Plan to let children change gender at school a 'political disaster' - row has broken out within the Government

[IwantToRetire]

So many speculative articles about this which have become threads so thought I would add this one.

Do you think they are re-writing it each day as further revelations appear in news papers?

Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, is facing a backlash from Conservative MPs and figures in Downing Street and the Equalities Office over plans to allow pupils to choose their own pronouns if their parents give consent.

Mrs Keegan pledges to make the considerations of parents central to the proposals.
She said: “At its heart will be parents, ensuring their voices are central to decisions being made about their child in school.”

“Department for Education officials have attended too many Stonewall meetings and think social transition is acceptable. It isn’t. These are children dealing with serious changes and doctors should be involved. The guidance will reflect that.” Another source said it would be a “political disaster” if the guidance was not strengthened.

It is understood that the guidance will say that schools must consider the needs of other children in the school and must be convinced it is in the child’s best interest before affirming a new gender identity. It will also say that nobody should be compelled to use a pupil’s preferred pronouns if they don’t want to.

DfE is expected to meet with Downing Street officials next week to review the planned guidance.

Mark Lehain, head of education at the Centre for Policy Studies, said: “Confirming that parents must give permission for social transitioning in school would be a helpful clarification, as it most definitely should not happen without this.

“However, it’s essential that the guidance also makes it clear that schools should not do this if they do not feel it’s in the best interests of the child, or that other underlying issues need exploring first.”

It's another Telegraph article (just how many have they written?) which you can read in full at https://uk.style.yahoo.com/tory-backlash-children-set-gain-150444837.html

If you look underneath articles about cat girls & the bullying teacher, it's evident that parents have finally asked their kids about this & many of them have said "yes, there's a kid who identifies as......" And parents have gone ballistic! Unlike teachers caught up in the intimidation from the queer theory activists, parents know this is wrong /delusional / dangerous.
Schools allowing this, transitioning children in secret etc is such a moral and legal fail that I'm not surprised the Heads' unions are in denial. Of course it's a minority of schools and children with species ID. But there shouldn't be any!

Is the sensible way to go. I won't hold my breath though.

I just read this from the article and had the same thought:

"Mark Lehain, head of education at the Centre for Policy Studies, said: “Confirming that parents must give permission for social transitioning in school would be a helpful clarification, as it most definitely should not happen without this.
“However, it’s essential that the guidance also makes it clear that schools should not do this if they do not feel it’s in the best interests of the child, or that other underlying issues need exploring first.”"

It's time it stopped. Full stop. The number of cases where this will genuinely need to happen and be in the child's best interest will be vanishingly small.

Schools with activist teachers will just conclude it's in the child's best interests every time.

@ValancyRedfern well these activity teachers are starting to meet their match with critically thinking, activist children so I'd say they will be watching their step going forward.

The Cass review and the new NHS guidance are not helpful here.

Cass just says not a neutral act, that doesn't mean it's a negative act, it could be judged to be positive and in the child's interest.

The new NHS guidance says social transition is ultimately the decision of the parent and child.

So parents can socially transition their child.

The question is how do schools respond? Do they use preferred pronouns and let them use sex segragated facilities?

I think it's pronouns and compelled speech which is going to be the sticking point in schools.

I understand what you're saying, but to my reading, it is relevant. If it's not a neutral act, then a school participating in a social transition are actively taking action to one side of a contentious and political issue. And that's a major sticking point, like teaching alternative ideology as fact. To be truly inclusive, schools cannot be biased and cannot take sides. Neither can the police or the NHS.

This is the first layer of the massive can of worms marked 'undoing political capture'.

It's not a neutral act means they have to make a decision in the best interests of the child.

The NHS guidance say it's a parental decision (they should seek clinical guidance but they don't have to.)

So we have parents who can legally socially transition children asking schools to support it.

It puts schools in a very difficult position and really will reveal the head teachers beliefs on this issue.

In reality what will social transition in school mean? A change of name. Fine.
Seperate changing area. Fine.
Change of pronouns. All kinds of messy because we hit compelled speech.

Until the clinicians say social transition harms children so parents can't do it the government and schools have to find a way of dealing with the phenomenon of parents who socially transition their child.

Of course if Cass and the NHS had said social transition is harmful we'd have had a situation of safeguarding and social care involvement with lots of families who are choosing this.

Would we be advocating children be removed from parents who persist in socially transitioning an 8year old? Do we have good enough evidence this causes harm?
Presumably no. So what do schools do with the children of these parents?

They really are. I can’t quite believe how perfectly it showed coercion plus I just thought these actions from young girls cuts through dinosaur and shrill rhetoric from Labour

They’re 13 and the letter from 14 year olds. And likely more to come if it doesn’t change

MalagaNights I don’t see so much of a problem with this. There are plenty of things that children are allowed to do at home which they aren’t allowed to do at school. I use pet names for my kids at home, but obviously teachers use their given name, or a shortened version of it; kids wear what they like at home, but uniform in school etc. There is no reason why schools have to ‘recognise an identity’ - any policy in that direction could be changed.

And others not just Labour. Even some women defer to middle aged men over middle aged women

Harder when it’s straight from students

All the ‘culture war’, ‘moral panic’ rubbish falls away.

They don’t want to be compelled, it’s simply that

I’m really glad if the government’s position on this is changing (as per OP quotes) because that means they are giving this proper consideration & having a proper discussion. That’s been missing almost everywhere (except here!) and hopefully GK is updating her views as she gets to see some of the implications

Like everything else in this debate, one of the most difficult things to overcome is that the situation has already progressed so far without scrutiny that undoing it is now incredibly challenging.

I read the last two paragraphs in the article. Several posters have already quoted them, but I will do so again.

’Mark Lehain, head of education at the Centre for Policy Studies, said: “Confirming that parents must give permission for social transitioning in school would be a helpful clarification, as it most definitely should not happen without this.
’“However, it’s essential that the guidance also makes it clear that schools should not do this if they do not feel it’s in the best interests of the child, or that other underlying issues need exploring first.”’

The lack of clarity is doubly represented here. I don’t even know, in the second paragraph, whether the “should not do this” means schools should not consult parents if it’s not in the child’s interest, or that schools should not aid children in transitioning, even if parents want it, if it’s not in the child’s interest.

Much as I understand the sentiment of the MP who doesn’t feel they should dictate to parents, originally this would have been a medical issue, before it went rogue, and I think schools guidance needs to return to that as a model. It can’t be the school’s decision as it’s obvious that isn’t working.

Of course there will then be justifiable anger over waiting lists, but that is a separate problem.

One days their names will be remembered as being instrumental in sorting out this mess. Courageous indeed. Heroines of the 21st century women’s movement, and of freedom of thought and speech. Revealers of the truth. Shining light in the darkness.

The children calling out the Emperor’s nakedness.

All good and very difficult questions.

But I'd say it was more around to what extent should a school participate in supporting a social transition - which is not a neutral act, which may in fact lock in a transition ending in regretted significant medical and surgical harm, for a child who may have chosen to desist. Which is an act of bias and of participation in a path that is questionable as possibly actively harmful.

The identify as a cat/unicorn/dragon/elf/klingon/star fleet officer thing has clarified it all really. Those things are welcome to take place among friends and outside of learning time, but cannot come into the classroom.

Uniforms can be gender neutral, it's fine for all to identify as they like out of school with parental permission and choice, but no pronouns other than those used by friends in personal time at the friends' choice. Sex based facilities. The name the child was registered at school with.

I predict waiting lists won’t be too much of an issue once the power is taken away.

If children no longer have power over adults, and can no longer compel the speech of their peers, access the spaces of the opposite sex or get special treatment and attention for joining the sacred caste, if parents can no longer get extra social capital and special recognition for having a “trans” child I think we will see many fewer declaring themselves as the opposite sex or no sex in the first place.

It really comes down to what parents can ask schools to go along with:

So they can change their child's name.
They can ask for their child to wear the any uniform.
They can't ask for their child to use the changing rooms of they're identified sex.

So what beyond this is social transition in school?
Pronouns are the sticking point as far as I can see.

I agree with this.

Jordan Peterson describes these teachers as having a low intelligence, being narcissistic and sadistic, he believes governments should imprison them.

I agree, the Rye Collage teacher will be behaving that way over everything in classrooms for years and there are many like her in every school. Her colleagues, her husband and children will be suffering, so they should be safeguarded from these teachers too. They are not up to the job of working with the vulnerable. We are better off education wide, nations mental health wide, retention and recruitment wise to screen personality disorders out before investing in training DBS staff, removing trip hazard humans, as the Tory builder said in the biological sex Westminster debate.

many have teachers passionately invested in all this crap they've been fed, very invested in being progressive and virtue signalling and meeting their own needs using the children caught up in this, who believe they are righteous and on a crusade against evil non believers. The fanaticism will have to be addressed. And training provided that balances all that they have been trained in up to this point, including how law and policy has been intentionally misrepresented to manipulate them into furthering a political lobby's agenda.

I think, whatever the government say here, on the ground there will still be a fudge.

All the teachers who are currently in favour of social transitioning will probably carry on regardless, though complaints from other students and parents would gain a lot more traction if it was definitively not supported by those in power.

I expect there has always been some leeway for name changes. If I child tells the teacher they prefer a shortened version of their name or use of a second name, wouldn’t the teacher often comply?

It’s really important that it is made clear that children cannot use opposite sex facilities and that other children should never be compelled to use inappropriate pronouns. With the latter, again it’s much less complicated if nobody uses inappropriate pronouns and everyone reverts to using sex based pronouns, in class at least.

I am glad this is finally being discussed properly. As @Froodwithatowel says, ”This is the first layer of the massive can of worms marked 'undoing political capture'.”

If they get this right, I think it will become a huge turning point in the UK.

Nice middle ways aren't possible to protect children's and other people's rights from this agenda. Any more than it's possible to let only the nice men with Lyla Moran checked souls into the women's single sex facilities.

Moran has appointed herself a Gnostic priestess as Starmer has appointed himself a Gnostic priest. We shouldn't have to follow their religious beliefs.

These people in schools, charities, NHS ect, Jordan Peterson calls them the devouring mother, that's why they are like the Stepmother in Grim tales - removing parental responsibility without court orders.

They are like domestic abusers (or they have no children of their own) and become terrorists as DV is not enough any more.

Parliament should be looking at MPs with a history of DV.

The Peter Pan, Pansexual, Gnostic priestess wants others to follow the leader or else! Woman in woman!

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/comment/layla-moran-lib-dems-domestic-violence-273416

These activist teaching staff have elected themselves as qualified professional mental health clinicians able to diagnose a condition that doesn’t exist in any clinical texts, and identify an intervention that is considered to have major psychotherapeutic impact.

For clarity, they’re not diagnosing Gender Dysphoria and any comorbidities. They are in essence affirming an Anorexic child that they’re fat.

And no one can stop them 🤷‍♂️

The media need to make these Gnostics a nationwide laughing stock!

James Kirkup did a great job of ridiculing Moron looking into souls.

https://newdiscourses.com/2023/01/gnosticism-modern-and-postmodern/#:~:text=Gnosticism%20is%20one%20of%20the%20ancient%20%E2%80%9CEsoteric%E2%80%9D%20religions,the%20Woke%20phenomenon%2C%20Marxism%2C%20and%20all%20the%20rest.

Really what does social transition mean?

Parents can dress their child and give them whatever name they like. These are just social conventions.

What they must not be able to do is make everyone agree they are now a boy/girl.

Pronouns are going to be the sticking point because it'll be argued they are just another social convention, but they're not because they require something from other people.

Jordan Peterson identified compelled speech as the central issue in the Trans issue when he first spoke up years ago and I think as we unravel all this he's going to be proved to be right.

Compelled speech is going to be the issue.