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. '

We can comment on what should be done in line with current safeguarding though?

Secrets from parents are against current safeguarding.

Does that mean you should tell parents even if a child says they're Trans but not transitioning or distressed?

I'd really like some help clarifying this point as already the water is being muddied on this. By the teaching unions. Around how this is the same as telling a teacher you're gay etc.

I've been trying to think this through as a comparison:

If a teenager told a teacher he was gay but his family would disapprove, a teacher doesn't have to tell his family.

If however the teenager told a teacher he was gay and had an older boyfriend he was secretly meeting at the weekend, a teacher should tell the parents as there is a safeguarding concern and parents need to know.

If the teacher was worried about the parents reaction to the child they should make a safeguarding referral as well as informing the parents.

If the teacher thought the child was in imminent danger from the parent they should make an urgent safeguarding referral giving all information about the child's boyfriend and parents response.

So teachers are not required to 'out' gay or Trans kids but they are required to share information about children's well being with parents and make safeguarding referrals as required.

I really think we need to be crystal clear on these distinctions because the mob claiming children are put in danger if parents are told are going to erupt when this guidance comes out.

And not just crazies on twitter. The actual teaching unions.

I need to be clear in my response.

Any thoughts or guidance appreciated.

I'm still laughing at the implied 'I'd have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you feminists, now I have to dress even more 'femme' and wear more pink, you nazis - look at what you made me do'.

Honestly, wear what you like pal, men aren't ever invisible as the threat is always there, no matter what colour your skirt.

One thing I did notice with dd1 was that they had all worked themselves up. Thanks to all this so called " education and awareness " drive , the kids had all convinced themselves that because being gay will get you killed in one country they'd all end up dead or in the streets here too.

Keeping these secrets only confirms in the kids heads that they were right.when truth is most have perfectly loving family and are perfectly safe. And you know what, parents having concerns about what it means to have a gay or trans child doesn't automatically mean the child isn't lived or safe either. Parents are allowed to need a bit of time to get their head around it and to attempt to emphasise that there's more to life than defining yourself by who you are going to marry in 20 years time without that being a sign the kids are " unsafe" too.

Schools shouldn't be allowed to be setting themselves up as the only safe place and safe people when many kids are perfectly safe at home and those who aren't probably had issues way before sexuakity or trans status came into play. Schools have been conned by lobby groups into separating kids from their families.

But lots of children do grow up in homes where homosexuality is viewed as wrong.

Are we suggesting these parents are not fit to make safeguarding decisions about their children?

Good luck selling that to the Muslim community.

We seem to have confused disapproval with danger.

Your family disapproving of you being gay, may to us be very sad and difficult for a child, but it's not safeguarding unless you think the child is being harmed.

Then you refer. You don't keep secrets.

I'm.agreeing with you. No one im dds friendship group was unsafe but this is what they'd all worked themselves up with.

I also know a couple of people who do disagree but they would never throw their kids out or hurt them.

Schools are actively contributing to this sense of danger often in situations where its not the case and then using this as an excuse to keep parents out the loop. As you say there are protocols for when a child is genuinely unsafe akd it doesn't involve keeping secrets

I think you've summed it up clearly. Schools have to assess risk. Trans activist groups have spent years undermining safeguarding, telling teachers that this or that situation isn't a safeguarding issue. But that's not how safeguarding works. What may appear on the face of it insignificant will depend on other factors - age, SEN, vulnerability etc. It's the sharing information - initially in a school - that leads to decisions about what to share and who with.

What matters is that individual teachers don't make these decisions.
A child claiming they think they're the opposite sex is a sign of mental vulnerability and they will need qualified support. Is this social contagion / a passing fad? Or is this a mentally vulnerable child with a range of mental health issues that makes you think they're vulnerable. The safeguarding / pastoral lead may have more information about a family that leads them to refer externally, or may decide that, because the child discloses a level of risk parents need to be contacted in order to protect their child. No teacher should make these decisions alone.

No unions, trans lobby groups, politicians or anyone should be attempting to classify who or what situations schools do or don't talk to parents or Social Services about.

It's a complete breach of the core principles of safeguarding children & professionally dangerous.

I’m not a teacher and am intrigued is it common now for young people to be divulging their sexuality and discussing their weekend dating plans with teachers? When did this start becoming a thing?

Does that mean you should tell parents even if a child says they're Trans but not transitioning or distressed?

Do such children exist? Is there a cohort of children who are claiming a trans identity but who are not making any transitional changes, who are perfectly comfortable in their own skin, with their own name and with others using normal sex-based pronouns, and don’t require other people pander to their identity?

"Do such children exist? Is there a cohort of children who are claiming a trans identity but who are not making any transitional changes, who are perfectly comfortable in their own skin, with their own name and with others using normal sex-based pronouns, and don’t require other people pander to their identity?"

It's a mess of society's making by allowing adults with a vested interest in transitioning to gaslight children they may be born in the wrong body. Unwitting schools, activist teachers and bullying transactivist groups have undermined schools - weighing in on school policies like single sex changing rooms, sport, use of language, removing certain groups from safeguarding principles and so on.

Until we remove the influence of these groups from schools, especially from sex & relationships teaching, children will continue to lose out.

I agree with @MrsOvertonsWindow . Ten years or more ago I don’t believe many school children under the age of 13 or 14 routinely discussed their sexuality and certainly didn’t think they were “trans”.

It’s a huge mess.

Considering on another thread a lesbian is saying that it is up to schools to teach lesbians that they can indeed say no to girl dick and not be considered transphobic, I fucking hope the department of education is listening!

If you consider electing to wear more sun and skater dresses in place of jeans/combats and vests/t-shirts to be wearing a costume then that's your business, not mine. That's what 'femme' is largely taken to mean amongst my social group, given most of us wear the latter the vast majority of the time. They're...they're literally just...boring, banal, everyday clothes. Sometimes people respond to you differently depending on what you're wearing; if being misgendered is unpleasant or even dangerous for you, it makes sense to wear clothes that reduce the chance of that happening. There's really nothing else I have to say about this - I'm really sorry to disappoint, but clothes just aren't very interesting I'm afraid.

It's been made very clear to me over the last few years that anything I say on this forum about clothing, passing and dealing with minority stress will be leapt upon, distorted or deliberately misrepresented by a small but prolific subset of posters desperate to paint me as hyperbolic, narcissistic, fetishistic or irrational (pick one) in their attempts to conflate me with their image of an 'extreme trans activist'. Either we descend into excruciatingly tedious, circular and off-topic bouts of having to argue minutiae like this - and then I'm accused of being obsessed with whatever it is I've just spent several posts defending myself on - or we get straight to the personal insults and Zeno's Paradox 'whatever you are, it will always be framed as one drop away from pure so everything you say is invalid anyway' essentialism.

I'd really love to not have to face it anymore in order to have more interesting conversations, but I appreciate this board is rather target-starved. Hopefully we've gotten it out of our system now?

Back to the original topic - banning kids from socially transitioning without parental consent (and in some environments, at all) just doesn't seem practically workable, as the various boys who have taken to wearing skirts in violation of their school uniform code recently have demonstrated.

The language used is quite revealing - it must be obvious that it isn't workable and will cause huge friction and rebellion. It feels like this must be part of the point. It's clear at least some of the policymakers involved have bought into the 'social contagion' culture war angle and need to engage in a little performative 'step-taking' to address wider social panic over the terrifying reality that children will now inevitably discover that trans people exist while they are at school.

It's possible some are sincerely just trying to be cautious and aren't aware of how their messaging is being co-opted - I sympathise with this! I've long been a firm believer in the 'trans prime directive' and my family has purposefully not told my (extremely impressionable, school aged) young relatives about my own history. (They've never asked, and it's unlikely they ever would think to, given that the apparently laser-guided transdar that children possess has resoundingly failed to ping for both of them. Maybe I'll talk to them about it when they're older - hopefully we'll be living in a world where nobody gives a shit at all by then and it's a complete non-event of a conversation).

The genie is long, long out of the bottle, though - you can't realistically expect trans people to go away, and you can't make people forget what they know - but you can make sure they still grow up feeling shame and self-loathing.

This announcement seems very strategically timed - a very solid and convincing attempt to turn schools into even more of a battleground and force trans kids to go back to dealing with the constant background of minority stress that I grew up under; training them that they'll always be contentious outsiders at odds with authority.

It placates bigots who want 'official' backing for denying the truth about their kids, and emboldens bullies who end up doing part of the work for you. To really spice the pot, the masterstroke is to prime things with a liberal sprinkling of tut-bait headlines about cats. God, that's an old one - I remember the same thing being brought up by bullies when I was at school. It's devastating and extremely effective - I can personally attest to that!

Time will tell whether this is a water-test, a dead cat (ho ho ho) story, or something seriously intended to be implemented.

You're someone who treats women with contempt. You make that clear with every post. There's no need to say anything more than what you say yourself, Butterfly.

The language used is quite revealing - it must be obvious that it isn't workable and will cause huge friction and rebellion. It feels like this must be part of the point. It's clear at least some of the policymakers involved have bought into the 'social contagion' culture war angle and need to engage in a little performative 'step-taking' to address wider social panic over the terrifying reality that children will now inevitably discover that trans people exist while they are at school.

People can't possibly have neutral motives can they? It's always fake and a mask for what? Bigotry?

It placates bigots who want 'official' backing for denying the truth about their kids, and emboldens bullies who end up doing part of the work for you. To really spice the pot, the masterstroke is to prime things with a liberal sprinkling of tut-bait headlines about cats.

Ah yes there it is.

The framing of people as a bigot compulsion is the war footing adopted by who?

The number of people who give a shit about being called bigot is trending down exponentially to zero.

Let's see who is left shouting "bigot" once this is rolled out, as they are the bullies who have an incomprehensible version of the "truth" that we have all had ample time to consider, thanks very much.

The number of people who give a shit about being called bigot is trending down exponentially to zero.

It's just another ad hom argument. And we know what those signify.

"It's been made very clear to me over the last few years that anything I say on this forum about clothing, passing and dealing with minority stress will be leapt upon, distorted or deliberately misrepresented by a small but prolific subset of posters desperate to paint me as hyperbolic, narcissistic, fetishistic or irrational (pick one) in their attempts to conflate me with their image of an 'extreme trans activist'."

I think that your own words paint you as "hyperbolic, narcissistic, fetishistic or irrational (pick one)" and "an 'extreme trans activist'."

Who but an extreme trans activist advocates for children and teenagers to take hormone treatment that are now being recognised as being very harmful to both male and female bodies?

Who but an extreme trans activist insists on using female single sex spaces when they know and have been told many many times that this causes women and children distress? Particularly as there are well known male trans people who use the male toilets very safely.

No. I think that we just point out what you yourself show the readers on this board.

'Zeno's Paradox 'whatever you are, it will always be framed as one drop away from pure so everything you say is invalid anyway' essentialism.'

Humans have two sex categories. You can't move closer, or further away from, one or the other. We are mammals that are either male or female. You can't be a 'pure' or 'impure' male or female, and it's not terribly helpful to pretend that there's any kind of 'purity' involved in the dichotomous sexing of the species, tbh. It's a biological fact, not a moral argument.

"The language used is quite revealing - it must be obvious that it isn't workable and will cause huge friction and rebellion. It feels like this must be part of the point. It's clear at least some of the policymakers involved have bought into the 'social contagion' culture war angle and need to engage in a little performative 'step-taking' to address wider social panic over the terrifying reality that children will now inevitably discover that trans people exist while they are at school."

What language?

The guidelines have not been released? You are making your judgements on language from where?

“It's clear at least some of the policymakers involved have bought into the 'social contagion' culture war angle and need to engage in a little performative 'step-taking' to address wider social panic over the terrifying reality that children will now inevitably discover that trans people exist while they are at school."

Can you make your contempt for the young female people with trans identities any more clearer? Do you ever, ever think about what you write?

You have shown us clearly over the last years that YOU have NO idea about the young female transitioners. Yet here you are, yet again showing that discrimination. You don't seem to understand a thing about female tweens and teens. At all. Yet you mock the concept of 'social contagion' and the concept that children and teens need very careful care from clinicians and schools.

You have dismissed it all as 'social panic'.

Again, we don't have to twist your words or portray you as anything that you are not already showing readers of this thread. It is all you and your own attitudes and words.

By the way, up to 80% of children and teens desist by the end of puberty. Just for readers information. This misinformation of “the terrifying reality that children will now inevitably discover that trans people exist while they are at school" completely dismisses the facts that have been established.

Here's transwoman Blaire White on 'transgender children'.

'‘I believe there are some children who do experience gender dysphoria and a whole lot more now who think they are due to the internet, but in those children, it dissipates through puberty or post puberty up to 90% of the time,’'

That's just as well because your advice is useless.

"you can't realistically expect trans people to go away, and you can't make people forget what they know"

What do people know?

Please do present readers and posters with the evidence? No? Strange you have not yet been able to do so. So, tell us again, what do people know? Because it has become very apparent over the past two years that most of these policies have been written on the basis of no evidence at all.

"This announcement seems very strategically timed - a very solid and convincing attempt to turn schools into even more of a battleground and force trans kids to go back to dealing with the constant background of minority stress that I grew up under; training them that they'll always be contentious outsiders at odds with authority."

It has been timed because of the Cass Report.

https://cass.independent-review.uk/publications/interim-report/

Here it is. I suggest you read it. When it came out the government, the one currently in office on the basis of the UK populations democratic vote, that government, started to act on it.

How surprising that you have not made that connection? The reaction to the Cass Review.... Where the interim report discusses about social transitioning not being a 'neutral' act as it had been treated by so many people and organisations and the report that discusses female young trans people and the complete lack of worthwhile knowledge about them and how treatment works with them.

"training them that they'll always be contentious outsiders at odds with authority."

And fuck! you wonder why people tell you just how hyperbolic your posts are.

Do you ever wonder why lobby groups such as Stonewall and Mermaids continue to use such scare tactics in their communications? To create that very division you are discussing.

That is the emotional manipulation that is happening, and it is happening from trans supportive groups and people.

Bigots

Yeah well, crack on with the hyperbole, polarisation, emotional manipulation, blaming, catastrophising and misogyny tactics. You might not be intending to use them, or it may be intentional, but they are there regardless. Every time you post in this way, more and more readers see the tactics clearly.

By the way Hatched, genuinely we will read any new evidence that you have found that contradicts Dr Hillary Cass' interim report.

Shall we bother waiting?

I can’t say I’ve come across the poster before but reading their posts wasn’t pleasant. They felt very dismissive of women.

Glad you can see what's happening and acknowledge it - a couple of years ago when I mentioned it here there was a lot of outright head-in-the-sand denial.

It's the other way around though isn't it. It's men who use a mode of dress they call "traditionally femme" who have called feminists here "reactionary". Anyone here disputing that label didn't have their head in the sand, they were trying to get EVERYONE to listen.

Left wing, right wing, middle of the road, we are all male, female and parents. Everyone should be listening. The fact you haven't managed to shut people up by calling them bigots and reactionary is because of the facts. Not your politics.

Reacting to this crock of shit with the word no is the sanest thing possible for EVERYONE.

Traditionally femme my arse, and being ticked off for being a bad feminist by someone using that, well that's the laugh for today.

"Glad you can see what's happening and acknowledge it - a couple of years ago when I mentioned it here there was a lot of outright head-in-the-sand denial."

Are we back to trying to make 'guilt by association' or 'alignment' attempts to either discredit or blame women who have been speaking out?

It really isn't that hard to understand. Women get silenced and told no debate have to go mainstream to break through the misogynistic 'no debate' mantra hold. When women have been talking for long enough, and the new reports filter through of the over reach by lobby groups and the reports of harm to women and children, mainstream media picks up the stories. Sports, male prisoners who demand access to female prisons, sex offences, detransitioners are now being reported when once they were not. Then more people read and use their critical thinking to analyse what has happened.

Then more media coverage as the message the women are communicating, 'that sometimes sex matters and humans can not change sex' and that 'women and girls have unique needs that have been ignored in new policies and law', gets picked up and hey, the majority of the world's population agree.

Then, I will repeat it since my context post is pages back now, groups who have different motivations start their own campaigns that are not feminist campaigns.

Yet, here we have a poster who is determined to blame feminists for speaking up by the wording of their posts. I don't believe any poster on this board who was a regular denied that there are other groups campaigning.

I believe you have mistakenly believed we were denying they were also campaigning when we were telling you very fucking bluntly that we were not aligned.

Again, it is not a hard concept to grasp. Just because a group wants a similar outcome, doesn't mean they are 'allies' or 'aligned'.