On another note (and this is the point I’ve been stewing about) I would implore everyone on this thread to genuinely interrogate why it is you think that it’s okay and reasonable for children to learn about homosexuality, and for a child who thinks they may be gay to be told ‘your feelings are valid. There is nothing wrong with you. You are not alone. Here is some information you may find you relate to, but ultimately it’s up to you to decide what feels right.’ But you don’t think it’s okay for children to learn about gender identity, and for a child who thinks they might be trans to be told ‘your feelings are valid. There is nothing wrong with you. You are not alone. Here is some information you may find you relate to, but ultimately it’s up to you to decide what feels right.’ Why do you think one is reasonable and the other is paedophilic? Assuming of course you do believe that about homosexuality, which I guess it’s possible you don’t.
I'm glad you asked this question @SpookyFBI. I have given this a lot of thought and I can explain it. You might not like the answer but it is an answer.
When I was a child, I understood that a boy was a child with a willy and a girl was a child without a willy. In other words, the difference between boys and girls was anatomical. Sharing baths with my brother probably went quite a lot way towards forming this understanding; I don't know whether I would have had quite the same realisation at such a young age if I hadn't had a brother, or if I hadn't seen him naked. I assume children who don't have opposite sex siblings find out some other way. I have a son who has just turned two and a three month old daughter. We have just recently started putting them in the bath together and the first couple of times my son freaked out at the sight of his sister's naked body. He genuinely didn't understand why she didn't have a willy. So I guess this is the beginning of his understanding of the difference between boys and girls. And yes, I did explain to him that he has a willy because he's a little boy, but his sister doesn't have one because she's a little girl.
Now, I know that some parents are no longer teaching their children that this is the difference between boys and girls. What I genuinely don't understand is what they are teaching their children instead. If a boy is not a child with a willy, and a girl is not a child without a willy, then what is a boy, and what is a girl? Because that was my understanding when I was two, and it is still my understanding now, 35 years later. I see this as a fact, not a belief, because there is no plausible alternative.
I live in France and was until recently in a Facebook group for non-French women in France. Someone posted a link to a news article about the Robert dictionary creating an entry for the recently invented gender neutral pronoun "iel". The French language is heavily gendered; indeed, absolutely nothing is gender neutral, leaving non-binary people in something of a quandary. The discussion was very positive, and there were lots of comments praising France for taking a baby step into the 21st century, where, it was heavily implied, the English speaking world already is.
One woman said this was particularly important to her, as a non binary person raising two non binary children. I'm afraid I couldn't resist interrogating her about this, and asked her what it meant. At first she acted like I was stupid. Doesn't everyone know what non binary means? Then she explained to me like I was some kind of idiot that she is raising her children as non binary so that when they are old enough they can choose whether to be a boy or a girl or stay non binary. So I said, "Great, but what do they think each of those things is? What do they think a boy is? What do they think a girl is? What do they think non binary is? What do you think those things are? Because if you think these are things children can choose whether or not to be, I'm guessing you don't think a boy is a child with a willy and a girl is a child without a willy and a non binary child is, I don't know, a clownfish presumably? So what are your kids choosing between?"
At this point she got very angry, implied that I was some kind of pervert for even mentioning children's genitals, reported all my comments and had me kicked out of the group.
Now, I'm not going to mince my words about this. I think this woman is a complete nutter. I think she has benefited from growing up at a time when these things were explained to children in a clear and factual manner, and then as an adult who does understand these things even if she pretends not to, has adopted a nonsensical luxury belief system and indoctrinated her children into it from a young age. When her children get older, they will not choose whether to be a boy or a girl, they will be confronted with the harsh reality of biological sex, which their idiotic mother has failed to prepare them for.
Now there will also be children whose parents have, like most of us, taught them that a boy is a child with a willy and a girl is a child without a willy. But then those children start school and are taught about gender. They're barely old enough to have grasped the basic anatomical differences between boys and girls when they are told that actually, you can choose whether to be a boy or a girl. That it is a question of identity, not anatomy. That boys can become girls and girls can become boys.
But what are they taught about what a boy is and what a girl is? I think we have to assume they are taught that girls like playing with dolls and dressing up and the colour pink, and boys like football and dinosaurs and Lego. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this, but I genuinely don't see what else it could be. You cannot identify as something if you don't have the faintest clue what that thing is. Male children who believe they identify as girls must have some idea what it is about girls that makes them think they are one. What do they see when they see girls? Essentially, they see different clothes, different hairstyles and different "acceptable" toys and hobbies. Stereotypes, in other words. Damaging, regressive stereotypes.
Now personally I think it is bad enough to teach children that girls like dolls and dressing up and pink and boys like football and dinosaurs and Lego. But teaching them that if they like dolls and dressing up and pink, they are a girl, or even that if they like those things they can choose to be a girl, to my mind, is way past regressive. It is actually abusive.
Because if you teach a five year old boy who happens to like dolls and dressing up and the colour pink that he is probably a girl, and that's fine, he can be a girl if he wants to, and if you let him change his name to Evie and start referring to him as "she", as far as he is concerned, he is a little girl called Evie. This is his absolute reality. And it will be his absolute reality until puberty comes along, by which point it is already far too late. By that point, you basically either have to put him on puberty blockers and on the pathway to cross sex hormones and genital surgery - meaning that the things you taught this child and the actions you took when he was five years old will have led to him never having an orgasm, a normal sex life or children of his own - or he will go through male puberty and it will be extremely traumatic for him, and he will probably then go on to transition as an adult anyway but might hate you for not letting him take puberty blockers.
I am doing the best I can, but even this long, long post doesn't do justice to how utterly poisonous and abusive I find this ideology. This is why I don't want it taught in schools.
The evidence we have shows that in most cases, children with gender dysphoria who are not affirmed will grow out of it and reconcile themselves with their biological sex, generally as a result of going through a normal, healthy puberty, whereas children who are put on puberty blockers will not. To me it seems obvious, then, that if we don't teach children this stuff at school, if we don't teach them that they can choose whether to be a boy or a girl, and we just encourage them to wear the things they like, play with whatever toys they like and have whatever hobbies they like, the very vast majority will make it to adulthood unscathed, when they can have normal consenting sexual relationships with other adults, have families of their own and not be the subject of a huge and bitter row about which toilets they should be using. If the price to pay for that is that the occasional "genuine trans child" has a more difficult childhood because nobody will affirm them until they are much older and their classmates aren't taught that being trans is totally normal, then that's sad and unfortunate, but I think it is the price we must pay to save a much greater number of children from potentially irreparable psychological and physical harm.
As for the comparison with teaching about gay people, it's just not the same. Gay people aren't asking the rest of society to pretend that they are the opposite sex. They use the correct toilets and changing rooms. They compete in the correct sporting categories. They aren't taking cross sex hormones and undergoing dangerous surgery and turning themselves into lifelong medical patients. Literally nothing gay people do has any negative impact on the rest of society. And unlike being trans, being gay isn't something you grow out of. If schools don't teach about same sex attraction, gay children will still grow up to be gay adults. If schools do teach about same sex attraction, gay children will feel more supported and included, but straight children won't grow up to be gay as a result. And what if a straight child mistakenly believes that they are gay and spends a few years pursuing same sex relationships only to realise that they are straight after all? Honestly, I've never heard of this happening, but it wouldn't matter if it did. No harm done. All body parts intact.
One final thought. Whilst I absolutely believe in the social contagion aspect of teaching small children about being trans, I accept that a very small number of people have early onset dysphoria and would probably always turn out to be trans whatever happens. When I was at school, a friend's older sibling decided to transition and has been "living as a woman" for about 20 years now. Hormones, surgery, the works. This person was born in the early 80s and certainly didn't grow up being taught all about gender identity and that being trans is normal, although they did have access to the internet before they transitioned, and their parents have always believed that this was a huge influence. But the result was the same. They found their way to being trans eventually. So I can't help but feel that not teaching children about gender identity in school will really only stop children who are not actually trans from believing that they are. It might make the school years a little more difficult for people who are actually trans, but if they are actually trans the outcome will be the same eventually.