Pride in primary school

[Askingforafriend24]

Help me get my head around this. Primary school is making a huge deal about pride, and running a themed summer fair to celebrate. The whole school - kids and parents - are expected to get involved. Including an educational seminar for the parents that we are expected to attend!

I’ve been told point blank I am a dinosaur for questioning why there is such an emphasis on celebrating LGBTQ+ communities to a bunch of kids who probably don’t think about any of this stuff yet. There is already a carefully planned curriculum around all of this from the LA so I am confused as to why the school feels the need to go even further, particularly holding a massive event outside of school hours! I feel I have other things I would rather do with my Saturday morning, and I feel attending Pride events should be a choice for families to make for themselves.

One parent is no longer speaking to me because she was so horrified I even questioned the event - so hoping someone could come along with some advice.

Don’t get me started on sports day, when the kids all compete against each other (up until year 5) - which means the boys win pretty much everything and the girls come away empty handed. Again apparently I am ridiculous for daring to point out how unfair it is. Really fed up with it.

Yup that's all ok.

But the modern pride has evolved from that (gay couples have the same rights as anyone else, gay employees can sue if discriminated against, etc etc) so that the marches of the 80s (from when I remember) have worked.

You wouldn't have these events as 'family friendly' events (very very few kids would be at these - no gay person with kids that I knew ever took their kids).

Now I see more T and kink at rainbow events. I am seeing more men in skirts in ladies loos and changing areas (don't care what they do in the street). I used to go clubbing back in the day - and gay clubs were the place to go. You never met a man who said they were a woman. I was pally with a guy who would wear a red cocktail dress and glitzy jewellery. We used to chat about where we shopped.

I now see men taking advantage of the whole #bekind (and that's only the women, note - men aren't being kind are they?) to bully and intimidate women. Where I worked you it was an area - well close to Soho and several universities - women dressed like anime characters with they/them badges, men in mini sports and sparkles berating anyone who dares to look at them in full 'queen' mode (women and tourists mainly)...

Sadly the few old-school transvestites who you'd see disappeared (there were a few id recognise who would wander around, always alone, walking along in a world of their own). I often wonder what happened to the man I'd see in Selfridges in the lame mini skirt, the guy on Tottenham Court Road in the long red skirt, the man in the Indian trouser suit with the black wig...

So I'm asking - what is the point of pride? It's become like (American) Halloween in the summer. It's commercialised and constant. I'm fed up seeing flags and banners declaring that my local bank, supermarket and law firm is 'welcoming everyone' when it doesn't actually mean that.

The old pride was fun. It was for a cause. Yes other countries have anti gay laws but I don't see my ban refusing to swallow with Saudi. Some refuse to deal with Iran but that's only because America has decreed that the population should be punished for their government, so other international banks fall in line. Nothing to do with gay rights or women's rights.

Excuse typos - dropping kiddo off at a ‘thing’…

Chances are that after exposure to the Pride fest in a primary school every single child will be “questioning their sexuality” 🤬 every time they have a natural impulse to hold the hand of or hug a same-sex friend - which, as @ScrollingLeaves astutely points out above, is a very natural, instinctive and beautiful part of childhood development in making friends and showing affection, trust and happiness in having these close friends.

This is precisely why Pride has no place in primary schools. Children don’t need the adult perspective or conclusion that two girls or two boys holding hands and hugging = indication that the children are gay. Perhaps they will in their own time as they move through their teenage years realise that they are; perhaps they won’t. But this needs to come in their own time, at their own pace.

Adults need to stop imposing their perspective and agenda on children. As I said earlier in this thread, let them be children, let them work things out as they grow and develop, let them be. For God’s sake.

I'm not saying we should push Pride at all, but at the same time I don't want my children growing up believing heterosexuality is the "default" position.

Are they treating all other categories protected by the Equalities Act the same? Ask them when their neurodivergence fete is?

A lot of Pride events these days seem to be (accidentally?) encouraging homophobia by promoting gender rather than sex and so same-sex attraction is not even recognised. I would not want my child to be taught this tbh and certainly not at primary school. I want my child to know that homosexuality is absolutely fine.

Pride is about sexual attraction and gender ideology (mostly the latter these days). Neither of which are appropriate for primary school children. Pride events in school are pure Queer theory; they are seeking to dismantle society’s norms around sex. To dismantle the barriers between sex and children. Like reallocating Q to make it seem innocuous (though encouraging young children to question their sexuality is anything but), having Pride events in school strips away barriers to children attending mainstream Pride events.

@FrancescaContini I have two children who are now 16 & 10 who have celebrated Pride since they began school. I don't recognise your concerns and it isn't the lived experience amongst the parents of the school 🤷‍♀️

You don't seem to realise every child sees heterosexual "norms" every day everywhere. Pride in their school is family friendly they have been brought to the big march in Dublin. This hasn't given them any issues.

I fully acknowledge there will be adult only events in Pride. to be quite honest it's the horrific usually English hen nights behaviour that are troublesome in Dublin city during the day that would be on my radar more.

There are multiple events during the year to support other groups covered under the equality act but generally our experience is a big march like pride only suits some so we link in with the AsIAm walk in the forest and organise events with quite rooms etc.

They also do a week or two about invisible women in history. So yes they do pay the same attention while respecting what format is most appropriate.

They also do a week or two about invisible women in history. So yes they do pay the same attention while respecting what format is most appropriate.

🙄

What's the face for? It's an annual event in their school?

Because when we have a ‘woman’ anything you can bet your boots there will be men in there. It’s a fucking joke.

Eh no it doesn't, they do key events in history and learn about the women who weren't recorded in history. They learn about womens rights, they learnt about women's health issues discussed the cervical cancer scandal. Plenty of schools manage to do this. I am in the school system for over a decade.

Do they learn what trans is, yes. Have they learnt anything about a person history who was trans in women's week , no.

I find it difficult to imagine why people don't ask what are parents experience as opposed to being told what is happening. Because my lived reality isn't what it is proposed to be here.

Eh - because we are parents and we have friends and family who are parents and teachers…

Do they learn what trans is, yes. Have they learnt anything about a person history who was trans in women's week , no.
But there is no uncontested definition of what "trans" is so it is not enough to blithely say they learn what trans is. What definition are they using?

Do they learn what trans is, yes.

What do they teach them? Trans covers many things, including AGP, which isn't appropriate for children of primary school age.

It could be ‘some people just wear what they like!’ to ‘of you like blue you are a boy and in the wrong body’. It depends on who is telling…

Women are only worthy of consideration in an historical context? Bet that did involve flags and fun activities for encouraging the girls in school.

It would also be interesting to know how many of those ‘invisible women in history’ were breaking the gendered conventions of the day (all of them?) such that they are being posthumously trans by gender ideologues. In light of your ‘trans’ teaching how many girls would be led to believe an interest in stereotypically male pursuits and the more practical clothing needed to pursue those pursuits means they are ‘actually boys’?

Do they learn what trans is, yes.

Has your 16 year old learnt that some men experience sexual arousal when they think of themselves as their idea of a women and that transgressing women’s boundaries and requiring others to treat them as a woman heightens their arousal?

I dont believe children in primary school in ireland are being taught about the cervical cancer scandal.
It's far too complicated.

Show me one school having a parade for women or anything/ anyone else other than pride/ paddy's day.

Now that would be something. More kids are being assessed for neurodiversity than ever before. Dementia is on the rise with an aging population. Are hidden and visible disabilities less important or worthy of acceptance than who people love and how they identify?

See we actually had actual ‘inclusion’ in the 70s.

We had a little girl in our tiny primary school who was paralysed from the neck down. We had peoples grannies come and talk about being blind. We had old soldiers come in to tell us about the war. We had police come in and yell at us (yes they really did yell that we shouldn’t press crossing buttons unless we were crossing the road - that left an impression as I still remember that!).

hell we even had catholics (kidding not kidding this was Glasgow in the 70s).

I did get shit because my mum was English though.

But other people's "lived reality" (whatever that means) is different to yours. That is why people are voicing their concerns. Saying "I've not experienced that" doesn't mean that other people haven't. It's good to listen to other people's voices. It's also more inclusive amd diverse to listen to other people's voices than dismiss them because you haven't had the same experiences.

I find it interesting that often the people who push DEI initiatives are the least open to actual inclusively and diversity. They ironically think that their way of being inclusive is the ONLY way.

We are not worthy.

my ten year old would describe trans as someone who feels they were born in the wrong sex body.