Trans guidance for schools - "that British fudge that so often works"

[ResisterRex]

In The Times. Looks like a Cabinet split may open up. It's not clear where the extra space will come from for the gender neutral toilets. And it won't be statutory guidance either:

Ministers seek compromise on transgender advice for schools

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/006ef0b0-4818-11ed-8558-9a2089c4aed0?shareToken=6b7644896a593dcb3760a4516b1200ec

"A senior government source said: “This never used to be such a divisive issue: people just accepted trans people and got on with it. It only became an issue once the activists got involved and polarised people. We need to get back to that British fudge that so often works.” They added: “In schools we need to find a compromise that works for all pupils, whether that’s having gender-neutral toilets as well or something else.”"

That’s the simplest compromise to prevent harm.

I’m uncomfortable about compromising with ridiculous demands, because it can easily lead to a ‘thin end of the wedge’ escalation. But I’m hoping that within a few years this bizarre fad will have become unfashionable among the young, and fade away.

I recognise, though, that it’s driven by influential men who have a lot to lose if the stream of child recruits dries up.

It was all fine until those pesky women started questioning the British Fudge.
Fuck off with your blurring boundaries.

The piece in the Times doesn't say whether the 'transgirls' should be allowed to use the girls changing room or if they'd use the boys one ahead of the other boys. That needs clarifying. The sensible thing^^ of course is that if any children are vulnerable due to being gender nonconforming then they should still use the correct sex facilities. It works for 'nonbinaries' as well as those who might identify as trans, it's obviously a nonsense for 'nonbinaries' to want use the facilities of the opposite sex.

Just to point out that busy schools rarely have PE changing rooms sitting empty - they're often occupied every lesson so won't be available for other groups to use.

Perhaps guidance should be taken from the experts such as Stonewall, Mermaids and the Labour Party.

Stonewall. " Bodies are not inheriently male or female. They are just their bodies ". Kirrin Medcalf.

Mermaids. " Biological Sex " is a " concept ". Dr Katie McDowell

" Babies are born without a sex " Labour MP Dawn Butler

Therefore Trans-boys, Trans-girls, Non Binaries and any other subscribers of the ideology should be happy with a shared " Trans / Gender Idealogues " facility, regardless of their " sex assigned at birth " or their current " gender identity".

Meanwhile separate facilities for Boys, separate facilities for girls

I know our primary concern on this thread is young girls being forced to share changing facilities with boys, but how does it help a child experiencing distress about their sexed body to be singled out at PE to go and change on their own while all their peers wait in the classroom/out in the corridor? There's nothing bullies latch onto quicker better than someone getting 'special treatment' or being different.

Frankly anything that talks about "trans children" rather than children with dysphoria or distress is already problematic.

Yes, they talk about 'trans children' as though they are a distinct group with a clearly defined meaning. But what is a 'trans child'? Is it a child who is distressed by their sexed body? Is it a child who dislikes the stereotypes for their sex or likes those of the opposite sex? Is it a child who has declared that they are the opposite sex or 'nonbinary'? What makes a child 'trans'?

None of these things alter the body of the child (except in the rare cases where puberty has been stopped by medical means, but even then their body is just like a younger version of the other children of their sex). It's because people's bodies are of two distinct types according to their sex that the changing rooms etc are segregated by sex. It's nothing to do with gender. A boy who thinks he's a girl looks like any other boy, so what's the problem in changing with the other boys?

A feeling in someone's head doesn't change their body. Changing rooms and toilets are segregated on the basis of sex (bodies) not gender (feelings).

The Conservative government is responsible for the current situation, so maybe they could simply do their job and issue meaningful guidance and regulations?

Those on the right want to blame Labour for this, but the Tories are responsible for everything happening today. The Tories are not at all interested in protecting women's/girls' rights, if they were bothered they would do something.

So what we have here is:

• a government/ political party which has had “culture war” at the heart of its electioneering tactics since at least 2016 and which has invented a new made up bogey man of “anti growth coalition” as recently as in the last two weeks.
• an “open goal” issue, not seen as an economic issue, which has been previously been used to damage the credibility of the party which they see as their main opposition and to distract attention from other issues,
• that opposition party seeing a recent huge improvement in the polls on their economic trustworthiness,
• revelations hitting the press in the last week will have opened more people’s eyes to the potential harm to young people and made parents more willing to question what is behind “queer theory”.

And that is the context / timing of a sudden change in messaging tactics to “we don’t want a culture war” when looking at the need for single sex spaces for personal hygiene requirements etc in schools?

Well that’s an unexpected change of tack. Perhaps those involved have got children who identify as trans/NB. Or they’ve done some polling which suggests that young people support Labour on this issue. Or maybe they think the majority of voters / floating voters won’t change their political allegiance due to this issue, they’ve been getting more of the “it’s all happened on your watch” responses making it less of an open goal, and there are internal party dynamics at play driving the “tone it down” message.

Or maybe they think the majority of voters / floating voters won’t change their political allegiance due to this issue, they’ve been getting more of the “it’s all happened on your watch” responses making it less of an open goal, and there are internal party dynamics at play driving the “tone it down” message.

In polling the type of culture wars issues the Tories have waffled on about since the start of the Brexit campaign are not registering. There are not many pensioners in red wall seats worrying about the toilets in the local secondary, they are worrying about heating their houses.

The national agenda has moved on, it is Maslow's hierachy of needs - housing/food/heating comes ahead of everything else - the nation's physiological wellbeing is currently being threatened. I would think the Tory party does want to just move on from this stuff, the idea Labour is to blame for anything happening currently is clearly false.

The decision makers should learn something about the anime, manga style schoolgirl porn that has heavily influenced modern, heterosexual male trans identification, and ask themselves if some boys are making these demands to act that out in school?

A senior government source said: “This never used to be such a divisive issue: people just accepted trans people and got on with it. It only became an issue once the activists got involved and polarised people

It never used to be a divisive issue because it never used to be an issue at all. Would a male child even have asked to get access to girls' spaces even 5 years ago? But now we are being led by children who are being educated into this rather than the adults we elect to do their job and it's all a huge unnecessary mess that we (general we, not us in particular!) have created.

IvyTwines' point about manga porn is excellent.

It never used to be a divisive issue because it never used to be an issue at all. Would a male child even have asked to get access to girls' spaces even 5 years ago?

This is one of the earliest cases I'm aware of (in the US). 7 years ago.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/transgender-teen-lila-perry-just-wants-to-be-respected-by-her-classmates-10483675.html

The girls weren't impressed.

@KatMcBundleFace

Pretty good, I would personally support young people who prefer gender neutral pronouns, I prefer that to opposite sex myself when it comes to youngsters.

Gender dysphoria is real, it can happen young too (Dp's family member asked if they could be a boy when they grew up at age 6, 20 years ago before any of the current trend started). But there's a lot of other things at work that need to be researched.

The best we can currently do is support everyone the best we can using whatever space can be made available.

As for sports, dd played integrated football until 14, Dp's dn is biologically female but plays non league rugby for a mens team, fully accepted (adults)

Keir Stamer seems incapable of standing for anything. The Tories will win votes if they are clear on this issue.

I read it as a male/female split. Most women, though not Penny M, understand why sex matters. Many men don't. Many many years ago I met Kit Malthouse at a couple of children's birthday parties. I am not sure he is someone who would get women's concerns.

If the Tories cared about this issue they cold have already sorted it. They clearly do not care to resolve it.

One of the things the government has to understand is that the same solution doesn't necessarily work for boys and girls.

First of all, you have far more teenage girls identifying as male or non-binary than the other way around. What are you supposed to do with them - especially the non-binary ones? For their own safety, you're not going to put them in the boys' changing rooms, toilets or dormitories, and I strongly suspect most of them wouldn't want that anyway. So the only truly sensible solution is to mandate that they carry on using the girls' changing rooms. They can wear trousers and have their hair short and call themselves enbies if it makes them happy, but they share changing room space with the girls. I can't see any other solution that works.

When it comes to teenage boys identifying as girls/non-binary, you don't want them in the girls' changing rooms, toilets etc but there is perhaps more of a risk of bullying in compelling them to use the boys' facilities. I don't know what the answer is, though I strongly suspect that if you told a teenage boy identifying as female that they couldn't use the girls' facilities they might suddenly be less keen on identifying as a girl.

What we don't want to end up with is a situation where there are "gender neutral" changing facilities that are used by trans children of both sexes.

Maybe I'm reading it wrong but it seems to me they are suggesting single sex facilities with theme some sort of alternative accommodation for children who need it.

This seems reasonable as an idea. It's just how do you find a workable alternative the Trans lobby will agree to? But tbh that's not my immediate concern, as long as there are single sex facilities and sport I'm satisfied.

I'm waiting to find out the guidance on social transition in school in light of the Cass report. This will be huge in reducing the scale of this issue as the response around pronoun discussion etc is fuelling this identity narcissism.

I wish Suella Braverman was leading on this. We need clarity. Policy based on reality and safeguarding. That's not a culture war.

Sex Matters and Transgender Trend have written to the government

twitter.com/sexmattersorg/status/1579472431043215361?s=46&t=enB8L-6iPqrcU83IY-znIQ

I think the underlying issue with toilets is that the numbers of kids socially transitioning now is completely inappropriate. It's not medically justified and it's becoming more and more recognized. And it's likely that 10 years from now there will be a lot less of them.

In a scenario where we are just talking about the odd child here and there, most schools can make some kind of provision for that on an as needed basis. Whether it is the disabled loo or the teachers' bathroom or something else, will depend on the actual circumstances of that particular school.

If there are all kinds of unisex toilets added to schools I suspect they will in the end be largely unused and be a waste of money, potentially a really significant waste.

The real way forward is to deal with the problem of so many kids adopting gender ideology. They should be getting the inappropriate, anti-scientific stuff out of the schools, and be emphasizing to these kids that change rooms are sex, not gender based.

I can't comprehend why the government have 1/ allowed this 2/ don't seem to realise it now.

The should only 1 or 2 kids at a large high school who may eventually change their gender. What we have now is ridiculous and terribly unfair on the kids, all kids.

I'd say even less. Ten years ago most schools had no children doing it, it was extremely rare.

That's something that can be dealt with sensitively now, it doesn't require large scale changes to infrastructure.

All this talk of "fudges" and "guidance only" suggests that individual schools will continue to have to make it up as they go along.

So policy will continue to depend on the extent to which the school is in thrall to TRAs, and how brave the rest of us are able to be in speaking out.

"A senior government source said: “This never used to be such a divisive issue: people just accepted trans people and got on with it. It only became an issue once the activists got involved and polarised people.

When was this (supposed) time when no one minded boys in girls changing rooms, men in women’s loos, etc? When did we ever just accept it? Except when it was so rare that each woman it happened to was too startled to say anything at the time, and just wrote it off as a weird nasty one-off experience.

There was never a time when we accepted what we have now — men in women’s refuges and hospital wards, children gaslighted into believing their body is ‘wrong’, people arrested or losing their jobs for saying women are adult human females — as everyday reality.

In the Mail. Top rated comments are worth a look:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11298969/Schools-provide-gender-neutral-toilets-alongside-boys-girls-trans-pupils.html

Loads in it but this pulls no punches:

"Caroline Ffiske from Conservatives for Women said: 'What disappoints us is the framing of this issue through the lens of a "culture war" and "political flashpoints".

'This trivialises an ongoing attack on the foundations of our society, including on science, free speech, most importantly in this context, children's safeguarding. These are things the Conservative Party needs to stand up for.
'Via social media or what they are learning in school, vulnerable children become convinced they were born in the wrong body. Some start by asking for a pronoun change.
'I'm also pretty shocked to see the suggestion that a classroom of girls should stand to one side while a trans-identifying boy uses their changing room. Sorry – this is awful science, poor safeguarding, and regressive misogyny.'"