Biological knowledge

[BlooDeBloop]

I know this is not a biggie compared with all the trans business going on for our children in schools at the moment (not to mention elsewhere) but as a biologist, I was taken with a minor note in Hannah Barnes' excellent Time to Think. Clinicians reported some children accessing cross sex hormones thought they would start making sperm/developing uteruses of the opposite sex once on the hormones. I find this level of biological understanding shocking especially in children who were seeking to 'realign' themselves. How could they not understand the basic biology having clearly spent so long thinking about and researching sex and gender?? The mind boggles.

Add this to the recent primary school poster thread where there is a deliberate, biologically illiterate attempt from No Outsiders to replace 'sex' with 'gender' to make it easier to discuss 'gender reassignment' later.

What is happening in biology lessons? How is it being taught? Are we going to see a generation of kids not knowing that females make eggs and get pregnant and that no male, however they present, whatever they do to their bodies, will ever give birth??

I also taught biology and yes understanding is generally very poor. That's why teachers must be crystal clear and 100% factual. The gingerbread people know this at some level or why are they attempting to simplify sex into one gender category for primary school children? Imagine trying to teach that nonsense...

Worse is trying to unteach the nonsense. Children (and adults) can cling to their misconceptions pretty stubbornly. It must be hard to get the facts through, especially if they are being told by other adults that men can become women, women men, or you can be both or neither.

Doesn't mumsnet like links to archived articles?

It's a Telgrapgh piece on "Sex education means gender dysphoria is new anorexia for girls, says …"

"The mother, who lives in West Sussex, believes her child’s gender dysphoria was influenced by <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/LxBjw/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/09/ofsted-chiefs-warning-explicit-sex-education-lessons/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sex education lessons in school."

Bloody SRE lessons undoing Biology lessons again.

Yes this is so scary. My DD refused to believe me when I told her at age 15 that testosterone doesn't magically turn you into a boy. This is the problem with affirmation and TWAW. Kids (and adults) believe what they are told. They are then utterly betrayed when it turns out not to be true. The psychological impact of lying about this all day everyday is immense

I can accept that DC may fail to connect information they get at school with real life applications. Many people do.

I can't accept doctors prescribing for them, without checking their full understanding.
"This drug mimics female/male sex hormones, and will trigger some superficial changes in your body. The underlying structure will remain the same . Your sex will be unchanged, but your fat content and the distribution of hair and muscle will change."

The Progressive movement needs to be relabelled as Regressive. We're shooting back to the Middle Ages in terms of scientific understanding. FFS. It's a wholesale dismantling of the enlightenment values and progress.

You are so right OP.
There is an extremely concerning combination of general ignorance and anti-science which goes far beyond the nonsense spouted around gender and transition.

The anti-vax movement - not just covid or MMR but refusal to have tetanus or diphtheria or other serious and previously rare (thanks to vacccinations) illnesses.

The snake oil alternative treatments for cancer.

This young woman rejected conventional treatment for her breast cancer and died within three years when she may have been cured or at least have enjoyed a considerably longer period of good quality life if she had been properly treated. There have been quite a few similar cases in the news.

archive.ph/2023.03.19-101007/www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/young-mother-dies-refusing-chemotherapy-social-media-fuelling/

Agreed. I spend a lot of time consenting patients for various medical treatments (not including transition!). Most people have a vary hazy understanding of their own bodies generally, and that's without the overlay of embarrassment/shame that tends to accompany talking about sex organs.

A study discussion of rejection of surgery for breast cancer and the associated risks.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1357734/

Sorry, also included a screenshot from the previous article I linked.

When I think of all the complete nonsense my childhood religion required me to believe, and how it was stated as the absolute truth by the otherwise intelligent and sensible adults around me, I can understand why even educated people are taken in by these cognitively dissonant fairytales, let alone those with limited knowledge and understanding.

I think it's much more mainstream than all of that. I don't know if anyone here saw the interview given by the lead author of the new Cochran review on masking, where he talks also about what happened with the review that came out in 2019/20. It's totally shocking and it's clear that not only the political leaders but doctors and researchers were choosing to believe what they wanted or felt they were supposed to.

I really feel something ha gone very wrong in medicine generally. And that being the case, of course they have lost the trust of many patients.

maryannedemasi.substack.com/p/exclusive-lead-author-of-new-cochrane?fbclid=IwAR0uPFTGsEM8_2Qi2a4ZVkKAlMnqkSFYskxBWg_Q0xNC7x0VqTWIeMGIr6A

I read about a young woman who had detransitioned after having her breasts removed who supposedly inquired if/when her breasts would grow back.

With my own teenage DC's I found there was some confusion between 'growing' and 'developing', and had to explain the difference between the two.
Children need clear explanations in plain English; imo the only reason to not do that is if you have an agenda.

I’d like to think I have a good understanding of my body. But when it comes to explaining my surgery to me I want to go completely back to basics and for there to be no assumption of knowledge.

But I still want proper terms/names used. I got a survey a while back regarding bowel/bladder which referred to ‘waterworks’.

It's obvious to me that in order to be considering 'conversion therapy' you must have little biological knowledge in the first place. Couple this with the poor state of mental health they must be in its easy to see how they imagine these things.

The majority of people seem to think human bodies are like Mr Potato Head.

To change from Mr to Mrs, you just swap out some body parts that stick out/do not stick out & you've done it.

They don't seem to realise that internally bodies are different as well as externally & that nothing you do to the outside changes the organs inside the body in a way that makes them the organs of the other sex.

I think basic biology/anatomy is being taught very badly in schools and has been for some time. I see the evidence on here all the time, many people don't have basic knowledge of the names, location or function of body parts.
Add to this the absolute lies that are peddled to children on line about gender identity and hormones/surgery it doesn't surprise me that they think breasts can grow back or that a functioning penis can somehow be constructed and attached.
When you have got journalists thinking that it is ok to take testosterone then get pregnant, without a thought for the potential damage to the fetus, I am really appalled.

David Lammy, a well educated politician stated on radio that he thinks it is possible for a man to grow a cervix.
Dawn Butler thinks babies are born without a sex.
I am sure there are plenty of other examples of ignorance from people who should know better. It is shocking.

If they genuinely think they urinate from the vagina what do they think happens if they use tampons? And suddenly I remember the very first box of these I ever bought; the instruction leaflet had diagrams and a long piece about tampons not stopping urination as women did not urinate from the vagina - so the idea we do this is an old one. (Very old, actually, before anyone actually looked and explained, everyone believed this.) But we have now had 40 years of sex education so how come anyone now thinks this?

I teach secondary science. I'm also the poster who has been challenging my DD's school over the No Outsiders posters, and teaching gender rather than sex.

The feeder primaries for my own school use Jigsaw resources. I have students in year 7 who in the science reproduction topic, and state that humans can change sex, and that opposite sex hormones cause a girl to grow a penis, and a boy to grow a uterus and start periods (they haven't ever said what happens to the penis, does it get re-adsorbed?)

This is in every single year 7 class I have taught for the last 5 years.

I even had one day that if a girl had 'top surgery' and then changed her mind, she could always take female hormones again, and they would grow back 😤

The amount of misconceptions are so, so concerning.

I teach that there are two sexes, it is determined at conception, by chromosomes.

If asked about DSDs, I will explain in a respectful, scientific and truthful way.

It beats me! — and it was definitely a case of genuinely not understanding anatomy rather than just mistaking the term vagina for vulva.

It seems to me to be self-evident that one doesn’t wee out of one’s vagina because it’s always felt like it’s coming from somewhere completely different. But I guess that in some women the urethral opening might not be as far apart from the vagina as mine is, so the sensations could be more confusing. (And I believe that in rare cases the urethral opening can actually be very close to the vaginal opening, or even tucked just inside — I guess the equivalent of hypospadias in boys — so I wonder if a few women can’t quite distinguish the bodily feelings surrounding the two.)

That didn’t seem to quite explain the large number of posters in the thread who didn’t seem to know there were two openings, though!! 😮

OMG @Vebrithien

That is so appalling. Is there any way you can feedback to the schools/make a complaint/take it up with ofsted?

It's truly disgraceful.

Re two openings...

In slang recorded in the 17th century "shot twixt wind and water" (regarding a woman) meant penetrated sexually. They knew there were three openings - the one where farts came out, the one were piss came out, and the one in between.

I thought we were supposed to be more knowledgeable that people in the early modern period but apparently not.

Name changed for this. I teach SRE at KS2. I teach this like a biology lesson, very factually. For about 6ish years, every class has asked at one point or another if it is possible to change sex. Or someone has mentioned changing sex.

I clearly say it is not possible. No one can change their biological sex. Y5s and 6s may ask what cross-sex hormones can do. I tell them. I am clear what hormones cannot do, what they can (in an age appropriate way ).

We learn about male and female bodies and the proper terms for a parts. Diagrams, labelling activities, etc. I correct them if a wrong term is used.

Most children find all of this very comforting (and a bit funny). Very, very few shout about trans issues, though it's always mentioned. Which is fine.

I think that it is especially important for children who are wondering about their gender to understand sex. That way they can make informed decisions later, whatever they decide. They need to know that changing sex can't be done, and what the limits of surgery (NOT covered in KS2, obviously!) and hormones are.