Heads should stop teachers allowing children to identify as cats, says No 10

[IwantToRetire]

The spokesman said that teachers should not teach “contested opinions as facts” and called for headteachers to intervene in extreme cases.

“It would not be right to comment on the actions of a specific individual or a specific school without knowing the full details, but we understand why these reports will be concerning for parents,” the spokesman said.

“In broad terms, teachers have a responsibility to encourage their students to engage respectfully with those they disagree with.

“They should also not be teaching contested opinions as fact, shutting down valid discussions and debates.

“It’s important parents and carers are reassured that children aren’t being influenced by personal views of those teaching them. Any example that strays from this would be wrong and we would expect headteachers to act.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/06/20/rye-college-children-neo-pronouns-cats-moons-rishi-sunak/

Unlike the headline the article makes it clear that a "spokesman" (how old fashioned and sexist shouldn't that be spokesperson?!) has said this so Sunak may or may not have a public opinion about this ...

But the Telegraph seems to be keen to keep the issue of self identifying on their front pages.

When I first heard about children doing this I thought (hoped) that it was younger children making fun of the trans generation, but seems not.

NB article is behind a paywall but can be read at https://archive.ph by entering the Telegraph URL above into the box.

(The cat in picture below looks very cross. Probably feels the same way GC women feel - outraged at the notion that some young human could in any way know or speak with experience based knowledge about being a cat!)

They are not marginalised, they have captured the centre. And are attempting to censor everyone else.

They are a minority that everyone would be more than happy to rub along with if they didnt insist that everybody had to think like them.

This is the issue.

They're insisting everyone has to identify with the opposite sex?

A high school in my town held an assembly this week as a year 8 child now identifies as a car and they wanted to make all the other children aware and discuss how to approach it.

I feel absolutely devastated for that child. I hope they are getting the mental health support they clearly very desperately need and not just being enabled :(

Car not a car sorry.

Omg!!! Autocorrect m even my phone can't believe it! CAT not a car!!

That should make the media happy.

So where did the cat come from? Why was someone mocked about a cat? I’m confused now as to what happened.

@midnightblue12 how is that possible? At 8 they don’t even have mobiles and TikTok or wherever these ideas spread.

I am certain that the Stonewall captured DfE would never have put out this statement if this was all fake:
‘It is completely inappropriate for schools to treat a pupil as an animal or inanimate object and it is important that parents are able to raise concerns with schools and that schools engage seriously and constructively.’

I'm sure that there's embarrassment in the (hopefully few) schools who have entertained this nonsense and that the children who have been pandered to with all this have been in meetings with their parents, and that tails, ears and water bowls removed. It should never have happened and it's shameful that any schools allowed this.

I'm not surprised the school involved are now denying this - I have no doubt that the vulnerable child has had a dreadful shock when her fantasy was challenged in such a public way and I've no doubt they're trying to support her.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12223999/Inside-world-furries-cat-pupils-dressing-whiskers-tails-school.html

I genuinely still don't get it and am not trying to be inflammatory. I know I'm in the minority on this post. If someone wants to identify as someone from the opposite sex, so what? What is a TRA?

I have only just seen this and am finding it hard to believe that someone is contributing to the Feminism and Women's Rights forum on mumsnet (rebranded as sex and gender) and wonders why other posters and challenging someone identifying as the opposite sex.

Seriously?

This forum is a space where posters can discuss the reality of women's sex based rights and assert that nobody can change sex, nor does "indentifying" mean that you have.

And that women are being oppressed and erased by this narrative that comes out of a misgynistic male analysis of the world (queer culture) and women are trying to stop this movement from getting any more of a stranglehold than it already has.

Nobody can change sex.

Nobody can change race.

And it is fundamentally wrong for schools to teach this, let alone punish those who dare to challenge it.

A TRA is a trans rights activists, more likely than not, to not actually be trans, but a died in the wool sexist male who is happy to ride along on the anti woman trans narrative as a way of "legitimately" attacking women.

The be kind agenda is what has lost women their rights, because in being kind the TRAs backed by the cock a hoop MRAs are using it to undermine women's rights and erasing women as a sex class that is oppressed by the sex class of men.

The cat part wasn’t made up it was in the recording

Have you listened?

I’ve asked my DD if she’d heard about this particular incident. She hadn’t. I asked her about furries. She said 3-4 in her year and about 7 in the year below. They wear cat ears and hiss at people and have to be addressed it/they/them.

Well, here we have the problem. These girls together with every other kid in the UK was taught until 5 mins ago that there are two sexes and gender was not even a consideration, other than civics/ethics in being good citizens however you wish to present.

Now, suddenly, and with no warning, activists and QUANGOs and teaching unions etc, have turned this on its head, with the kids bearing the brunt of expectations to deny basic biology and enforcement of a new ideology based on gender.

It's already a minefield, with Covid disruption, schools budgets cutbacks, social media toxicity and growing lack of boundaries.

And so, cat gender or no cat gender, the majority of kids are going to find this impossible to negotiate.

Fuck, the adults can't even manage it!

And hence the inevitable pushback, and likely the start of more.

Imho, if the govt and schools don't grasp this bull by the horns (or in 2023, maybe also by the udders), I can genuinely see a wave of dissent from kids and growing aggravated behaviour that will make this incident look like child's play.

She didn't randomlly pick on 2 girls. She tried to get 2 girls who were brave enough to assert the reality of biological sex and bully them for stating these facts.

You seem to have missed the bit where they upset another pupil (not on the recording so we don't know how), talked about people being crazy and mentally unwell, and agreed that if you're not cisgender you're weird.

They also recorded the conversation, uploaded it to TikTok, doxxed the teacher, and insulted her in the comments, so I'm not convinced that they're shining beacons of excellent behaviour.

The teacher isn't a shining beacon of excellent behaviour either, she behaved badly and shouldn't have said the things she did.

I don't see why this conversation has to be painted as pure good versus pure evil.

There is reference to identifying as cats.

It has been confirmed by someone in the class and by the school that no pupil actually identifies as a cat.

Honestly, I don't think they know what they mean.

I think it's obvious that the person who wrote the line about pupils who may be discovering their gender identity believes that it is something to be discovered.

Imagine that you have a gender identity. You have put on your list as a fact that some people believe they have a gender identity, so you're one of them, you have one.

Now your facts are:
Sex is binary - fact
You can't change sex - fact
Gender dysphoria exists - fact (and is when people's gender identity strongly clashes with their physical body)
Some people don't have a gender identity - fact - these people are agender
Etc.

If your starting point is that gender identity is a real thing, then your facts become different.

So when the government, who wrote that some pupils may be discovering their gender identity and recommended Stonewall said that pupils should be taught the facts, I don't think the matter of what to teach is decided by that.

I think it's obvious that the person who wrote the line about pupils who may be discovering their gender identity believes that it is something to be discovered.

Maybe, but I bet they don't know what the something is. No one seems able to describe it.

then your facts become different

Right, well if everyone can have their own facts then we might as well pack up and go home.

Thanks for explaining. I've obviously heard of trans right activist, just didn't know the acronym.
It was in 'active'. What is the MRA acronym?
What do you call a woman who thinks it's fine if someone identifies as someone of the opposite sex and doesn't think they should be ridiculed for it?

It's not pure good vs pure evil - it's an abuse of power by an adult in a senior position with responsibility for teaching these children PSHE! The others are 2 year 8 girls being called despicable, told to find another school and being gaslit with fake information. I know who I blame - and it's not the children.

In fact they were correct - if that girl was identifying as a cat - or something else - then she is mentally unwell and they're correct in calling out the school for the lack of intervention for a mentally unwell child.

I presume you're embarrassed as a teacher by all this noble? It is embarrassing - to see professionals gaslighting children, to see professionals pandering to a political lobby openly undermining safeguarding via demands for mixed sex changing rooms, dormitories, showers, sport. Perhaps worst of all, to see schools openly engaging in a social experiment, transitioning some children, often in secret from their parents with zero insight into the incalculable psychological damage they're doing to them

I know the government have failed to get a grip on this - but teachers also have a responsibility to maintain professional standards - and as the DfE has had to state - "It is completely inappropriate for schools to treat a pupil as an animal or inanimate object".
Teachers really should know this!

Certainly what you see depends on where you are standing.

Thank god I teach maths.

Thank god I teach maths.

Me too.

But I still know that there are only 2 sexes and not everyone has a gender identity.

I know the government have failed to get a grip on this - but teachers also have a responsibility to maintain professional standards - and as the DfE has had to state - "It is completely inappropriate for schools to treat a pupil as an animal or inanimate object".
Teachers really should know this!

In this case, there doesn't seem to be any pupil identifying as an animal or an inanimate object, let alone the school treating them as such.

If there are schools that are genuinely taking kids who think they are horses out for a canter, or feeding strips of meat to kids who think they are dinosaurs or whatever, then I will join you in head-in-hands FFS. But this isn't that.

Careful, you're now saying that some people do have a gender identity, rather than believes they have a gender identity.

@LadyWithLapdog I literally have no idea.
I am not part of the school but many of my friends are who said their children had to attend the assembly.
If my son were attending I would seriously worry about the impact that would have on him!

Careful, you're now saying that some people do have a gender identity, rather than believes they have a gender identity.

No problem. I think a gender identity is a belief about oneself.

back at ya.