12 year old referred to Prevent fir saying ‘I’m gay not queer’ and ‘there’s only 2 genders’

[SamW98]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13581155/Boy-12-referred-counter-extremist-Prevent-officers-school-declaring-two-genders-Im-gay-not-queer.html

And also having far right terrorist views apparently - he’s a kid ffs a gay Jewish kid being bullied - is this what the counter-extremism police are really supposed to be dealing with?

If someone at school was worried about how he was presenting they were duty bound to report.

Oh give it up with your massive avoidance of the problem.

The boy was being bullied.

The school could have stepped and stopped the bullying.

Being isolated and unsupported because of bullying HAS NOTHING WHAT SO EVER with a young person identifying with a terrorist group.

If your reading of Prevent is that it is to criminalise the victim of bullying you have clearly shows that Prevent isn't fit for purpose.

Please dont tell me you work in education.

This is so mind numbingly depressing that anyone could construe what was happening to him was "radicalisation".

HE WAS BEING BULLIED.

Please quote the relevant part of the approved education guidelines on who children who are being bullied should be supported.

We don't know whether the bullies were also reported to Prevent.

So you mean the school is doubly incompetent.

Not only can they not protect a child being bullied, that cant address the issue of bullying in the school.

And even if, as said in the article, some of the bullying was about the boy being Jewish, than that is antisemitism. Whether anti semitism or some other racism, is not what Prevent is about.

@IwantToRetire I bow to your superior knowledge. All I had to go on was the link posted on here, but you have so much detail at your disposal you are obviously closely involved in the case. Can you share how? I understand that you might be constrained by the need for confidentiality.

Kids who have been bullied can be prime candidates for being at risk of radicalisation and extremism.

It can obviously cause isolation, low self esteem, anger, sense of injustice, confusion and grievance.

Nobody's saying that bullying is right, but it's true that victims can change their behaviour, withdraw, turn to groups who appear to understand them and look for meaning elsewhere.

You're gonna need some aspirin after that stretch.

Yet the NSPCC (and multiple other reputable and accountable sources) agree.

See also their messages regarding the average adult not waiting until they're certain of risk and schools having a duty under the Counter Terrorism and Security Act to identify vulnerable young people and help PREVENT them being drawn in.

Prevent training is not fit for purpose. I know one boy who has a German father, British mother, whose school referred him to Prevent for singing a 1930s German song (nothing to do with Nazis) that he had heard in a viral TikTok. The schools attitude was horrific.

@TicklishLemur I don't think saying you want a terrorist organisation wiped off the face of the map is extreme. I've said exactly the same thing about Hamas. After what they did to those women last year (and continue to do to the ones held captive,) I think they are utterly evil. I'm not Jewish, btw. I have all the sympathy in the world for the innocent Palestinians caught in the crossfire, but Hamas can do one.

Prevent is aimed at children. Most of the time the intervention they do is for a good reason. If he's having far right views etc then that's exactly what prevent is for. To try and educate kids before they actively do bad stuff, as they said, after 13 they have more freedom and more criminal responsibility. So it's good to try and nip it in the bud.

If knowing that humans come in 2 - and only 2 - sexes makes someone far right, then the whole world is far right.

This is a new low in policing. Harass a child for stating simple facts, and ignore the bullies who have been piling on with antisemitic abuse.
I’d like to think the police officers involved in this feel ashamed.

Doesn't it come down to, was he referred to Prevent for saying ‘I’m gay not queer’ and ‘there’s only 2 genders’ or for having far right terrorist views? If for the former, that's disgraceful, and if for the latter, as PP have said, it doesn't seem unreasonable coming from a young Jewish kid. He's clearly not a proto-terrorist.

What far right views though? The only whiff of 'far right' in that article is the behaviour of the Nazi-saluting bullies.

The article states that the boy was reported and interrogated because said he's gay not 'queer' and 'there are only 2 genders', as anyone is entitled to believe and express.

The police 'raised concerns that he harboured extremist views' because he, a Jewish boy, said he'd like to see a proscribed terrorist group wiped out.

They questioned his 'unhealthy interest in weapons' because he played with a wooden toy crossbow that shoots flimsy wooden sticks with foam tips as far as one can spit.

If any of that is far right, then I best get reporting my old sex-ed and biology teachers to Prevent. Plus my parents for the toys they bought us. And myself for hoping to see the end of a terrorist group.

Schools really do so little about bullying these days. Then when victims react. By video in this case they can vilify and place equal blame. The prevent thing is terrifying. Perhaps 1984 just had the date wrong. Give it another decade.

Schools really do so little about bullying these days.

Did they ever? When I went to school, bullying used to be primarily regarded as 'character-building', in my memory. And I'm not saying I went to a 'rough' or violent school, far from it.

From my experience of 42-54 years ago, school was like a mild version of prison (hear me out). If you're getting picked on you are really expected to fight for yourself by both inmates/pupils and screws/teachers. If you do complain instead of fighting back the authority figures will do something perfunctory to address it but the persecution will resume and it will be all the worse for "grassing".

The only thing that stops it is if your peers have a personal fear of you, based on being willing to return the violence and punish insults.

I thought he was referred to Prevent due to his anti Hamas comments? Which is more understandable than being referred to an anti terrorist organisation for being gender critical. Obviously there’s a big argument that stating that a terrorist organisation should be wiped out isn’t an extreme view but they probably want to ensure he’s not anti Palestine or anti Muslim 🤷🏻‍♀️

and yes the antisemitism by the other kids should be dealt with.

That’s true actually. It was regarded as character building for me in the 80s. We were told to hit back though, stand up for yourself. Nowadays they are told they must not hit back and to tell teachers but when they do nothing happens. They spent months telling the children about their rights but do nothing to protect those rights. It’s no wonder so many young people are so stressed these days.

And what has any of that to do with a boy stating the simple fact that there are two sexes, and that he doesn't want to be referred to by the slur "queer"? That's only terrorism in TRA land, where making oneself off-limits to anyone is considered a crime.

The school didn’t know how to handle this without pissing off a couple of activists so they bumped it off to Prevent.

Its shameful.

This kind of fuckery is what makes people radical. He didn’t say anything wrong.

I'd be prepared to give Prevent the benefit of the doubt although I'll caveat that by admitting I'm relatively ignorant of the organisation. People report all sorts of stupid stuff to the 'authorities', there are loads of articles about insane 999 calls for example. Prevent would be open for criticism on what they did following what was reported to them. If he was reported as an incipient far right terrorist, set on a genocide of Muslims I could understand why they'd need to speak to him.

But the school....!

Absolutely. Hamas are classed as a terrorist organisation in this country. Of course this boy would hate a group which murdered and tortured so many innocent people simply because they were Jewish. He didn’t say he wanted to wipe Palestinians out, which would be a totally different matter. How dare the police call him a terrorist for that? Meanwhile just a few months back a police officer told a Jewish man he had to leave the area where a pro Palestine rally was taking place as him being ‘openly Jewish’ (i.e. wearing a skullcap) was provocative.

@TicklishLemur Well that's insane. The rise of anti Semitism in this country is getting scary. I've read posts on here from Jewish Mumsnetters who are taking about leaving the UK, or have already left, when once upon a time we welcomed Jewish people. Even Oliver Cromwell allowed Jewish people to settle in Britain, and obviously during WW2 we helped them escape the Nazis. It makes me feel very uneasy.

It has to do with it that those things are reason enough to refer to Prevent. It's to support children who present worryingly. Some of the comments or opinions are not reasons themselves, just part of lazy journalism or the bigger picture.

Just like if I saw bruises, I'd refer to DSL. They might be just from sport. But they might be from parental abuse. And he might have three goldfish, but it's not the point or why I'm acting as I am. I think something might be wrong, so I pass it on.