The dreaded issue arose with my son…

[HeadAgainstWall0923]

Today my 9 year old son told me that boys can change to girls, and girls can change to boys, and they can choose whether to be a boy or a girl whenever they want.

When I asked him where he’d heard that he said he’d been told it at school.

I feel so disheartened.

To go off on a slight tangent here, indoctrinating children is on page 1 of the dystopian society playbook.

We see it in both 1984 (with children being encouraged to spy on and denounce their parents) and in The Handmaid's Tale. The first generation of handmaids who still remember the time before risk losing a hand if they are caught reading or writing; the second generation of handmaids are simply never taught to read and write.

It is utterly terrifying that this ideology is being allowed to spread unchecked in schools and that teachers are promoting it, and it is utterly terrifying that the police are also promoting it by treating things like photographing a sticker as a potential crime whilst doing nothing about women being harassed, threatened and assaulted by trans activists. We cannot fire the majority of teachers and the majority of the police to stop the rot. And those coming out of school and university today and looking for entry level positions in teaching and the police are even more likely to support and believe in this stuff.

So this is a really dangerous time, and parents need to be very clear to their children that whilst it is not OK to bully someone over their gender identity, the concept of girls becoming boys and vice versa, and gender in general, is antiscientific nonsense.

But would you ever suggest referring to the nun as 'father' and the priest as 'sister'? Who would care - you would still be showing respect by using the catholic lingo?

What? What? WHAT?

I honestly don't think I can cope with this stuff any more.

It's as if I'm experiencing the entire reorganisation of society around the beliefs of particularly stupid young earth creationists.

Absolutely

This is dystopian level indoctrination

Be clear and use biological facts

This is the dramatic tone I mean - no I don't want my female child to share a prison cell with a priest. Erm...

Personally I also believe you can't erase biological sex, I would oppose self-ID, I'm skeptical about the recent trend for more children to identify as trans, I'd be worried if my child did so and resistant to hormonal treatment etc.

The legal changes people are campaigning for would represent a fundamental unpinning of what constitutes a man or a woman, disconnecting it from biology. I disagree with that.

However despite all of that I would teach my child that people are out there who believe these things, because we live in the real world not a world that springs from my opinions. And the more you bang the table about these things, the more likely it is that your child will store that away as a fruitful area for teenage rebellion.

If that was all it was then no one would care. Trans people could crack on with whatever pronouns and hairstyles they like.

It's the safeguarding aspects that we are worried about.

Sexed pronouns are only in the third person in English, so only used to talk about a person (usually when they are absent), not to them. Expecting others to use specific language when you are not there is unreasonable.

Some names are unisex and others are used by different sexes depending on where the person is from.

If I dress in male clothing that doesn't mean I'm 'living as a man', it means I'm a woman wearing male clothing. If I have a 'male' haircut (what is a male haircut?) that makes me a woman with a 'male haircut', not a woman living as a man.

You seem to think that living as the opposite sex is all about stereotypes ( and policing other people's speech). This seems quite regressive.

You are witnessing exactly that

Society switching from sex division to gender

To the detriment of women and children

In the highly unlikely event that the catholic church ever embraces trans rights and allows religious brethren to transition and then switch between different religious communities, then yes I would ask my child to call them the appropriate title.

And what makes this different to a woman who doesn't wear 'dresses', has shorter hair and has a name that sounds 'masculine'. Pronouns?

Can you be very clear what difference pronouns makes in this case?

Remember, you are explaining this to a child who will go forth with this information and use it as a foundation to many of their life's decisions.

But they aren't legally recognised as "that gender" because gender isn't real. Someone with a gender recognition certificate is legally recognised as the opposite sex, because that is the only thing that actually exists in reality.

This has huge consequences for the rest of society, in particular for women, which have just been ignored.

realise that they aren’t happy being a boy/girl, and they choose to change

Except they can’t really change, can they? They can choose to present differently, but they can’t change their sex.

It is not " banging tables" to let the child know that nobody can really change sex; or that sex is important in certain circumstances.

And it is only responsible not to expect a child to have to conform to other people's private beliefs about themselves, and in contradiction to their own knowledge and instinct.

Gender identity is a private belief system that not everyone shares. Not everyone has a gender identity. Including children. You really think that suggesting to them that there is such a thing is a neutral position?

That is teaching children that cognitive dissonance is a healthy and normal state that we should do nothing to resolve.

That's a bit cheeky!

We've discussed why people used to think the Earth was flat and how that seemed a reasonable thing to believe at the time.

I would tell them the holocaust happened, I suppose I might explore why people would want to say it didn't happen, why people would have voted for Nazis and supported them in the first place.

I just don't believe in pretending that complexity and differences of opinion don't exist.

Do you believe that whether or not people can change sex is a matter of opinion?

I do hope I'm not banned for this...

"I’ve explained a couple of times how gender and sex and can be discussed with a child in the context of transgender people."

On this thread? You have repeatedly stated that people can legally change sex. But I have yet your explanations on how gender and sex can be discussed in the context of transgender people in any way that makes sense. Yes. Trans people exist. Sure. But you just keep doubling down on 'they live as the gender they wish to'.

Seriously. Apart from pronouns, what do you mean other than someone who fully subscribes to gendered stereotypes and insists that others comply to a belief system.

That is not what I meant and you must surely know that.

Not everyone belives in gender identity and it is disrespectful to expect them to go along with the use of pronouns and the suggestion that 'he' is really a 'she'.

Especially children. That is not teaching them to respect other people - but to go along with falsehoods.

I’m not into stereotypes. My son has long hair (his choice), my daughter wears mostly her brother’s handoffs because it’s cheaper and I find trousers more suitable for play than skirts/dresses.

That said, the whole trans topic is very complicated and sensitive. I’m not trans. I don’t know how it would feel to want to live as a man as opposed to a woman. I don’t know if I feel particularly “womanly”.

But I appreciate that this is how some people feel, and from my conversations with them and observations of them, would say that the things I’ve mentioned are what overall build gender identity (plus in some cases hormone treatments and or surgical modifications). People should do their own research into why people transition and what gender means to them if they want to learn more.

Re. Gender and sex definitions - I have the normal understandings of each term and use them accordingly.

Is your position here that you would refer to members of the Catholic Church using the titles they use for themselves if, and only if, the Catholic Church recognises the existence, identity and rights of trans people?

Because if that's the deal I think it would be entirely legitimate to say I will refer to trans people as being the gender they identify with if, and only if, the trans rights lobby recognises the existence, identity and rights of female people, including to have a word for themselves and some since sex spaces and sports which all male people agree to respect and not take for themselves, regardless of how they identify.

I am not catholic. And while I would teach my child that people who are part of the Catholic Church will call a priest 'father', I would also teach my child that that priest is not their father.

It is not healthy in the slightest to encourage children to believe they are a boy if they are a girl and vice versa.

I have not once in this thread stated someone can change their sex legally. Read more carefully.

What I did say:

”OP, you are entirely right in that you cannot change biological sex. That means that women who transition to trans men won’t produce sperm. Naturally, trans women don’t have wombs. etc.

What is possible, is that people choose to live as a different gender and they can legally change their gender. So they’d look like a woman (if they were born a man) and legally speaking they’d be a woman. However, very few people feel so sad/uncomfortable the way they are so this is very rare. Changing is very difficult, takes time and people have to be sure before they change.

This is the type of thing you can explain to your son.”

Changing your legal gender means changing your legal sex.

We know this because the gender recognition act uses the words "male" and "female".

It can't mean anything else because gender isn't real.

No-one is suggesting it’s good to encourage a child to think they should change their gender.