Gender insanity in Scottish schools

[lcakethereforeIam]

Just noticed this in the Telegraph

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/05/28/scottish-secondary-schools-allow-children-self-identify/

https://archive.ph/2SwXv to get you o'er the paywall

My job sometimes involves surveying schools. In one primary is a Pride display complete with LGBT rainbow gnome and posters explaining "cis" and "trans". They really are trying to get them young.

At my kids’ Scottish school, it’s very clear that while it does exist, it’s individual teachers who spout it and it isn’t forced down everyone’s throat all the time. My DD has been told in a PSE/health lesson that a trans woman is just as much a woman as any other. She told me that with some eye rolling. But it’s not forced from the top. I think the head/SLT are quite cautious and have rowed back a bit from a few years ago when they made more of a thing about it. They called one parent I know to tell her her child was identifying as non-binary in school, so they seem to care about the not keeping secrets thing.

There have been parents who’ve brought the issues to their attention quite early on, and it blew up in the local press that they were teaching nonsense, and I think they did listen. From what I understand, trans-iding students go to separate single toilets and my DD hasn’t encountered males in the girls toilets (she’d freak out if she did as she’s had bad experiences with male harassment).

My older DC told me the “gender kids” have their own clique but people generally ignore them and think they’re silly. I wouldn’t condone any bullying at all and I think those kids need support, but I also think it’s good that the others seem to not be being brainwashed with unevidenced ideas.

I’m sure it depends a lot on who’s at the top or making decisions, and whether they are signing up to ideological advice and input from charities and outside groups, and whether they have clubs that encourage kids to think they might be trans, and whether they have policies that encourage it. For example if you say trans girls and anyone NB can go in the girls toilets and changing rooms, not only are there some males there who genuinely think they are (and that’s bad enough for the girls) but also some boys will abuse that and it will become a big problem.

It’s also noticeable that every girl I’ve known of who’s identified as NB or a boy, has wanted to be with the girls for toilets, changing rooms and school trips. That’s been respected because of course the schools know they are safer that way.

I'm sorry about everything that has happened to you @rogdmum , I've read a lot of your posts about what George Watson's did to you and the family. There was another poster too who had also gone through something similar (on a different thread I think on Scotsnet). It's shocking. The articles in the paper about your child and all that went on just made me so sad and also angry (and a little scared for my ASN child due to start school). I'm sorry there are posters trying to deny it, that must be really frustrating for you. X💐

@MrsWhattery what year is your child in.

@INeedAPensieve i agree with all you have said and feel so much for @rogdmum

It was raised at a parent meeting at our school a few of months ago. Half the parents present spoke of how their children had been bullied because of it and their friends had been too - all of them bullied because they either did not conform to GI requests or because made a mistake in demanded pronouns. I had to ask that the minute of the meeting be amended because the person taking the minute had changed this to say parents had reported children were bullied due to being trans - a complete reversal of what they had said.

Eastcoastie older one has now left school and one in s2.

Education is devolved to Scot Gov but i would like to see my local MP standing up for the rights of young girls and putting pressure on scot gov. I will go along to the local hustings and want to ask the candidates a question regarding gender, the cass report, and how trans ideology is taught in schools. Can anyone help me come up with a good question? There is so much to cover i am struggling to get one simple hard hitting question!

I would try and make it locally relevant so it can’t be dismissed as a theoretical and unnecessary concern.

This is not frothing hyperbole at all.
In our council the guidance is not guidance it was voted in as policy.
It also doesn't only apply to secondary schools it applies yo primary schools too.
My husband and I had a meeting last week with our primary headteacher and the council person responsible for the school and rolling out the guidance.
Our child has three of the vulnerabilities discussed in Cass review as being high amongst the clients of gender clinics. We asked if our child asked to identify as opposite sex by changing pronouns and name would they let us know and they clearly stated they would not as this was policy. They cited the equality act and the PC of gender reassignment to support their reason for this. They were unable to answer how correct safeguarding is being applied here especially in light of what the cass review has revealed.
With regards to teaching about transgender they said this was necessary as it's a word that's out there. I asked where the lesson on gender critical is as that's also out there. This was met with silence.
Their very cold and unyielding position was that the guidance is legal, on line with equality act and is Council policy so they are acting correctly.
We're considering our next steps to be, make a formal complaint to the council and also wrote to Mps.
It's exhausting and time consuming. Previous attempt by another mum some time ago to engage other parents on the issue was met with the expected back lash of implied accusations of transphobia. I'm thinking of trying again with this report from for women scotland and in light of the cass review as parent power is the only thing that the council may listen to but there's an amount of opposition amonst parents and even more passivity.

This ‘guidance’ needs to go to judicial review. Many many parents would support it but it would take someone brave to step up to that (if it involved a child identity should be protected by the courts but even so).

Yes it does need review. Womens groups have been fighting this for years in Scotland. They're making more headway than I can alone. I expected the answers I got but it's still shocking to hear ot come from the person who in the same breath proports to have my child's best interests at heart.

Its like they're using Scotland as some sort of social experiment to show the damage gender beliefs do without impacting the rest of the uk.

Christianity wasn't even taught when I was at primary in the 80s and my children absolutely see it as no different than any other religion, it's been a long time since it was taught as fact across Scotland, there might be the odd teacher saying these things, but it's hardly a curriculum issue. The guidance says "some people believe this, some believe that, some believe none of it," which is all we are asking for in GI guidance.

My children's primary school was caught up in a frenzy of pronouns for a year or so - interestingly a lot of those trying to escalate things for attention (gender fluid, so keeping people on their toes, the "it," trying to be called pupself, the stupid shit) dropped it discretely on going to high school. There were still 4 trans kids going up from the single cohort though. My DS also has a classmate that started school as a boy (is really a girl) and is essentially stealth, so I don't know if the school even know the truth - the paperwork can't be relied upon as these parents lie through their teeth.

I do believe, as is the way with social contagion, that there will be plenty of schools with none of it and a number of schools where it is endemic. This distribution almost proves it's a social contagion - it just spreads faster with the internet than in the old days when hysterical fainting or some such was confined to a single school.

Yes I understand social contagion in a way but it's far beyond that here. It's an SNP council. People are being told what to believe and even if they don't fully understand the belief they don't understand the implications of that belief enough to go against it. So if it doesn't affect them personally they go along with the be kind and what harm can it do mantra.

And sometimes they do understand it and are too far along the way personally to turn back .

It's definitely more than 1% of students in the school I teach at. Not one in each class though - more like some classes with no one and then some with 2 or 3 students who have either changed their name or asked for pronouns that differ from their sex. I find the they/them ones hardest to remember.