Radio 4 12 noon Fri 8/12 - Trans kids and school

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001t304

Could be interesting, could be disappointing.

Who is the presenter? Doesn’t sound exactly impartial…..

Adam Fleming.

It’s Adam Fleming; he also does the BBC Newscast pod.

He’s quite TWAW. There was an earlier episode of Antisocial that was about the trans issue generally and it was very pro-trans.

For a presenter at the trans captured BBC I thought he did OK. He did challenge Stephanie with stupid gotcha points while Cleo was never challenged about why Cleo or Gendered Intelligence are so determined to set other people's children on this one way pathway but a lot of complexities were aired (imho)

Yes, I've listened to all of the trans and free speech episodes of AntiSocial and that was actually the best in terms of engaging both sides.

Only heard the first few minutes but as soon as I heard that Stephanie was one of the invited experts I breathed a sigh of relief. She is so good, always clear, always measured. As ever, a voice-only debate proves very useful for illustrating that TWANW.

Stephanie did a great job. Assured and calmly spoken throughout.

Yes, usually very lop-sided.....

I heard from the point hannah barnes was finishing. This was pretty good. Yes Adam quibbled stephanie but let cleo keep conflating gay and trans (Adam did that too at one point) but it was a proper discussion. I think people would gave learnt alot.

I actually disagreed a bit with Stephanie on telling parents. Cleo's gotcha worked in that by sticking to the line that every parent must be told if their child id's as trans, stephanie ended up agreeing that even if the parents would beat the kid up they should be informed. Of course the point is that if you think parents will beat up a kid then that's a major safety issue regardless of the cause & needs escalating. The response shouldn't be 'well let's just not tell them and hope for the best', but telling the parents something that will make them increase the abuse while simultaneously ringing up social services isn't a good plan either.

But it was good to hear these different views put forward and explored. There was some common ground, but I fear it might have been on the more superficial and general things like it's important to support children.

The other lit will nit like it because there was only one trans activist on. Even the bloke from the head teachers org wasn't a full on gender loon.

I did make a complaint obvious bias on that programme some time ago....it is horrendously 'woke' in the manner of Radio 4 and the BBC more generally, these days.

That was much better than I'd expected. A proper debate. And clearly Cleo had nothing to put forward as an argument.

I'm not sure Stephanie did agree that schools should still tell parents their child was trans even if it would endanger the child - rather that that would trigger an immediate safeguarding referral - as the child is already in danger?

I actually disagreed a bit with Stephanie on telling parents. Cleo's gotcha worked in that by sticking to the line that every parent must be told if their child id's as trans, stephanie ended up agreeing that even if the parents would beat the kid up they should be informed. Of course the point is that if you think parents will beat up a kid then that's a major safety issue regardless of the cause & needs escalating. The response shouldn't be 'well let's just not tell them and hope for the best', but telling the parents something that will make them increase the abuse while simultaneously ringing up social services isn't a good plan either.

Yes. To me one possible solution would be to have a default that parent(s) is(are) told but if the teacher has safeguarding concerns they have to go through a process with a body outside the school in which they're obliged to put on the record an arguable case with evidence and that body can, in justifable cases, permit the school to not inform the parent(s).

"I actually disagreed a bit with Stephanie on telling parents. Cleo's gotcha worked in that by sticking to the line that every parent must be told if their child id's as trans, stephanie ended up agreeing that even if the parents would beat the kid up they should be informed. Of course the point is that if you think parents will beat up a kid then that's a major safety issue regardless of the cause & needs escalating. The response shouldn't be 'well let's just not tell them and hope for the best', but telling the parents something that will make them increase the abuse while simultaneously ringing up social services isn't a good plan either".

It's a shame that there wasn't enough time to explore this further as of course schools deal with this issue day in, day out. The issue of what is disclosed to parents comes under safeguarding, not the demands of transactivists like Cleo.
It is a difficult fact that parents (even the most horrendously abusive) are always involved in the safeguarding process until the courts remove their rights. Safeguarding depends on transparency - if you don't confront parents with what is going wrong, nothing changes. It's complex and frustrating when transactivists use this for their own ends. Very little is kept secret from parents by Social Services, the police etc. What matters is that schools don't listen to the likes of Gendered Intelligence using the homophobia of Section 28 as a cover to insist that teachers and transactivists can transition children in secret. If parents are a threat to any child, then safeguarding is the route they must go down.

Just started listening now. I’m surprised to hear Cleo stumbling over a definition given they are representing/head of a trans organisation.

Cross posted with @nauticant . That's what schools do - consult with other agencies where they've concerns about a child's safety and make decisions about what to do with others.

This issue is no different and it's a shame that schools have been deskilled by transactivists into believing that it's somehow magically different.

Was that the definition of "gender dysphoria" BettyFilous? Not only was there the stumbling but the version arrived at seemed like an umbrella definition that the majority of people could elect to be within.

nauticant · Today 12:42

Cleo said Gender Intelligence has huge experience of safeguarding.

Well, that's true, they've had years of trying to persuade teachers to ignore it entirely.

He had a very sneering tone when addressing Stephanie, and kept jumping on her points before she'd finished making them, in a way he didn't with the other speaker.

A bloke sticking up for another bloke,imagine that.

I found him pretty good- I’m not convinced he’s TWAW.

He always seems to have experts that back up the facts rather than the feels. Cleo was pretty lonely in her position, it seemed.

I didn’t hear it all and was driving but generally sensible I thought.

Re not informing the parents of a child with ASD and poor mental health - how the hell can a parent make suitable healthcare provision for their child’s complex needs if the school withholds information?

Any child exploring transition has a complex health need, which may be comorbid with others, and needs parent input. Parents may have relevant information not known at school, for example any DSDs, family members with health issues, or history of trauma.

Just listened to this now.

Overall, some helpful points raised. I was particularly glad when Stephanie told Cleo (towards the end) to stop conflating identifying as transgender with being gay.

One angle that I'd like to hear more of is that the idea that "we all have a gender identity" is a belief, not a fact. Stephanie is great but even at the beginning she said that it was important that children were given a chance to explore their gender identity. I'd suggest it's just as important that schools are helped to recognise that this is a belief - that it shouldn't be just accepted that a child would be exploring their gender identity as a matter of course or a standard adolescent rite of passage. It's perfectly normal for children to explore their sexual orientation as a matter of course during adolescence but this is a completely different thing. Who we are attracted to has no bearing on how we perceive our own physical bodies. Instead, schools should be given support to understand the difference between belief and fact, and then how to handle situations where a child believes that they are trapped in the wrong body. The difference between the belief that we all have an innate gender identity and the fact that there are two sexes is key to all of this.

Yeah, that’s the only bit I heard and it just highlighted to me how daft the whole thing is - trying to retrofit a definition to something, and trying to explain something that has more holes in it than a sieve.

I don't think Stephanie said that it was important that children were given a chance to explore their gender identity. She said 'identity', IIRC. It would probably have been better to talk about personality, given the possibility for confusion here.

I do wish Cleo had been challenged more on the conflation of T with LGB. This is very recent indeed and Section 28 was about homosexuality, not gender identity.

I don't have previous knowledge of Stephanie but her history as identifying as a boy until her early 20's then accepting herself as an adult woman really puts all of the pressure for early transition into context

Also like the way that although the more high profile cases are the boys transitioning to girls she highlighted the huge rise in girls to boys

Thanks for this thread. By chance I heard a bit of it and was surprised that the BBC was even allowing a debate ie that there is more than one groups point. And heard a legal person explaining why it infringes people's right to insist they use preferred gender pronouns etc..

So sounds like the programme wasn't perfect, but maybe a sign of there being a bit of a chink on the BBC being an exclusive TRA platform.