Man threatened with Prevent for questioning transgender book at nephew's school.

[aweegc]

Prevent, for anybody who doesn't know, is the government's counterterrorism programme targeting radicalised/extremist Muslims. Schools are obliged to report cases of extremism or radicalisation to it, similar to reporting safeguarding concerns.

I have to say that I'd thought about Prevent being used for some transactivists, it had never occurred to me that Muslims would be silenced this way. Although, now I hear this, it is too obvious a tactic to have overlooked and it's utterly despicable.

So, I just came across this on Instagram. A British Muslim man approached his nephew's school on behalf of his sister, because she was really unhappy with her son bringing home a "book promoting transgender lifestyle". He thought it would be an easy discussion where he was mediating between two women (I'm not commenting on that part - separate issue). I've transcribed it for anybody who can't access the video.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CriblPHol5d/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Transcript:

He says to the head teacher, "'My sister's worried about a book that promotes the transgender lifestyle. If you were going give this to the children or put this in the library, why weren't parents consulted.?' She just went on the offense....When I started to speak to this lady, walahi [I swear to God], it was just a click. When I started to speak she said,
'The way you're talking, we'd have to refer you to Prevent'.
I said, 'What's Prevent?', because at the time I had no understanding.
She goes, "The way you're speaking is very extreme."
I said, "I haven't said anting to you extreme. All I've said is that we don't feel comfortable with our young, innocent nephew being sent home with a book called Princess Boy without the consultation of the parents.'
She goes, 'Well I don't care, it's the Equality Act.'
So my question to her was, 'Well where's my equality then? If it's the Equality Act, and we live in a secular society so there's a full range, a marketplaces of views and everyone must be respected, regardless of how we conflict with one another.. She wasn't having it.'"

"They now expect women to include transwomen in the women's own group. Even for a sex-based crime."

My young adult daughter was assaulted by a woman - held overnight and threatened. The woman only let my daughter come home after I threatened to get the police involved. (incidentally - when I called the police and told them my daughter had been plied with alcohol, had texted me to say the woman she'd gone on a date with had hit her and shouted at her, and refused to let her leave and that she was scared, the police response was 'what do you expect us to do?)

Would it be reasonable of my daughter to ask for counselling in a setting that doesn't include women, given that a woman was responsible for her assault?

@Wehadabetamax
"Prevent targets all forms of radicalisation, it does not target Muslims. Also he isn't a parent of the school, so shouldn't have been involved."

The West seems to have lost the concept of extended family. The West barely tolerates the notion of parents having a say in their child's upbringing. Muslim communities have not. To the extent that many muslim nations don't even have normal systems for adoption in place because it is so expected that a family member will take care of an orphan even if their closest family is some remote second cousin.

To you it is wrong that an uncle should have an interest in his nephew's well-being and therefore be able to show up and speak to it to people. To muslim communities (and formerly in the West before the war on family), it is the most normal thing in the world. Not merely acceptable but a duty. You look after your family.

What do you think?

We should use clear language ‘trans woman’ suggests they are somehow women, not men who identify as women. A lot of the public still think a trans woman is a woman who identifies as a man, hence the clear distinction in polls where it is made clear than a transwoman is a man who identifies as a woman and needs to make absolutely no changes to his appearance to do so (and we know only a tiny minority ever take hormones or have genital surgery). Using the phrase trans women is purposefully done to obscure the fact they a male, they are men and that will never change. We certainly do need to be clear in our use of language.

We also know from the census than men who identify as trans (transwomen) are five times more likely to be sex offenders than other men.

Is Isla Bryant a trans woman?

You tell me. Like I say, even the First Minister couldn't decide.

Yes, if she feels safer with a male counsellor the she absolutely should be able to request one.

How do you think she would feel if she requested a male counsellor but got a female one who look , dressed and sounded female, but everyone told her that the woman was actually a man so she must reframe her trauma?

Weird leap to make - having concerns re: how current day climate activism impacts on the mental health of people (especially children, adolescents and young adults) doesn’t mean denying that the climate change is a thing.

Are you always this extreme?

Would it be reasonable of my daughter to ask for counselling in a setting that doesn't include women, given that a woman was responsible for her assault?

Yes, though if she really doesn't want to open up with other women then it might need to be a one-to-one setting with a male counsellor rather than a group at all. She could hardly be in a group with only men, could she?

Isla Bryant has a penis, that was clear from the photos taken when he was arriving at court. I would say that makes him a man, unfortunately certain do gooders believe and believed in his case, that him saying he wants to be a woman made him one. Which led to him being in a situation where young women were stripping off in front of him. Reluctantly, I might add.
Why would anyone think that is OK?

How did your daughter know this was a woman? Seems a bit transphobic to infer this.

Especially as the vast majority of men in a group counselling session for sex assault survivors will have been the victims of other men.

Obvs it wouldn’t be possible to have a women-only group for survivors of same sex sexual assault (even if the numbers of female predators were high enough to warrant it) because it’s not logically possible to have a women’s group that excludes women.

Hmmm. Is Isla Bryson a transwoman? I don’t know - what do you think?

By 'if girls are forced to strip off in front of boys' - when you say 'boys' are you referring to trans women? Can you be clear what you mean otherwise it's quite hard to have a sensible conversation about this.

They're not actually women (girls), they're male so it's perfectly clear to most people what she meant.

“Can you explain the mechanism of how I'm going to lose maternity pay etc (ie, my sex based rights) because of the existence of trans women?”

are you new to this board?

I’ll start with the simplest: if you cannot define woman as an adult human female, your rights are everyone’s rights.

and finish advising you to read some of the threads on Women’s rights.

I’ll start with the simplest: if you cannot define woman as an adult human female, your rights are everyone’s rights

Except if a woman identifies as a man and changes her legal sex she will potentially lose protection against pregnancy and maternity discrimination because she is no longer considered to be female in law.

Perhaps schools should be teaching academic subjects like Maths, Literature, Science, Arts and social education be mostly limited to formal facts like civics. The State has increasingly decided that schools are to be substitute parents and indoctrinate the values it feels are correct. That's not a social contract I'm sure I want. Every authoritarian regime seeks to take the place of parents in the education and raising of the young.

Short of the enforcement of basic values in schools such as not letting kids steal or bully each other, maybe leave it to teaching knowledge and skills, not beliefs.

Or is that a radical viewpoint which would get me referred to Prevent?

I kind of agree with this, but I'm not sure it's the state to blame. Or rather, we have a rubbish Tory Party that has failed to make sure that teachers aren't indoctrinating the children, or trying to trans them behind the backs of their parents.

Do you consider the visibly elected MPs to be the State? Or would you entertain the idea that the State is an entrenched bureaucracy and socially privileged power interests of which MPs are a factor but also an ephemeral one? That whilst there is an overt state, a lot of the real power exists... deeper?

Perhaps schools should be teaching academic subjects like Maths, Literature, Science, Arts and social education be mostly limited to formal facts like civics

There's a lot to be said for that. All children should be taught both at home and at school to be tolerant and considerate of others, whether they be gay, Muslim, Jewish, disabled, etc. But some of minutae of ethics tend to step on the toes of people from religious minorities (not just Muslims), which would be against the spirit of the Equality Act.

I agree. Tories have complained the biggest factor preventing them carrying out their policies (good or bad) has been the civil service. We’ve seen them sign up to stonewall schemes in short gaps between ministers, taking forever to produce requested guidance on trans children in schools. We’ve seen them spreading training which is contrary to law….

You really, really need to stop talking rubbish.

Hers a link to Prevent. Try to actually understand something before posting about it.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/prevent-duty-guidance/revised-prevent-duty-guidance-for-england-and-wales

The biggest terrorism threat in the U.K. is from extremist right wing ideology

The biggest terrorism threat to women in the U.K. is from InCel ideology (and not transgender people).

So neo Nazis, Incels and extreme religious people who wish to change the fabric of society through violence or inciting violence need to be worried.

Not Muslims.

I have had the same racist prevent training in Nottm, and also complained.

Prevent training in the West Mids was fantastic.

It seems to me there's a lot of overlap between the way Incels think and behave and the way transactivists think and behave. Particularly when it comes to how they view women.

I don't know. In my experience most conservatives (small c) are not all that much different in their approach to gender roles than anyone else. Even someone like my friend's mother, who would be considered deeply religiously conservative by most, is really pretty normal - she grew up a tom boy, wears jeans most of the time, sent all her daughters to university, worked, figured she was just as able as any man at pretty much anything.

The one area I've observed women like this often differ from liberal/progressive women is they tend to stay home with their kids when they are young, if they can, and appreciate a family structure which makes that possible. They tend to value mothering as a role and see it as a job as worthwhile as other jobs and one which needs to be done.

Maybe that is an oppressive gender role, but I don't think it's an indefensible POV by any stretch.

But as far as not seeing other lifestyles as a problem, it's not that so much, as resenting the state seeing itself as the proper arbiter of what kids are taught on what are clearly questions on which parents have a wide variety of viewpoints. Because it's really not about kids being told that some people think other things - there is a pretty clear implication that there are better and worse belief systems.

Nonsense, it was set up following the 9/11 attacks in NY and the 7/7 attacks in London by Muslim fundamentalists. In the years since it was set up in 2015 all the terrorist incidents have been Islamist. To say the biggest risk is far right is to ignore the facts.

I don't think that's implied at all. I expect to be treated equally to everyone else in civil life, that does not mean we are all that similar in any other way.

There are always differences between groups of people, mainly culturally mediated, treating them equally does not require ironing those out.