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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Literacy alien Tala earns parents’ anger over use of pronouns - article in The Times

89 replies

oviraptor21 · 30/09/2022 08:17

Yet another example of the trans agenda being pushed on children who are far too young.
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/edec2f5e-4027-11ed-b24d-96120f17513d?shareToken=58fe369e03586016edf674cfc53c2b12

OP posts:
MargaritaPie · 30/09/2022 18:47

"Aliens are called it"

Tala isn't a project by NASA and they aren't portraying Tala as what modern research thinks an alien would look like or anything like that. They're a mascot for kids.

thirdfiddle · 30/09/2022 20:46

They're a mascot for kids definitely reads wrong and sounds like a misplaced plural. It's a mascot for kids would be more natural.

thirdfiddle · 30/09/2022 20:52

I wonder if a librarian took it on themselves (sic) to read the toddlers a lesson in pronouns outside official policy, if the library are now saying that wasn't the intention.

Rowthe · 30/09/2022 20:58

thirdfiddle · 30/09/2022 20:46

They're a mascot for kids definitely reads wrong and sounds like a misplaced plural. It's a mascot for kids would be more natural.

It's a mascot for kids.
Agree

Sounds much more natural

PriOn1 · 30/09/2022 21:00

”some kind of trans agenda (not a thing, btw)”

The Denton’s document doesn’t exist, Stoneballs haven’t been lobbying behind closed doors and an alien bear with they/them pronouns wasn’t suddenly brought into being at exactly the same time that the children’s book industry is so beset by trans ideology that they employ sensitivity readers to make sure nobody steps out of line, and where those who do are sacked…

TheBiologyStupid · 30/09/2022 21:22

Is there any official source that actually stipulates what the alien's pronouns are?

BFOSdeeznutz · 30/09/2022 22:44

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines. Previously banned poster.

Longtimelurkerfinallyposts · 01/10/2022 04:34

"They live" is plural not singular, btw

RiftGibbon · 01/10/2022 10:21

Ultimately its a cartoon creature.

Regarding pronouns, what do people say when they hear of people with unisex names. For example, you read an article about Chris who is a pastry chef. You don't know if Chris is male or female, and all the pictures are of their pastry creations. How do you refer to Chris when telling someone about the skills Chris has with pastry?

Gendered language (for want of a better terminology) is clunky at times. Things like when addressing an audience: "Welcome ladies and gentlemen, girls and boys" vs. "Welcome everyone "

RitesOfSaussage · 01/10/2022 10:43

Ultimately its a cartoon creature.

It is /it's. Either way, not they're /they are or their. So you got that right.

RiftGibbon · 01/10/2022 15:05

RitesOfSaussage · 01/10/2022 10:43

Ultimately its a cartoon creature.

It is /it's. Either way, not they're /they are or their. So you got that right.

OK..
Yes. IT is a cartoon character. I don't know whether aliens have xx, xy or some other chromosome arrangements. It's not (as in, it is not) for me to assume anything about them.

Lovelyricepudding · 01/10/2022 16:40

Calling it 'gender neutral' is aligning it with a faith system. A bit like saying a character was Muslim. It is not a neutral statement. But as for pronouns - like the rest of language, young children need to learn pronouns. And like the rest of language when you mangle it so it no longer means what it used to it will no longer support the TRA fantasy

When 'he' and 'she' are just words chosen like names and divorced from sex then what? What are you trying to opt into by using 'she' ? What good does it do to call yourself a women if it has no meaning? If women can mean men and women's spaces are mixed sex? If men competing in women's sports find themselves up against a field of men? Ultimately it is self defeating from a trans perspective.

TheBiologyStupid · 01/10/2022 18:23

Did Herts County Council or Hitchin Library actually officially say what the crazy alien's pronouns are or is that an assumption?

SecretTransTwitterEngineer · 01/10/2022 21:13

Like, you realise how ridiculous this is and that loads of people are taking the pee out of you for this, right?

The memes have been great tho

I hope younger people don't see this and think that feminism means squirrelling over a cartoon alien that uses they/them and more generally trying to remove trans people's rights.

MargaritaPie · 01/10/2022 22:42

SecretTransTwitterEngineer · 01/10/2022 21:13

Like, you realise how ridiculous this is and that loads of people are taking the pee out of you for this, right?

The memes have been great tho

I hope younger people don't see this and think that feminism means squirrelling over a cartoon alien that uses they/them and more generally trying to remove trans people's rights.

I agree, especially since this wasn't just a single post by Maya she's been tweeting about this 3 days now.

Waitwhat23 · 01/10/2022 23:01

I haven't been following this at all but I do find it amusing the threads which some of our monitors will jump all over and the ones they will ignore. It's entirely predictable.

SantaCarlaCalifornia · 01/10/2022 23:20

Yeah, we didn't see many of the usual suspects on the thread about the Canadian teacher with giant fake boobs, did we? How about that one about the male paedo that's now in a women's prison?

smallbutfaraway · 01/10/2022 23:28

Rowthe · 30/09/2022 18:44

Aliens are called it

Aliens aren't real

DisgustedofManchester · 02/10/2022 00:12

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Snaggler · 02/10/2022 00:19

TheBiologyStupid · 01/10/2022 18:23

Did Herts County Council or Hitchin Library actually officially say what the crazy alien's pronouns are or is that an assumption?

It's an assumption, in the official bumf Tala is described as an 'otherworldly creature' with no mention of they/them etc.

I do feel sorry for Maya, the memes have been brutal and this has expanded well beyond TRA twitter circles.

PomegranateOfPersephone · 02/10/2022 05:00

I can’t see anything about this on the book start trust website but I thought the point of the unnamed, not specifically male or female parent/carer/grandparent and child bears was that parents/carers and children reading books together is to be encouraged for the child’s development and for the benefits to the parent child relationship. It is a shame to lose that emphasis.

Ahf22 · 02/10/2022 05:19

Tala is a fictional gender-neutral alien who arrived on Earth to be a reading mascot for toddlers, as confirmed by the library itself. I really don't think there are any conspiracies going on. That's all there is to say IMO.

the absurdity of it, why do you have to include “gender neutral” when describing an alien? for a mascot for children ffs!

of course it’s a loaded term bringing all this bollocks to the foreground every time and if you or others can’t see it, more fool you.

PriOn1 · 02/10/2022 06:14

“Tala is a fictional alien who arrived on Earth to be a reading mascot for toddlers.”

No conspiracy, it’s straightforward gender identity ideology. As you can see, the description works perfectly well without adding in the ideological term.

PriOn1 · 02/10/2022 06:20

And here is an article where the artist uses “them” (last line) so those saying there’s no evidence of ideological pronoun use are incorrect.

www.livingmags.info/tala-to-inspire-newest-generation-of-library-visitors/

PomegranateOfPersephone · 02/10/2022 06:41

That last line! Clearly demonstrates the ideological leanings of the project.

To us grown ups it simply sounds all wrong to refer to a known individual by a plural. So efforts are being made to indoctrinate children into the new religion.

To the previous poster asking about names like Chris, I would not naturally use they in this case I would naturally ask is Chris he or she, or is this a male or a female Chris before continuing unless I felt able to guess from the context.

I agree with a previous poster that eventually those who identify as the opposite sex will find that tricky when non-binaryism wins the day as I suspect is most likely. Human societies don’t function by asking individuals if they are male, female or neither. How we are perceived by others and society at large has never been up to us as individuals to dictate in the whole of human history. We look and know almost instantly in almost every case, man or woman, boy or girl. If we are forbidden from acknowledging sex then imposing a non-binary identity and they-themming everyone is where we are headed with mixed sex facilities in schools, sports, prisons, hospitals and everywhere else. It begins with using they-them for all babies and young children on the basis that they haven’t chosen (ideologues might say discovered) which sex based stereotypes they most align with yet.

Sex segregation makes sense in a variety of circumstances, gender identity segregation has no more rationale behind it than separating people based on star signs, that being the case it won’t be justified for long. Everything will be mixed sex or “gender neutral”. Eventually that excludes women and children from public life due to safeguarding issues, harassment, intimidation and humiliation.