School guidelines on gender identities/trans out this week

[ArabeIIaScott]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/22733965/schools-banned-letting-pupils-change-gender-parents-rishi-sunak/

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12208907/PM-says-children-not-allowed-switch-identities-schools-without-telling-parents.html

These are the only two articles I could find so far.

'Schools will be forced to tell parents if students are questioning their gender under new Government guidance to be published this week, according to a report. '

She's not wrong. The strongest and most sensible things said so far are from her and Nick Fletcher.

Come on, other parties, this needs to gain momentum!

Wearing a skirt, are you Charlie? Can't have you violating the sacred natural laws of gendered expression! I'm calling your parents immediately to out you to them, since apparently safeguarding doesn't count when GNC kids are involved

See, this is the point, isn’t it? Do you get it? Way back in the 70s and 80s we knew that boys could wear make up/dresses/frilly blouses and girls could wear suits, waistcoats, bow-ties, etc. Now, thanks to this regressive ideology, children think that if they’re a boy like your hypothetical Charlie and wear a skirt, they must be ‘trans’.

This new ideology is the thing that’s erasing GNC kids. How often do we see anything like the gender non-conformity of the 80s now? When I was a teen, we laughed in the faces of older adults who’d say short hair was for boys, or dresses were for girls. Now this regressive crap has taken hold of teens and is promoting outdated gender stereotypes.

The trans lobby is very well embedded in the civil service - especially in the DfE - at senior levels worryingly. They have been battling to ensure that trans activist adult groups get more influence on school policy than those involved in safeguarding, GC groups and responsible adults / groups.
We'll see how successful they've been - but the important thing is that there's a consultation. Hopefully the scrutiny will stop them manipulating the results.

I wonder if the guidance will address the toilet/changing rooms issues at all, or is that not in its brief?
An underlining of the statutory position would be good, i.e. that schools have a duty to provide sex specific toilets for all children over the age of eight.

Is the Mail doing one a day? This seems to be new:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12210119/Fury-radical-sex-education-lesson-plans-pre-teen-kids.html

"Many teachers are 'indoctrinating' children with scientifically false claims about biological sex, presenting gender as fluid and furthering a narrative that people can be born in the wrong body.

It comes as the NHS is facing a mass legal action from 1,000 families who claim their children were rushed into taking life-changing puberty blockers' by the Tavistock Centre."

Matt Goodwin is in that article. He wrote this recently, it covers a lot of ground and ends with a list of what we could do:

www.thesun.co.uk/news/22722913/sex-education-brainwashing-kids-time-to-take-stand/

"So what can we do?
Well, we could start by requiring every school in Britain to publish all material relating to race, sex and genderr_ online and have a clear process in place for parents to raise concerns about what is being taught.
We could give all parents a formal right to see all materials used to teach their kids.

We could force the Government to undertake and complete a thorough, independent revieww of how the trinity of race, sex and gender are being taught in schools and to insist this review does not involve the Department for Educationn, which allowed these problems to take root in the first place.
Whistleblower campaign
We could pressure the opposition Labour Party to publish its plan and vision for how these issues should be taught.
We could force all schools in the country to automatically tell parents when their child reveals feelings of gender distress at school.
We could rule that no school should be permitted to facilitate a child’s social transition unless their parents have been fully informed.

We could remind schools that, according to law and guidance, they’re supposed to provide single-sexx_ activities and facilities and draw attention to those which do not.
We could insist that no schools are allowed to join “diversity membership schemes” which are offered by external agencies that are routinely involved in political campaigning.
We could rule that all external agencies which are involved in the teaching of children must sign up to a register, submit their materials for a peer-review examination and be independently monitored.
And we could launch a nationwide whistleblower campaign, asking parents and others to highlight real-world examples of what is actually happening in schools."

The dfe is still captured and not in agreement with the gov on this, same for the neu and to a lesser extent naswut. Only us women are pushing this, the people in charge don't care, its deliberate, this was the goal. Us pesky women are ruining it for them apparently being so mean parents might find out their kids wear the uniform their parents bought them for school argh

As if kids parents don't see their own kids 😆

Imagine being a dinosaur...

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/19/school-children-identifying-as-animals-furries/

"Inquiries by this newspaper have established that other children at other schools are also identifying as animals, and the responses of parents suggest that the schools in question are hopelessly out of their depth on the question of how to handle the pupils’ behaviour.
The Telegraph has discovered that a pupil at a secondary school in the South West is insisting on being addressed as a dinosaur. At another secondary school in England, a pupil insists on identifying as a horse. Another wears a cape and wants to be acknowledged as a moon."

At the serious end, Tracy Shaw from SSUK is quoted:

"“Teachers should be dealing with this under existing safeguarding frameworks,” she says. “If a child is coming to school identifying as a cat or a horse, that should immediately raise red flags.
“The teacher should be asking themselves, what are these children looking at online? What forums are they on? What is going on in the home? What is happening in that child’s life and who else is involved?
“The problem is that teachers have a blind spot where anything involving identity comes in, because they are frightened of doing the wrong thing. They think they are being kind by affirming these behaviours, but they are not being kind, because they are likely to be missing all sorts of things that are going on in that child’s life.”"

Other pupils are not happy:

"One pupil at a state secondary school in Wales told The Telegraph of a fellow pupil who “feels very discriminated against if you do not refer to them as ‘catself’”. She added: “When they answer questions, they meow rather than answer a question in English. And the teachers are not allowed to get annoyed about this because it’s seen as discriminating.”
The student in question is in Year 11, but began using the pronoun “catself” in Year 9 “when the whole thing with neo pronouns started”, the pupil said.
She described how lessons could be completely derailed if a teacher attempted to get the child to reply to a question in English rather than meowing.

“It’s affecting other people and their education and everybody in their lessons. It’s distracting to sit in a lesson and have someone meow to a teacher rather than answer in English, especially at secondary school age.
“That’s going to take a lot out of a lesson because people are going to spend the entire lesson talking about whoever it is over there meowing to the teacher.
“It’s a big ask to sit there and listen to someone answer like that and not have that be the main talk of the classroom rather than the lesson going on.”"

Wow... just wow.

How on earth does the government think this country is going to compete in the future if our children's education has been disrupted by this shit.

Well said that student - the whole thing is utterly ridiculous.

And if a child is MEOWING in lessons SURELY some kind of urgent mental health intervention needs to happen? Rather than everyone pussyfooting around their pronouns. (see what I did there 😂)

Does the child get cat food sent in for lunch by their parents? The mind boggles.

Imagine being a dinosaur

We now know why dinosaurs died out. They took up gender ideology and forgot that sex matters.

Imagine being a dinosaur...
Really? I mean, really really? Or some bright spark trolling the telegraph?

Maya has tweeted a thread. I'm not sure but either the guidance has been leaked or there've been hints and people are losing it! Lots of dire warnings,. Most shamefully about suicide that, I believe, can be a self fulfilling prophecy. In no other area would discussions of suicide be weaponised like this. But, like everything else to do with transgender, normal safeguarding goes right out the window.

Sorry, I've lost the link but it should be easy to find.

I can vaguely recall my teenage years and I'm pretty sure I would identify as a cat just to annoy the teachers knowing they couldn't do anything, I'm also pretty sure most of my classmates would identify as something too. Anything to make lessons more interesting. Most kids like to push the buttons (and boundaries) of those in authority, whether its teachers or parents.

First it was Mods and Rockers, then Glam Rock, then Punk, then Romantics with the frilly shirts and make up. Same old, same old.

Extremist trans activism?

Good grief. I'm afraid I'm far too politically boring and banal a person to be an extremist trans activist. I've done plenty of things that could be classed as activism I suppose, but not much about trans issues, and I'm afraid I haven't based my entire personality around Twitter which probably disqualifies me on principle.

It would be lovely if kids who aren't blessed with supportive parents like I had can continue to feel safe about expressing themselves at school, though. Do you consider that to be 'extremist trans activism'?

I'm very happy that you didn't feel particularly affected by being challenged when using female facilities. Good for you.

I've actively changed how I dress over the course of the last couple of years toward a more femme style if I know I'll be using facilities in places likely to skew hostile toward trans people - I have been required to be present in parts of Eastern Europe which heavily skew that way and it can be quite dangerous, especially if you are reliant upon the goodwill of strangers for your safety. It just isn't worth the risk, or the stress. Shame that we seem to be heading back that way in the UK as well - there was a time here when I felt genuinely safe and proud to live in this country.

Male people?
Female people?

I am a woman

And we could launch a nationwide whistleblower campaign, asking parents and others to highlight real-world examples of what is actually happening in schools."

Judging by these leaked videos, I would guess the students themselves, once they really catch on, will be at the forefront of providing examples. They do get quite hacked off by all this pandering and attention seeking.

Yes and the thing is all this pandering and attention seeking takes time out of actual education.

How do you run ANY class with class participation if every child has a different set of pronouns? You can't. These children are missing education because of this focus on navel gazing over learning things.

The ones who are the worst affected are the trans kids themselves, spending all their time obsessing over their 'identity' rather than learning things and getting qualifications they'll need later on. I speak from experience. They almost seem shocked they can't 'identify' into a C in English and Maths and that not doing any work has consequences.

I was at school in the 80s with a girl who pretended she was a horse (age 14 ish). She would set up jumps in the playing field and go up and down on all 4s. She would frequently neigh during conversations and paw the ground. Nobody was mean to her (any more than normal) she was just considered to be a bit quirky. But also nobody was obligated to go along with the idea that she had some inner essence of horse or made to call her by horse pronouns. Teachers wouldn’t have put up with her neighing in class. I can imagine how this girl would be pandered to now.

When did people lose the ability to say “no you’re not doing that” or “you can do that when you leave school / home”?

@dimorphism
”all this pandering and attention seeking takes time away from education” - yep. Total waste of time for the pupils who can see through it all, and who are sick of the attempts at brainwashing.

As usual Butterfly, your posts are all about you and you keep forgetting you are on a feminist board . They lack the perspective of being a female and having a true understanding of living as a female.

“Do you consider that to be 'extremist trans activism'?”

I consider any parent who tells their child that they are the opposite sex if the child believes it to be extreme trans activism. Yes. Because no amount of hormone treatment or surgery can achieve that. I also believe that parents who attempt to make any other person treat their child as being the opposite sex are extreme. Because they are putting that child and other’s children at risk when safeguarding processes should be robustly adhered to.

If you advocate for any male to access female single sex spaces you are extreme in your view point. And your advocacy. That you continue to persist in using female single sex spaces knowing from being on this board for so long that women and girls are distressed by your presence, is you ignoring the needs of female people and prioritising your needs. Whether you present ‘femme’ (what the fuck does that even mean) or not.

male trans people should be safe to use the toilet of their sex. That should have been the very first thing trans people campaigned for. Instead male people have told female people to effectively STFU. And then they attempt to use all sorts of emotionally manipulative tactics to force use those spaces they know they are unwelcome in.

Tactics such as “there was a time here when I felt genuinely safe and proud to live in this country”

Sure, it must feel painful to realise that what you (general you) had been told by others is not and never was true. And it must feel painful to know that women who see male people in the toilet will be masking their discomfort, and that person will never know what those women and girls truly feel. It means that that person will have little trust in any human reaction to their presence.

However, it was never appropriate in the first place. And any male person still using female single sexed spaces now does so knowing that they are unwelcome by the majority of the female population. So using that space is a deliberate act.

Your entire ‘gender non conforming’ post was force teaming gender non conforming people with trans people and conflating the terms. That is what people have called you out on.

Unfortunately many of us adopt the terms ‘male people’ and ‘female people’ from long experience. Because all too often the terms women and men mean constant derailment and circular discussions. And at times deletions.

Do I use those terms elsewhere? rarely thankfully.

This story has caused me immense cheer. I've seen other people observe recently that while older teens and young adults take the gender thing very seriously indeed, the younger ones are more sceptical. And what we clearly have here is some younger teenagers absolutely ripping the piss out of the ideology.

The sad or comic aspect of it is that the schools seem powerless to do anything. Any sensible head would get a grip and say "this school is for children, not cats" and have a stern word with the parents, but it seems they're either too frightened or stupid to do that. Well, you reap what you sow.

Remarkable that we are half way through 2023 and there are scenarios where year 11 students have students acting like cats in class. How does this work for presentation work, for any group work etc? And that is not even tackling the truth aspect.

The video of the girls arguing with their teacher that you can't change sex demonstrates that we've reached a point where the subversive rebellious position is to claim you can't change sex.

Teenagers want to rebel and challenge adult orthodoxy, catch teachers out, show they know more.

When all the teachers are telling teenagers: this is the truth and you cannot challenge it, it's open season on making teachers look stupid. They'll have a field day.

This should have stayed an experimental phase of identity development that school and parents regarded with disinterest beyond: that's nice dear, or don't be silly.

But we've gone down a weird path of child voice is everything meaning teenagers are getting whatever they say they want, which is really just what they don't want. They want to rebel and we've taken that away.

I think they're going to rebel against the idiot grown ups who became so progressive their brains fell out by becoming more traditional.
That will upset their parents.
Just like it upset this teacher.

Jo Maugham is of course on Twitter saying that refusing to use children’s preferred pronouns in school is “bigotry”. I don’t understand how this is bigotry. You can’t force people to refer to you in specific ways, surely? It’s like saying it’s bigoted if you don’t join in religious prayers.