's part of a series of lessons they are delivering based upon the protected characteristics. Only they've conflated sex and gender so all other characteristics are being covered (apart from maternity) but sex is being covered as 'gender'.

I had a look at guidance recently. My reading is that teaching gender identity is non statutory in primary schools. Also because it's not scientific fact and the existence of gender identity is unproven, it's an ideology, and I would argue that as such the guidance on teaching about politics (I.e. different views should be given) should apply. And I would add that the warnings to schools in the Cass review should be interpreted even more cautiously. Cass interim report warns against social transition eg adopting preferred pronouns without parental permission as "not a neutral act". I would argue that teaching gender ideology at all is not a neutral act and shouldn't be done at primary age (or arguably at all) without consulting parents. I also think it's extremely problematic to teach gender ideology at the age when kids are first learning about what will happen to them at puberty and may either be grossed out by it or already confused enough without introducing the idea that men can become women and vice verss

Well in that case it's factually incorrect and you could challenge it on that basis

I’m over 45 too, Francesca, and I find it very depressing that we seem to be going backwards. I’ve started to suspect it’s deliberate - women and girls being pushed back into their box because we were approaching equality. When I first asked an enthusiast to explain gender identity to me, they basically laid out the stereotypes and asked me if I liked doing womany things. This was an educated person telling me this. I was gobsmacked.