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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Do you know what a furry is mummy?

170 replies

FridayForever · 13/03/2024 19:22

Asked my ten year old.

She proceeded to tell me it's where adults pretend to be animals and they'd played it at school cos they thought it was funny.

How do you explain to a child without much concept of sexuality what a fetish is? And that it's not the same as kids pretending to be animals, which is of course perfectly normal play.

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16
Gibs0nGirl · 14/03/2024 18:55

AdamRyan · 14/03/2024 18:36

It's like a hamsterwheel

Your experience is that your DD told you that a kid visited the school who demanded to be treated like a cat and ate out of a bowl like an animal (or something). I believe she told you that

I don't believe it actually happened though, because its a well known hoax. Knowing teens, its more likely she passed on some rubbish a friend of a friend told her definitely happened.

I'm not credulous enough to believe my children when they tell me about hoax stories ("my mate Charlie saw the killer clowns in weston with a knife coming after him and he had to run away!")

I certainly don't go and report them as "fact" on the Internet.

In any case though, even if the child did do that (which would be extremely unlikely on a school visit, given teenagers are wired to get almost painfully embarassed if they stand out at all) I still don't understand why this has resulted in people jumping to there's an epidemic of schools letting children identify as cats which needs to be stamped out.

Anecdote isn't evidence.

And conspiracy theories are harmful.

I think you severely misunderstand what's cool with teenagers.

Trans is cool, being a furry is pretty rife, these things are part of the normal conversation at high school. Kids change their names with monotonous regularity, sometimes to a noun or inanimate object to reflect their special special specialness and lack of being, you know, bound by the conventions of science and nature.

Again - just because it's outside your experience doesn't mean none of it is real.

AdamRyan · 14/03/2024 20:21

"What's cool with teenagers" is irrelevant.
It's a well known hoax to claim kids are identifying as animals

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-columnists/arid-41173435.html

This is a great article

I was told that they’d not heard about it again [children identifying as cats at school] save for a few teachers expressing confusion and anger that totally unsourced rumours had forced them to answer the stupidest questions they’d ever encountered in long educational careers.

......

A full seven days after the first school’s statement, GB News declared, “Woke madness spreads as pupil now tells teacher they identify as a fox”.
The world’s stupidest meme had become fully enmeshed in the nostrils of Britain’s culture war beast.
So let us speak as adults. The meme’s origins are in it being spread, deliberately and knowingly, by conservative organisations seeking to block proposed protections for trans students in American public schools, and to dupe gullible parents into thinking that any school that would teach their students that trans people are worthy of respect, would also tolerate — in fact, tacitly encourage — people identifying as animals.
Any clear analysis must avoid viewing this entirely depressing episode as a breakdown in critical faculties on the part of the British press.

Séamas O'Reilly: The 'kids identifying as cats' hoax is one of malice, not stupidity

"...my familiarity with this meme goes back a little further - I’ve been hearing of the litter box hoax for years, and my initial feeling was to be quite tickled it had made its way to somewhere I knew in real life..."

https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-columnists/arid-41173435.html

Gibs0nGirl · 14/03/2024 20:35

Great 👍🏻

And yet...

swimsong · 14/03/2024 20:52

MrsOvertonsWindow · 13/03/2024 20:54

When this came up last year it was dismissed by the Association of School Leaders and countless others as "nothing to see here", not happening, fake news.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12213579/How-schools-allowing-kids-identify-cats-horses-dinosaurs.html

Children & young people are really being failed in some schools of this is allowed to happen.

Yeah, I'm gonna go with the Association of School Leaders over The Daily Mail and Christian Concern, thanks.

Boombatty · 14/03/2024 22:08

AdamRyan · 14/03/2024 18:36

It's like a hamsterwheel

Your experience is that your DD told you that a kid visited the school who demanded to be treated like a cat and ate out of a bowl like an animal (or something). I believe she told you that

I don't believe it actually happened though, because its a well known hoax. Knowing teens, its more likely she passed on some rubbish a friend of a friend told her definitely happened.

I'm not credulous enough to believe my children when they tell me about hoax stories ("my mate Charlie saw the killer clowns in weston with a knife coming after him and he had to run away!")

I certainly don't go and report them as "fact" on the Internet.

In any case though, even if the child did do that (which would be extremely unlikely on a school visit, given teenagers are wired to get almost painfully embarassed if they stand out at all) I still don't understand why this has resulted in people jumping to there's an epidemic of schools letting children identify as cats which needs to be stamped out.

Anecdote isn't evidence.

And conspiracy theories are harmful.

My daughter isn't a liar. She had no idea that people might identify as a dog. Which is why she was so shocked when she saw it happening.

My friends and neighbours are not liars either. And neither are all their children. And neither are all the people in my local Facebook group.

You can post as many conspiracy theory links as you want. It is happening.

Zyq · 14/03/2024 23:16

duc748 · 13/03/2024 22:28

So no point in having uniform rules, if you're not going to enforce them? When I was at school, a long time ago, there used to be a phrase you don't hear much these days: in loco parentis. Schools have, first and foremost, a safeguarding responsibility for children.

What on earth has safeguarding go to do with uniform rules? Are you going to accuse all those schools in Europe that don't have uniform rules of failing to safeguard the pupils?

swimsong · 14/03/2024 23:55

And neither are all the people in my local Facebook group.

😅

ViciousCurrentBun · 15/03/2024 00:18

Can I just ask looking at a couple of posters and also that link is all this kicking off more in the South East? or is it countrywide.

AdamRyan · 15/03/2024 09:00

Boombatty · 14/03/2024 22:08

My daughter isn't a liar. She had no idea that people might identify as a dog. Which is why she was so shocked when she saw it happening.

My friends and neighbours are not liars either. And neither are all their children. And neither are all the people in my local Facebook group.

You can post as many conspiracy theory links as you want. It is happening.

Show quote history

Yes. And increasingly people are being abducted by aliens too. I saw it on Facebook.

OneBigShenanigan · 15/03/2024 09:03

You sound less like Mr Serious Rigorous Scientist Man now @AdamRyan and more just...a bit of a tool.

AdamRyan · 15/03/2024 09:05

😂

Sorry. I am just amazed by the conspiracies.
I'll stop if someone finds me direct evidence of a child identifying as an animal at school with schools support.

I'm not a man BTW so that's showing your gender bias that you assume I am

OneBigShenanigan · 15/03/2024 09:10

Ok well I'll ask my daughter to take a photo of the cat girl in her class shall I?

Oh no wait...

crunchermuncher · 15/03/2024 14:54

nauticant · 14/03/2024 17:26

How can it be very new when completely non-biased scientists have found non-binary Vikings?

How did they know that the Vikings in question were non binary, as they aren't around to tell us?

You can't have a non binary skeleton - it's male or female. I'd be interested to learn more about this.

nauticant · 15/03/2024 15:57

They used special new science to make this irrefutable discovery:

https://www.genzher.org/digitalmagazine/the-prescence-of-non-binary-vikings-in-viking-societies

duc748 · 15/03/2024 16:39

Lagertha, shield-maidens, etc etc. Don't these people watch the telly? 😃

PonyPatter44 · 15/03/2024 17:54

nauticant · 15/03/2024 15:57

They used special new science to make this irrefutable discovery:

https://www.genzher.org/digitalmagazine/the-prescence-of-non-binary-vikings-in-viking-societies

It's not brilliantly researched, is it? One decent academic paper, a thing on Klinefelters Syndrome and some stuff about Loki. Rigorous it is not.

crunchermuncher · 16/03/2024 09:15

nauticant · 15/03/2024 16:21

Cor, I'm loving the extra science in here! Cheers for the link @nauticant .

This reads like a bad A level essay.

First red flag:

" we studied ancient DNA (aDNA) from the skeletal remains to infer the chromosomal sex of the individual."

Definitions from Oxford Languages:
infer- verb
deduce or conclude (something) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.

One doesn't need to "infer" from specific test results. You can infer from what you know of the world that the sun will rise tomorrow. You don't infer that it's sunny right now if you look out and see the sun, you observe it.

Also "Some recent studies suggest that brains produce personality, cognition, and behaviour similarly regardless of chromosomal sex"
No, really? Quick, phone the Department of stating the bleeding obvious! Behaviour and personality aren't caused by sex!

Also "brains produce cognition" - no they don't, they carry out the process of cognition.

"The binary division of sexes is arguably rooted in a modern, western mindset"

Psst, 2 sexes is how humans reproduce, its got nothing to do with a 'modern mindset'. Sex stereotypes, that's another matter entirely. The two concepts are not the same thing. Someone send these people back to retake GCSE biology. And maybe reading comprehension.

They seem to be saying that behaviour isn't determined by sex - whoda thunk it? But then they go on to say because the subject seems to have had
XXY chromosomes (a male with Klinefelter syndrome), that means they must have been non binary. Why? Where is their evidence that
XXY chromosomes are
expressed as a non binary gender? And what do they mean by "gender"? A good writer defines their terms.

This seems like more co opting of the existence of chromosomal differences to support a belief in gender ideology.

I don't think the authors demonstrate much understanding of what words mean, which means I don't have much hope of their research making sense.

Also, I have swords and I know how to use them. Does that make me not a woman?

No. No it doesn't.

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