Female-identifying student..

[ahfuser]

Women in STEM - ✅
"Female - identifying" ❌

So anyone who has an idea they feel female ... what for the day? Week?

Particularly galling as this seems to be a maths and science school.

Such clunky phrasing as well, own goal scored.

Girls ... girls is the word you are looking for Surrey maths school!

At least they've said women at the top and the bottom, but somehow can't manage to say 'year 10 girls' half way through.

When ds was applying to uni last year I looked through a website listing all the scholarships/bursaries students could apply for. Most of the ones aimed at girls/women included trans identifying men in their definition.

So depressing.

Female year 10 students is all it needed to say, if they felt that "girls" would exclude any trans or non binary identifying female children at schools. Is that a genuine concern though??

I’m concerned about the female students currently identifying a male, as usual they are being excluded in the name of diversity!
Just say year 10 female students surely that’s the group this course is trying to reach. Nothing to do with encouraging more penis-owners into science.

This is so annoying.
There may be a place for events which are for women or “female identifying” people.
But situations where biological women are actually disadvantaged or discriminated against is not one of them!!
This means places that are needed by girls can once again be given to boys (who don’t need them).

I think they are excluded from this course, they only want ‘female-identifying’ people to apply.
I’ve never identified as anything, my sex is female presumably people like me wouldn’t be wanted!

There's this thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5030324-ehrc-to-enforce-laws-for-single-sex-jobs-how-you-can-help

I know it's for single sex jobs, the EHRC seems to be finally waking up to this though. I think it's definitely worth reporting this type of nonsense too.

Female-identifying means cis girls (biological girls who identify as female) and transgirls (boys who identify as female). It excludes transboys (females who identify as male), girls who are non-binary, and girls who don’t have a gender identity but know damn well they are female due to their biology.

Not very inclusive.

Exactly!

Ugh.
My daughter is studying a STEM subject.
She's also caught up in the ideology.

The exemption for female only jobs is, I believe, a specific law that cannot be applied in non-work situations. Girl only courses and other single sex provision of services rely on different parts of the law.

But the courts have been clear that you can’t treat someone of one sex differently from those of the same sex just because they are trans (i.e. trans boys can’t be denied opportunities open to girls). So only allowing female identifying girls on a course and using wording that clearly excludes trans-boys and could well be taken to exclude non-binary girls would seem to be against the law. I suspect if asked they’d back down and allow any biological female to apply, but the wording of the ad is exclusionary.

I’m more concerned about a course supposedly intended to increase female participation in STEM being opened up to trans-girls. It wouldn’t take many trans girls to dominate the course and while women are very underrepresented in STEM, it’s not clear that trans women are (and if they are, that the things that hold them back are the things that hold biological women back). The flavour of this course could be very different from one that genuinely tried to increase participation of biological girls.

'Female identifying' excludes a whole heap of actual girls who don't have a gender identity. Is that legal?

My friend teaches STEM subjects in a school at GCSE and A level and has been very proud of increasing the proportion of female students taking her subjects except that so many of them now identify as trans it looks on paper like her success is not reflected. Depressing indeed.

My son is at another of the maths schools, King’s Maths School. They push this ideology in a very extreme way, along with a lot of other bad things. I would never let another child of mine go to one, especially not one of my daughters.

Ah fuck, seriously? The whole chain of them?

DD is mad keen to go to the one in Leeds as she is really into maths and science.

I did notice that the head teacher has pronouns in his email signature, but hoped it was just one of those well-meaning BeKind things rather than indicating full-on institutional/organisational capture.

I spoke recently to a recently retired university Physics lecturer who said that she had been profoundly depressed recently at the number of her female students identifying as boys/men.

Yes, as far as I understand the same people are behind all of them. They are modelled on a Soviet maths school, which I didn’t think much of before. But it makes sense now. Before we went I hoped it was just silly and misguided, but now that my son is there it seems more. I’m happy to speak to you further. I’ve also spoken to a former student who left Kings after a year because of the extreme indoctrination. They push everything, gender ideology, critical race theory, ‘sex positivity’, which includes wildly inappropriate class discussions led by the teachers on topics such as whether you should spit or swallow when someone ejaculates in your mouth, what sex acts you want to try and what you are going to do about it. They encourage students to change their gender at school and they hide it from the parents. Kings have a non binary teacher and a male teacher who wears a skirt and nail polish. I don’t know how bad the Leeds one is but I would never let a child of mine go to any of them.
i am very upset because I feel stuck now because if I complain too much they are likely to be vindictive and let it affect my son’s references for university, etc. The person who left was met with hostility when he voiced concerns, and treated differently after that.

Also, all the maths schools are modelled on King’s, which was the first one. The head and deputy head at Surrey are two women who were teachers at King’s and had the same ideology.

Thanks @PilarT - sounds awful and I am very concerned about this now! We went to their open day last year when DD was in Yr10, and were very impressed with the staff and pupils. Will be going again in a few weeks as DD needs to decide on her final shortlist of colleges to apply for. I'm going to be keeping an eagle-eye out for this stuff!

Yes, that’s good. Just to warn you, King’s do seem to deliberately hide it from parents. The list of clubs on their website doesn’t mention the DEI club, LGBTQIA+ club, etc, etc. They mentioned Personal Development lessons but just mentioned some examples of innocuous topics, etc. They of course didn’t mention their pronoun policy, I found out from seeing an email sent out to students after they joined with a form to fill in, inviting them to change their pronouns, and the form asked what pronouns do you want to be called at school, and what pronouns do you want us to use when communicating with your parents, etc.
Leeds may not be as bad, but yes - definitely try to look out for it.

This is really disturbing!

I was going to say that surely transing children behind their parents' backs is against the new schools KCSIE guidelines, but I realised I'm not sure whether it is in force?

Yes, also related to this ideology is the trend of adultifying children. Year 10 girls are very much not yet women!

See also the awful phrase "young adults" meaning teens. Nope, they are "older children". I'd accept "young adults" for 18-25yo but it's rarely used to mean that.

It might seem pedantic, it's just a word, but it's all part of this trend of letting children make lasting decisions for themselves, with serious consequences, when they're too young

Are trans women underrepresented in STEM? My unscientific impression would be that they are heavily overrepresented. The more a male has "nerdy" interests, the more likely he is to consider himself a woman.

Yes this. We live in a deprived area and many of the opportunities for women and girls are also open to men and boys who feel a bit feminine.

In the industry in which they are offered I can see how it might even help tip the balance between whether these boys (it generally attracts the more geeky, sensitive boys who may be on a less sure footing) might try on a change of identity.

This may be because it widens the access to grants that are on offer.

Putting a word in for the geeky sensitive boys who may feel a bit lost and would benefit from a group that doesn't revolve around sport etc. and would give them a mentor/role model that I feel so many young men need, I wonder if such wide access means there's even less available too then than there might otherwise be.