Please help - meeting with assistant head

[IGoWalkingAfterMidnight]

Re her assembly on gender pronouns.

she referred children to Mermaids and Stonewall for advice and support in this assembly and also spoke about ‘gender observed’.

what can I say to signpost her to some information that won’t get me sacked?!

in school at present so won’t be able to respond immediately.

We’re in Wales if that makes a difference!

Diolch

Every time a diligent and curious woman is told to ‘educate herself’ a new terf is born.

Just in case you should need it later, last year a (small) study was published in Pediatriacs that gives some solid data on damage done to adolescent bodies by binding - & thus, by extension, by Mermaids sending out binders.

“Time to First Onset of Chest Binding–Related Symptoms in Transgender Youth” doesn’t only cover purpose-made binders; but there is, however, a (sadly not open-access) 2015 paper titled Health impact of chest binding among transgender adults: a community-engaged, cross-sectional study which has looked at a whole range of methods used, including binders, & it found they cause harm.

Wearing a binder, even “correctly” could literally kill a girl with asthma. The BLF mortality stats are now a decade old, but they point out that while 1,200 deaths/year from asthma might sound low; with the treatments now available for asthma, it should be close to 0; & almost 2/3 of those who die from asthma each year are female. In 2018, 7% of girls aged 0 - 15 in England had asthma (levels similar across UK but I don’t have stats) - 12% of 10-12yos & 8% of 13-15yos, so it is hardly unlikely for Mermaids to have sent a binder to a child who has asthma.

The binders thing is just one bit of their seemingly endless awfulness, but “your helpful assembly could result in a student’s death” is always going to focus the mind.

Ah so she's cancelled the meeting the very same afternoon that the CC announced an investigation into Mermaids?

What a coincidence ...

give the woman some credit- many of us were once in the 'be kind' camp and many people have still no thought this all through- maybe she is just at the start of a dawning realisation

Gosh, that assembly aged like fine milk.

This might be useful OP

A Teachers’ Guide to the Cass Review Interim Report – A Teachers' Guide to Sex and Gender

teachersguidetosexandgender.org/2022/07/06/a-teachers-guide-to-the-cass-review-interim-report/

Aren't Mermaids currently being investigated by the Charities Commission, following complaints? Pretty sure I heard something on the radio recently - will google!

Finally had a quick chat with the Assistant head today who thanked me for drawing her attention to the issues with Mermaids. She actually didn’t know what I had said exactly but googled ‘reviews of Mermaids’ and was shocked by what she found and could note understand how Welsh Government had sent this to schools for use. Fair play to her, she removed it from the remaining assemblies.

Well done @IGoWalkingAfterMidnight Are you able to share what it was that the Head was using, which had been supplied by the Welsh Government?

Well done OP.
If you share with her the latest information about the interests of one of the trustees at Mermaids it will guarantee that they'll never be allowed near children in your school ever again:

See the most recent posts on this thread:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4644323-mermaids-being-investigated-by-the-charity-commission

Well done!

Give it a few hours and the info on the thread MrsOverton has linked to will no doubt be on one of the news websites.

Maybe your head would even consider writing to whoever supplied the info, pointing out how wildly unsuitable it is?

Well done OP!
Great result

Well done and thank you OP.

Everyone who does this makes it easier for the rest of us to speak up.

Well done. I poked my head above the parapet today in our staff survey, which asked for my gender identity. I said other and put my biological sex. Not anonymous so we'll see what happens.

I think we are all getting a little braver! Well done OP. I did some recent challenging in professional training too. Scary but glad I did it 🙂

Very well done IGoWalkingAfterMidnight · Today 18:01

Thank you on behalf of everyone. Every chink of light helps.

Well done OP, I hope your senior leadership team shares the information you’ve provided with other schools too. Look what you did 👏💐

Sorry, just worth mentioning here r e. Being asked for gender identity. Following a period when I think everyone thought that gender was just a polite way of saying biological sex I realised that my organisation was asking for gender identity on recruitment forms and not biological sex. I pointed out this made it impossible to monitor for our equality duty and it was changed but it's the kind of thing worth checking and challenging as I think there's a lot of originally well meaning admin that has now become much more problematic.

Latest on Mermaids OP:

Trustee of the transgender charity Mermaids quits after speech to paedophile aid group

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/990e9e88-434f-11ed-8885-043c27446b97?shareToken=358c78bd8567d20b6f4a29791147ef53

(Being discussed on the link upthread, here: Mermaids being investigated by the charity commission www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4644323-mermaids-being-investigated-by-the-charity-commission)

Hey @TheClogLady please can you provide a link to the thread you mentioned discussing the Cornwall Guidance? I'm keen to read it but can't find it. Thank you. 🙏🙏🙏

Yes!

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4640421-dfe-settles-in-cornwall-case?page=1

I’ve been idly googling and I’ve actually found the presentation used in the assembly - here, just the last two slides were altered to show logos from Mermaids and Stonewall Cymru and another than I don’t recall.

mentallyhealthyschools.org.uk/resources/what-s-your-pronoun-assembly/

just want to thank everyone for being so supportive - I initially posted in somewhat of a panic for sticking my head above the parapet!