Article: Transgender guidance scrapped for NI primary schools

[UtopiaPlanitia]

Came across this interesting news this afternoon:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crggr1yyrezo

'Fiona McAnena is director of campaigns at the human rights charity Sex Matters, which campaigns to protect single-sex services.
She said the previous guidance was "encouraging children to take on board gender stereotypes and to use them to judge themselves and judge other people".

"That is not progressive," she told BBC News NI.

She welcomed the guidance being changed.'

Sounds good!

Tweet from the Nolan Show with a wee video clip from an interview with an Alliance party politician about RSHE in N Ireland:

https://x.com/StephenNolan/status/1803788540507046276

'Alliance Party need evidence before deciding on whether 3 year old knows whether they are trans'

Ah, the sound of a reversing ferret…

I went hunting in the BelTel & they’ve not published anything on it 🤔 but I did find an article that had me start a whole other thread…

Hopefully they’re working up a story as they’d a couple of bits earlier in the year about it 🤔

"young people become aware that their assigned birth sex is different from their gender identity between the ages of three and five"

Things my DC identified as between three and five years old:
A cat
pirate (with a black beard and eye patch)
A dinosaur
Jake from the Tweenies
"My own daddy"
Policeman
A jewel thief
Ballerina
And those are just the most memorable ones (involved costumes and voices and audience participation)

I can definitely see why we should always believe them when they tell us who they are. Anyhoo must go to boots now, need to pick up some new eye patches.

The TRAs have tried very hard (and with some success) to kick aside the idea that gender stereotypes are a problem that negatively impacts most women, many men and society as a whole. This for the sake of affirming the desire of (largely male coded, in terms of personality) trans women to be seen as "real" women.

Good to see that a growing number of public bodies are recognising the problems with turning the TRA's regressive, mysoginistic belief system into policy. Even amongst the children themselves there seems to be a move away from the fashion of being trans (which embraces gender stereotypes) to that of being non-binary (which rejects them).

Ultimately, the TRA position makes no sense. It says that biological sex is a social construct and that gender is innate, but that is clearly counter-factual. Gender is the social construct and biology is innate. Trying to reverse reality to pander to a small number of people with chronic, severe gender dysphoria looks crazy in retrospect. And of course many good people here saw it as crazy right from the start.

Plenty of future sociologists will write papers on this I'm sure. The way society treats children says a lot about that society, as children are often used as pawns in political conflicts. The Evangelical Christian Right in the US does this too, using the education system as a tool for censoring fact-based ideas and propagandising belief-based ones. Ironic how these two diametrically opposed US-originating movements both have such a big problem with facts.

I'll take the reverse ferret. I still won't trust Alliance to run anything other than a bath because of their behaviour towards members who bought up the issue. I remain bitterly politically homeless.

I bloody hope that ferret is in reverse gear so but the financial support from Ferring Pharma has to be considered when it comes to the Alliance.

And, sadly, I don’t see either Naomi Long or Stephen Farry coming into line with the Cass Report any time soon, despite Cass being one of those experts who can tell them that medicalising gender distress and social transition is a bad idea. Farry gets very sanctimonious when I hear him interviewed on the subject of gender ideology, he really loves telling off the rest of us unenlightened plebs 🙄

I’m with you, I honestly can’t understand why gender is the thing adults fixate on when it comes to children exploring their imagination as part of normal identity formation. Your DC sound like they had very lively imaginations ☺️

Couldn’t agree with you more 👏

And if non-binary wasn’t being medicalised with hormones and surgery I’d be more than happy for kids to play around with pronouns and fashion because gender bending was all the rage when I was growing up in the 70s/80s, even grunge in the 90s. And I like the idea of gender stereotypes being challenged in healthy/positive ways.

Me too, I’d dearly love to see Alliance being sensible (and if Im being honest, penitent for their behaviour towards GC members) on this issue.

I still have no idea what I’m doing on election day - the candidate list in my constituency is either gender borg or conservative Christians - there’s no way I’m voting for someone who believes in medicalisation for distressed kids or who can’t define or respect women. Those are the most important issues for me right now.

I feel exactly the same way @UtopiaPlanitia

Rights-hoarding dinosaurs can’t vote for people who don’t believe in dinosaurs so… I’d forgotten about Alliance being funded by ferrets Ferring (being on the mainland will do that to you, even when you’re A Good Wee Girl^ & try to keep up).

I’m in a sticky situation over here: the Tories may know what a woman is but they think people with disabilities actively deserve to struggle by in absolute penury (& have no compunction about repeating lies about the benefits system 🤨); Labour are making some of the right noises but I’d not trust them as far as I could throw the entire Party; the Lib Dem’s are in thrall to Big Blocker; & the Greens really should namechange to The Trans to ensure nobody mistakes them for a party of environmentalism. Another spoilt ballot looms I fear…

^my daddy’s cousin said so only the other day & thus it is clearly true

I have never been in the situation where I didn’t know what party would be best to vote for - I’ve never felt so disenchanted and disenfranchised in my life.

Maybe if Labour don’t get a whopping parliamentary majority they will be more likely to listen to GC backbenchers like Duffield and groups like LWD or Lesbian Labour etc or they may not be so gung ho about pushing through unpopular legislation. But that would depend on whether or not KS adopting the position of TWAW is ideological or adopted to attract voters.

I think labour are more likely to listen to the lib dems who will have more MPs and therefore more power in parliament. God help us.

Sorry to interrupt thread (I'm not in Ireland), but just had to jump in to ask as this stood out- Alliance party have had Ferring pharmaceuticals funding like the Lib Dems?

They have indeed - it was story in the newspapers over here in recent years. Ferring make interesting lobbying choices 🤔 The Alliance party are kind of like our local version of Lib Dems.

Long's defensiveness around not naming abusers has disappointed me. I brought it up on the doorstep with SF and they were very dismissive of my concerns, blaming Alliance outright for the debacle, saying the court has "fixed" that now and citing Cliff Richard.

I am not happy with any of our parties' stance on women's rights, but I will be voting regardless.

We never see canvassers around these parts so I haven’t had a chance to raise any issues with anyone in person.

I agree with both your points though - I think politicians in this country (both sides of the border) have a weird attitude to abuse and historical issues that are similar; too keen to sweep things under the banner of 'dealt with, no need to keep bringing it up'.

Edited to add: I think this attitude will be in full effect when the effects of puberty blocking kids finally erupts into a scandal.

It's been quiet here too. SF are the only ones who have called and PBP are the only ones who've leafleted so far.

Thanks Utopia.

I read somewhere recently, someone saying that the main link between Ferring and Lib Dems was more likely to do with EU support.
I'm not convinced that would be the whole story.
Curious what the thoughts were re Alliance and Ferring link was then.
But not wanting to derail- might go down my own rabbit hole on that!
(Watching Dopesick right now doesn't help!)

We never get callers, but we haven't even had a single leaflet so far.

Same here, nothing via letterbox or doorstep. There aren’t even the usual insane number of election posters up on lampposts as there usually are. I can’t figure out if it’s apathy or if the election date caught everyone on the hop and so they’re scrambling to get going 🤷‍♀️

As depressing as it is trying to find someone to vote for on the mainland, I'm really grateful to not be voting in Norn Iron any more.

I'd love Alliance to be sensible, and there are some good people in the party, but what are the odds of Long or Farry ever admitting they've got something wrong? I've dealt with both of them, and neither is particularly good at reverse ferreting.

SF, well apart from the historic issues with SF there's how they handled Mairia Cahill. And PBP is the Socialist Workers Party in a funny hat. I might put up with a party's TWAW stance if there are no better options, but I draw the line at actual rape defenders.

Oh Lord am I glad not to be scratching my head and wondering if my local DUP candidate is halfway rational...

It's interesting you saying that about Long and Farry because that's very much the vibe I get from them when I hear them interviewed on this issue. They're both evangelical on the issue and refuse to see any downsides to total affirmation of any identity anyone wants to have. And they're obnoxious on it when they're talking to members of the public; very condescending towards the plebs.

Based on comments various leaders have made: SF, Greens, PBP, SDLP are all genderborg; some UUP are and some aren't. DUP are all largely anti-genderism but not terribly on my wavelength on other issues.

The Tories aren't running candidates in every constituency in NI for this election as they would have in the past. And there aren't as many independent candidates in NI as there tend to be in UK and ROI.

This whole thing is a bloody nightmare and Rishi Sunak should have left it a while longer before he called for an election.

I forgot about TUV and Aontú standing candidates too - as far as I know both those parties are anti-genderism.

But, as with all elections, you have to work out which you won't vote for at all-at all and which you can hold your nose and vote for as an imperfect choice...🤷‍♀️