Still Genuinely Willing To Discuss In Good Faith

[Catiette]

I've taken the plunge and started a new thread. In the interests of good manners, an addendum that I may be disappearing to work for a while myself, as this has all been far too interesting to allow me to achieve any of my urgent weekend work to-dos today - I hope that, in the light of that, creating this follow-up thread isn't bad form. I just thought other people may want to continue discussing these issues (mainly, now, the redefinition of woman, and statistical trends re. women globally), and I'd definitely dip back in when the urge to procrastinate overcomes me next. No worries, of course, if people think we did it all to death on the old thread - we were fairly thorough, methinks(!), so can also just let Good Faith Discussion #2 rapidly fade into Mumsnet obscurity. 😀

@SpookyFBI

So how do you teach children how to decide? Based on what they want their bodies to look like ideally? Based on their conformity to stereotypes or interests?

Below is a link to the Jungian conception and theory of self and how identity develops:

https://www.thesap.org.uk/articles-on-jungian-psychology-2/carl-gustav-jung/jungs-model-psyche/

And also, why do I have to decide? Why put this on me as a child (or adult) if I have a vagina and don't really care about identity?

And by the way, I don’t want any school involved in ‘helping’ my child make a decision on what their body should look like, or what their identity should be.

Not only should you not have to decide, it's actually cruel to allow you to believe that you can decide.

Because if you have a vagina, you can decide to be a man, but you can never, ever, actually be a man.

Why are we telling children that they can and should decide whether they are a girl or a boy, when that isn't actually a decision they can make?

If you said to a small child, "Would you like cake or ice cream?" despite the fact that you knew there was cake but there wasn't any ice cream, and they chose ice cream so you gave them imaginary ice cream and no cake, most people would think that was cruel.

This is the same principle, only many orders of magnitude more serious.

@Helleofabore I agree, unless it was unclear, but I want to understand how gender identity as a form of mysticism could ever be taught.

@SpookyFBI Thanks for coming back - I think talking to people who disagree with you and (who not to put words in your mouth but paraphrasing) who you have previously seen as all evil bigots or the stupid manipulated pawns of evil bigots is challenging. I'm tagging you because I'm responding directly to what you've written but please don't feel pressured to respond to this specific post.

@Catiette I think the link to Maslow is a really helpful and insightful perspective and spooky you're right some trans people are still struggling to be and feel safe. As are many women.

I did want to offer some thoughts on this question

On another note... it’s okay 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.’

Children get to be the world's leading expert on who they fancy, for what it's worth I don't think teachers should be handing schoolchildren pamphlets on how to be gay correctly - I think that that is too open to political /ideological manipulation from adults about what messages should and shouldn't be given to kids.

It is absolutely ok by me for a teacher to give a girl the message 'you know you're crazy about a girl, you know you've never felt that way about a boy - fine call yourself a lesbian, but you know you're pretty young if later you do have butterflies for a guy change the label no harm done.'

There is a general principle in teaching (and in parenting) that we should protect kids from doing anything catastrophic or irrevocable, thinking you're a Lesbian and later deciding you're Bisexual or even later deciding it was just a phase and actually it's guys from here on out is neither.

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.

Well tik tok / SM exists, in the world as it is now they're probably going to hear about this idea eventually. I do object to it being taught in school as a fact especially to primary age children that being born in the wrong body is an actual thing. That they need to think about that, worry about it and figure out if this is a thing that actually happened to them. In the UK that phrase is now explicitly banned from being taught in school. Why, because it causes distress. Perfectly happy children were going home from lessons and crying to their mums asking if they were born in the wrong body and how could they possibly tell? As in a class of 30 get taught the lesson and there are 5 10 or 15 calls to the head the next day.

‘your feelings are valid. There is nothing wrong with you.'

So I think it's important to go back to the ways that there can be different interpretations of the same facts. I'm not quite as brave as bonfireLady and don't want to get into my story or history too much so I'll keep it more general.

"I love you and want to hear all about your feelings because they're your feelings and your feelings are important to me" - Kids way well need to hear that but I've been a mum, and I've been a teacher - this is a conversation for a mum (or a dad, dad's can be emotional support humans too) or a qualified counsellor. It is inappropriately intimate for a teacher to be having with a student in a 1:1 situation, and way too much of an overshare to expect someone who is in some degree of distress as to this idea of gender identity and gendered soul spirit essence type things existing and trying to figure out what that might mean to them in terms of interpreting their own feelings to expect them to do any of that in a class setting.

If you're trying to say 'your feelings are valid' without listening to the feelings that's a very superficial message which I don't think will help anyone but certainly some variation or tweaking on 'all feelings are valid, you can and you should feel everything. The full gamut of human emotion. Whatever you're feeling it's ok. All feelings are ok - just not all actions.' can be delivered to a class, the whole class. It isn't only the girls who say they're not girls who need to be told their feelings matter. (Or the boys who think maybe they aren't proper boys).

It is hard to find the words to try to explain this without getting upset but there are a lot of different reasons why girls going through puberty can feel disconnected from and even hateful / rejecting of their sexed bodies. Jumping to a conclusion that their soul / spirit / essence is the wrong sort of soul / spirit / essence for their body and this is what is causing the discomfort is a big and inappropriate jump for a teacher to make.

If the student has made this jump themselves teachers are not in a qualified or knowledgeable enough position about the students history or the feelings that led to that conclusion to just go 'you're right you are trans' [where trans means you were born in the wrong body because you have the type of soul / spirit/ essence/ mind / feelings that belong in the bodies of the opposite sex']

If I believed that it was helpful and kind I'd be for it, but I don't believe it's helpful or kind (or even neutral). I believe that it a harmful idea and hurts more than it helps and is fundamentally flawed. I believe it is an idea which intersects with the sexism and homophobia which does exist still in our societies in ways which make it a particularly harmful idea for people who are female or homosexual or autistic in ways that stack so if you are 2 or even 3 of those things the likelihood of believing therefore that you are trans is magnified. The idea is the thing which has caused the discomfort experienced, although the discomfort remains real.

You are not alone.

I think all teenagers need to hear this

Here is some information you may find you relate to, but ultimately it’s up to you to decide what feels right.’

I think it's the quality of the information that I would currently object to. Up until now the people arguing for teachers to give out information in this way have been coming from the positions that are beliefs and presenting them as facts. The only pamphlets would be from the perspective that this ideology offered the only interpretation of the facts and was a scientifically proven fact about the world.

Similar to a child who was unhappy and was given a pamphlet about a religion by a teacher. Read this talk to these people they will show you how to live and be happy. Just doesn't feel appropriate to a school setting to me (I went to Catholic school which probably flavours my thinking).

Why do you think one is reasonable

I think it is an inappropriate comparison because the feelings of sexual attraction are extremely well defined and well understood even by the adolescent feeling them. Kids can and do get freaked out because they fancy the 'wrong' person. Everyone learning that some people are attracted to (some) people of the same sex as themselves either exclusively or alongside being attracted to (some) people of the opposite sex as them is good for them as a whole and can be extremely useful in (trying to) creating a tolerant school environment.

and the other is paedophilic?

Ok in the example you gave I wouldn't think that that was paedophilic but I did say inappropriately intimate didn't I - from a teacher's point of view we are strongly discouraged from blurring lines and becoming 'too friendly' with a student not at all because all teachers who care about their students are sexually attracted to them but to avoid feelings developing on either side or even the appearance of something inappropriate.

Assuming of course you do believe that about homosexuality, which I guess it’s possible you don’t.

I am confident that I am not at all homophobic, I am also extremely comfortable (compared with the general population) with non conventional gender presentation and (some) behaviours. Other behaviours are still shocking to me. All feelings are ok (for either sex to have) not all actions.

If you are still processing the concept that what you believe is, from my point of view, a belief I don't share; I understand. It's a lot to digest. But I would offer the following example

The group of people through history who are not Christian include: the Buddha, Gandhi, Gengis Khan, Osama Bin Laden and me. They all don't believe in Christianity but other than that you can't really draw any conclusions about their moral and ethical framework how good of a person they are or what they do believe. It feels weird to put myself in that list but my point is I'm just a person trying to protect my kids and wanting the to grow up into a world that is, at least, no more sexist, at least, no more homophobic.

If all the people who want a fair safe and reasonable world for themselves and their kids can keep talking to each other as respectfully as possible we can improve the outcomes.

With all of the complexities in the world and in humanity, how can such a simple and straight forward philosophy that lacks any nuance - boys have a penis and girls have a vagina - really be all there is to it?

Biology is not a philosophy. It is one of the building blocks of human life on earth. Sex is not just about bodily appendages, though - sex is recorded in every cell of the body - and even though some don't accept( or want to accept) - there are also some generalised differences in patterns of behaviour ( presumably based upon an inter-play of DNA/hormonal development/ culture) too; though not absolutely universally applicable or observable.

We are not separate from our bodies, and when the brain ceaes to function so do 'we'.

I will always struggle with the idea that humans that don't have a physical illness require such a huge amount of money and scarce medical skill expended on them.

Females in the USA are regularly spending half a million dollars on multiple surgeries over five or ten years.

Identity such as this is phenomenally expensive. We are expected to pay for it for them via pooled insurance and national insurance. I can't get my head around that. It seems extremely self indulgent and entitled when it's not necessary at all in the real world.

Sorry bigbabe, should have added that I was adding to your very pertinent point.

For me the issue stems from the concept of 'identifying as' rather than 'identifying with'. Identifying as something suggests a performance - not an inner integrity that recognises a symapthy with something.

I always think of that TV programme 'Stars in their Eyes' when I hear the phrase 'identify as'. The commentator would grandly announce " Here is Mary Jones as 'Beyonce......"

I also find this pressure on kids to scrutinise their inner selves and proclaim their 'identities' to be bizarre and must be immensely stressful.

I don't remember anything similar when I was growing up in the 90s. Surely identities are formed through life experience rather than being pulled from the depths of the soul?

And @SpookyFBI, on your thought that self actualisation as a woman could lead to suicide for a trans woman and that goes to safety, would your answer be the same for any other kind of identity other than gender? What if I wanted to be treated as if I was a child and go to school? Or as a cat? Does a threat of suicide make any belief actionable?

Is it that mystic though?

If they were saying, "Your identity is personal to you and can be anything you want it to be", I agree that is quite mystic and difficult to visualise.

But they're saying that the available identities are "boy" and "girl", or perhaps "boy", "girl" and "non binary", and that children should choose which one of those things they are.

So what do they think each of those things is?

This is what it always comes back down to in the end.

When children see girls, they see dresses and pigtails and pink and flowers and dolls and skipping ropes and dressing up and being nice and kind. And when they see boys they see trousers and short hair and football and karate and Lego and dinosaurs and being loud and boisterous.

These are the gender norms that we impose on kids from a young age. I can't pretend I'm not guilty of it myself. I can't even blame my well meaning friends and family for buying my baby daughter all these beautiful little frilly dresses which obviously it would be a waste of money for her not to wear, because I also bought her some little pink flowery sleepsuits. And I bought my son little shorts and T-shirts with tractors on. We do dress boys and girls differently, before they're even old enough to know what they like, and we consciously or unconsciously steer them towards different toys from a young age. And even if we don't, other parents do and our children see their children. But let's be clear about this. These are just stereotypes. Regressive stereotypes. And when our children go to school and crèche, they aren't looking at each other's genitals. They see how girls and boys present, according to these stereotypes, and they learn that this is what a girl is and this is what a boy is.

So if you want me to believe that when a five year old boy says he wants to be a girl, he doesn't mean he wants to play with dolls and do dressing up rather than play with the cars or the Lego, you need to have an alternative explanation for what you think he does mean.

Because I honestly can't see what else it could possibly be.

And I don't think that's mystic at all. I think it's pretty mundane.

And what is the difference between gender identity, being this mystical thing that exists within you that you try to understand and which could develop in different ways and other personality traits, which we discover about ourselves as we grow?

Am working today but I had a quick scan to to through. I'll read everything properly later.

I just wanted to pick up on one thing:
"Going back from social transition is reversible". In my and my daughter's experience it is. But it's not easy. I'll share more on our experience when I get chance.

"I suppose the same way I can say that the double split experiment should be taught in physics class, even though it is not completely understood."

The double slit experiment is very well understood, and has been studied, theorised about and experiments conducted to prove/disprove or expand and refine those theories, using the scientific method. It is nothing at all like the quasi-religious belief in a concept of "gender identity" as used by gender ideology believers. Which is not based in science, and the thoughts around it are not developed scientifically.

Sorry @SpookyFBI I meant to tag you in that. Thank you sooooooooooo much for your engagement on this thread. I can't imagine it's easy for a minute but please know how much I'm valuing it personally. I'm sure others are too.

I also want to thank @SpookyFBI for staying with it. It's a tough topic.

This is one of the best convos I've seen on FWR

With all of the complexities in the world and in humanity, how can such a simple and straight forward philosophy that lacks any nuance - boys have a penis and girls have a vagina - really be all there is to it?

That's a question for the American women who want to spend half a million dollars on acquiring a penis. It lacks nuance doesn't it?

Me, too.

It is very interesting to have this conversation and I really appreciate Spooky persisting with it.

I am now even more curious about 'gender identity'!

It is entirely undefinable? It's just a concept completely unmoored to the world?

I think maybe part of the problem with this is one of language. We cannot confuse the word with the thing the word is describing.

Words change all the time, its in the nature of words.

Changing the word for something does not affect the thing itself.

Creating a phrase 'gender identity' with absolutely no definition does not lend this idea any weight.

We use words to describe things, to make the world clearer.

There seems to be a real risk here that if we mistake the words for the things, we can end up using the words to make the world more obscure.

If 'gender identity' is something nobody can describe, with no definition, and has no relation at all to biology or our bodies, how is it a useful concept? What on earth does it mean?

He just wanted his toys back.

With all of the complexities in the world and in humanity, how can such a simple and straight forward philosophy that lacks any nuance - boys have a penis and girls have a vagina - really be all there is to it?

Gravity is fairly straightforward. Gravity lacks nuance. It's a fact of existence, and not a 'philosophy', just a theory describing a physical phenomenon. We can experience very low gravity by use of simulation tech, but we can't overcome it or theorise it out of existence.

Humans are mammals that reproduce by sexual intercourse between dichotomous sexes.

There really is nothing more to this 'philosophy' than that.

We are a dichotomous species. This is how we reproduce. There is no 'third sex'.

I think perhaps, heartbreakingly, he just wanted his dad to love him as he was. Honestly, that video was a fucking hard watch.

How we got here and where it is going...