Remarkably Balanced Article in The Guardian: “ Trans pupils put school policies to test amid heated debate in England”

[rogdmum]

Starts with a scary teacher who says:

”We’re not trying to say to parents that we know best. We are working in the child’s best interests. We will do what we can to support them – what they ask for is what they will get. We work for the students, we don’t work for the parents essentially,”

But goes on to quote Bayswater and schools that seem to have at least a sneaking suspicion that this is not as simple as some would make out and actually there are safeguarding issues.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/08/trans-pupils-put-school-policies-test-heated-debate-england?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Here's a clinical psychologist explaining the massive psychological harm that social transitioning does to children. Guarantee that "Beth" is completely unaware of this:

https://www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/

https://www.transgendertrend.com/teenager-says-theyre-transgender/

I feel I was an average Guardian reader until I peaked big time a couple of years ago, so if they’re anything like me they’ll be thinking “what fresh hell is this?”

'course Beth is unaware. Beth is ridiculously over-stepping her competancy.

But is not just Beth - where are the colleagues standing up? Where are the senior leaders at the school telling staff to stick to what they're trained in?

One of our girls shared a dormitory with the other boys” fixed that for that teacher
It should have read “one of our girls shared a dormitory with the boys.”
No need for the word “other”.

Absolutely. What this school is doing crosses so many boundaries yet it's evidently sanctioned by the SLT with an individual elevated to the position of "expert" despite a personal investment that shows they're far from professional, merely a self identified expert.

Investigations into problems in schools (and elsewhere) usually show that when something goes wrong it's the workplace culture that stops co workers speaking out. When children are involved, this is a disaster.

I find the arrogance of Beth astounding. She’s so critical of the parents with whom she has a differing belief to. Would she be this critical of parents who are of a different religion to her?

I work in social care with teens and we are taught to work with empathy and compassion towards both the teen and their parents. You aim to be as unbiased as possible (obviously this does not apply to safeguarding situations) and also you should accept that often it is the parent who is the expert in knowing their child. So if a parent says ‘I’m worried this is not authentic to my child’ as a professional you sit up and listen to that. You don’t have the arrogance to say ‘well I have spent an hour with your child for the last year with 30 other kids so actually I think you’ll find I know them better’.

i suspect many parents would need to safeguard their children from the likes of Beth. So many red flags

Strange isn't it, that parents who need to get their kids assessed for SEN, often can't. Possibly as once things are diagnosed by people who know what they're talking about, they come with extra work and a bill attached for the LEA.

Yet in these situations, you've a plethora of "Beth" figures, only too anxious to step way over the fucking line in and diagnose your kid.

Absolutely.

There was a mention of a "watchful" programme in year 7, followed by a move towards a more affirming approach in year 8 at a school.

Schools are not qualified to do this. They won't be doing a differential approach to identify co-morbiditities such as autism for example. They aren't psychiatrists and their "programme" is highly unlikely to be based on good psychiatric practice.

They will be conflating a "typical" presentation of an autistic girl with the "typical" presentation of someone who has gender dysphoria. Autistic girls often struggle with their changing body during puberty, finding breast development and periods distressing. The sensory aspect can also be a distressing issue. Also, autistic girls are typically androgynous in their dress style and appearance, often having no real desire to "be girly". But that doesn't make them boys and schools should absolutely not be socially transitioning them.

They are oblivious to the impact of changing a vulnerable child's pronouns /name and potentially locking them in to a fixed destination which could well include lifelong irreversible medicalisation.

As for the Guardian.... definitely a small step towards better balance. But as PPs have said, Beth did get a disproportionately large amount of the article dedicated to her views.

Appalling qualifying parents concerns as scaremongering.
rReading between the lines with ease the Beth’s and Susie’sGreens of this world would buy tickets for theirs and your child to the trans train; no problem. They are asking for wiggling space to keep doing their GOOD deeds to other peoples children. So many of this good doer’s will sent you to hell with a one way ticket and wash their hands when things go wrong and the parents will be left to pick up the pieces.

Parents like the non affirming example cannot be celebrated, they are not the poster kind. Like said earlier’The only reason parents haven't taken this to court is because their mentally unwell, fragile child is at the centre of this and they're reluctant to make things worse with a court case.’ And then when their child gets over it and wants to move on with their live, leaving it behind is the norm.

Year 7 and 8 kids are very vulnerable especially changing schools and peer groups too. There is nothing about the girls or boys in those schools that are not experiencing this gender identity thing and how they might feel about this ‘special’ status kids being in their single sex spaces, sports, etc.

indoctrination is really what it sounds like and there is always a few sociopaths helpful adults hook on rescuing other people children. As they say the path to hell is paved with all these halfwits helpful dees. But it’s children’s mental and physical health we are talking here, so very biased article in my opinion (although to it’s credit it doesn’t mention the S word and those false statistics. I bet Beth used them in the quiet though).

Exactly. Smashing a laptop is a bit extreme but removing Internet usage is totally acceptable! I notice no where in the article mentions homophobia - "trans affirmative care" being pretty much the same as "gay conversion therapy " if you think about it

timetorefresh · Yesterday 19:11
Schools should not be part of kids transitioning. The school I work at is all too keen to change kids names and pronouns and keep it secret from parents. I hate it. Especially with all the evidence to say it's not a neutral act

Beth’s school and others like it is a danger to children.

No one mentioned in the article seemed to show any awareness of how gender dysphoric children who are not affirmed will for the most part desist by the time they are adults; or of how many are likely to be autistic, or have suffered abuse or trauma, experienced homophobia, or come under peer pressure. There was no mention of the Cass Report saying that affirmation is not neutral.

As it sounds as though the planned Government ‘guidance’ might not help to stop teachers like Beth, it would be good if teachers and parents could begin to anonymously tell the names of the ‘affirming’ schools like Beth’s so the public can find a list of schools to avoid if at all possible.

The Guardian article ended with a list of suicide prevention helplines. This will enforce the idea that not affirming children as transgender will lead to their suicide. False. ( Here is a discussion of a comprehensive Finnish study particularly mentioning that this is not true.)
Here is an interesting Twitter thread about that study.
https://twitter.com/LeorSapir/status/1620448081039994881
Activists... calling for hormone treatments for minors & legal gender recognition often repeat that trans youth have an increased risk of suicide & therefore urgently need care & support. "It's purposeful disinformation, & spreading it is irresponsible," says Kaltiala.

Empowermenomore · Today 00:18
But it’s children’s mental and physical health we are talking here, so very biased article in my opinion (although to it’s credit it doesn’t mention the S word and those false statistics. I bet Beth used them in the quiet though).

The body of the article itself does not mention the S word, but nevertheless it
ends with a list of suicide prevention links.

Will the new guidance be clear enough to stop the Beth's in education from transitioning other people's children? I suspect not.

All the unions are completely captured & Ofsted until recently were Stonewall champions so will be reluctant to make a fuss for fear of exposing their complicity. The Cass Review is being completely ignored in some schools so this will only get worse.
Sadly it really does need (yet another) court case to expose the psychological harm happening to children while these schools continue with their massive social experiment on children.

@ScrollingLeaves you are right it does mention it on the links. So bad to add onto bad.

No Cass review, no mention of detransitioners, bad journalism but some people might read it as balanced because presents various schools and approaches.

No comments allowed though.

The new guidance should address the suicide myths that have been propagated off the back of questionable data.

The only reason parents haven't taken this to court is because their mentally unwell, fragile child is at the centre of this and they're reluctant to make things worse with a court case

Completely understandable. But I do wish someone ‘set up’ a school - ie had a teen pretend to question their ‘gender’ in order to see what response they got and how many safeguarding rules were broken. Then the school could be sued if appropriate.

I’d like the fear of god put into any misguided teacher like Beth who goes well beyond their remit, pushes their politics and ideology onto our children, and ignores best practice. That would put a stop to this crap.

With NHSE now saying social transition should only be supported under strict criteria, including under clinical supervision, imagine possible extensions of this - schools/LAs might struggle to get indemnity insurance…

https://genderclinicnews.substack.com/p/exposed?utm_campaign=post

We’re a long long ways off that happening but one can hope…

Beth sounds like she’s in a dangerous (to children) little bubble of her own..

This article scares the shit out of me. I’ve two at senior school and I’m praying they don’t come under the influence of such dogma.

I wouldnt say it's remarkably balanced. I'd say it's a bit better than I'd usually expect from the Guardian. Baby steps in the right direction though.

But the main thing that struck me is the lack of leadership from the top. There urgently needs to be clear guidance on this. It isn't fair in teachers who have no competency in this really difficult area.

Not to mention the students vulnerable to the the ideological fervour of the Beth's out there.

Yes, I had a small sigh when I saw the s links at the end. It was an implicit communication that is linked "somehow".

I'm a natural optimist and I'm hoping it's a sign that the Guardian is going to edge itself towards actual journalistic balance. They can't do it all in one go, because it would be too much for their readership (and Owen Jones would most likely implode/explode causing a vacuum/mess in the office) but there are a few rays of hope:

No mention of s in the body - I'm imagining it got added to the end to appease anyone (staff, readers) who were uncomfortable with its omission

A quote from Cass ("not a neutral act") but not going any further in to the report - a small foot in the door. Perhaps we'll see it mentioned more in the future?

Some examples of people who have a different viewpoint, bringing a small amount of balance - it looks like it wasn't entirely palatable as a shift without a peppering of words like "scaremongering" thrown in, but it's a start

Comments being turned off - presumably they knew that this wasn't their standard voice on the issue and they wanted a modicum of control on how it plays out.

So, all in all.. a shift. I'm thinking that some of the powers that be in Guardian HQ may have had a shift in their own thinking and they now need to figure out a cultural change management strategy for how to bring it in. Perhaps they have already figured it out and this is one of the earliest examples of how it will roll out. Who knows, perhaps they picked up a copy of the Observer when it had the Hannah Barnes' book review (Time to Think) in it. Maybe they even read the book and realised that that is what good balanced journalism looks like. She gives space to those for whom transition has been helpful as well as calling out the medical scandal that is unfolding, with children following a medical pathway when their care has not taken their autism or other co-morbiditities into account . The Guardian's small step in this direction could be very important, given it's a huge part of the voice of the liberal left (it still is a huge part of my own liberal viewpoint - just absolutely not on this issue) .. 🤞🤞🤞🤞

Hopefully other medical insurance companies will follow their lead. As that article points out:
"In Finland, Sweden and England, systematic reviews of the scientific literature on paediatric gender transition have found the evidence base to be sparse, weak and uncertain—not sufficient to justify routine use outside a formal research setting"

It's a dystopian world where the most vulnerable children are openly persuaded by teachers like Beth into a lifetime of medical & psychological experimentation, cheered on by too many schools.

We desperately need these lawsuits - it's already too late for too many children.

One of the problems with the article @BonfireLady is that Beth's dangerous practices are shared as evidence of "good practice" with no challenge to what is actually an incredibly dangerous approach to children by a self interested adult with no professional qualifications and limited self awareness.

Not in the least balanced. After Beth Green has her say the narrative moves to 'Sophie' who says:

“In our experience young people don’t bat an eyelid. They are very comfortable with it, and the vast majority of parents seem to be supportive. There are a small number of parents, however, who are ideologically passionate.”

Ie anyone who doesn't want their daughter to have a mastectomy at 18 is some sort of marginal wierdo. Whereas the centrists are totally cool with it.

That plus the suicide links that pps have noted.

A worrying article. Do they think under-18s are "queer"? What's the Q otherwise for? No such thing in law for a start. And what's the +? Can they define a "+ child"?

And there's a postscript, which hardly encourages trust. Perhaps a first draft was sent by accident:

"Correction: After publication, Oasis said a paragraph that stated they would not normally discuss a pupil’s gender identity with parents was incorrect and not their policy. They have since amended this paragraph to instead state while they recognise the importance of supporting young people’s right to self-expression, no action is taken until a compromise has been achieved with parents."

schoolsweek.co.uk/solutions-a-whole-trust-approach-to-lgbtq-safeguarding/