Is it possible to be a feminist and also have some empathy for transgender people today?

[HoundOfTheBasketballs]

I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert here but everything feels incredibly polarised. Like, either you’re with us or you’re against us.
Is there no middle ground in this debate?
I am, and always have been a feminist, but I know and like people who are trans and non-binary. I can’t be the only person feeling confused and conflicted, can I?

I'm trying to ascertain exactly which aspect of the classroom interaction was problematic, in your view, so that I can give a full response to a fellow professional.

Never mind.

Saying things to be disruptive, disrespectful.

Oh for goodness sake. Everything described is kids being cheeky and disrespectful.

You don't need to as all the comments were disrespectful

Erm, you are just playing dumb now

Why am I playing dumb? These are real neo pronouns that are used by trans identified people

So boys claiming to be she/her girls because of how they think, which many women and girls find mocking, reductive, sexist and offensive, is totally fine and in fact endorsed by schools, but boys claiming to be ze/zim is mocking and disruptive?

Got it. Women and girls' feelings when their sex and language are appropriated as a metaphor or crutch for men and boys' emotional needs - not important. Women and girls are boring, everyday, ten a penny, who cares right?

Trans and neogender people's feelings when their gender and language are appropriated and mocked - super important. Fragile rare creatures who must be protected at all costs.

Is that about the size of it?

But the person saying them is being in appropriate.

Everything? Including the boy who was concerned that I'd said "Ladies and gentlemen"?

Which pupils were being disruptive and/or disrespectful?

ETA I see that you've now said that it was all of them. That's not actually something that you can judge unless you were witness to the tone and body language and aware of the full context.

We all know this is an utter misrepresentation of what's being discussed here. I'm out and leaving this ridiculous parallel universe some of you are creating on this thread. I assume you are different parents/carers/persons from those who love their children being sent to isolation for forgetting a pen.

Your last sentence really doesn't make sense.

I note, by the way, that you have skilfully avoiding explaining what you mean when you say "mocking gender".

I guess that that will just have to remain a mystery.

You consider that something some boys said is mocking the excesses of genderist performances and rituals. Actually I agree.

I am pointing out that the pronoun performance they are mocking, which is based on the belief that sex based language should reflect how one positions oneself in relation to sexist stereotypes, is in itself deeply sexist and offensive to many women, and I am highlighting the disparity between women and girls being expected to suck that up while protection is given to the feelings of those who are insulting and belittling them by appropriating their inescapable sex-based reality as a metaphor or crutch for something men feel.

I do not consider that a misrepresentation at all.

Everyone else can read the thread and draw their own conclusions.

We're discussing rules here - it started off being laws of the land and the discussion has moved into school rules.

Rules need to be specific.

You can't Just hand wave requests for specific examples with 'they were all being disrespectful and disruptive'.

What people want to understand (and what I as a parent would want to understand) is what, precisely, are kids allowed to do and what will they be sanctioned for. Because I would not be happy with a school that sanctions kids purely for a belief in biology.

That is why we need specifics.
. You can't speak to the contents of someone's mind and assert that they 'just are' being disruptive. Kids need to know what is allowed and what isn't (especially any with neurodiversity, like mine).

If you can't be specific, it sounds very much like your rules don't work in practice.

Ah, so you can't tell. One person's neo pronouns are genuine and another's is mockery.

Don't tell me, let me guess. it's about tone!

Meanwhile, in real school, my 12 yr old DS was told off by a male RE teacher because he'd put JKR at the top of a " Good person " list ( exercise was good, neutral and bad people) because, according to the teacher, she'd made a series of transphobic tweets on Twitter, and how would the trans students at their school feel? There are no trans students in his class, or year.

Non-binary is the key to equality. Non-binary (to me) means not conforming to the gender binary, it’s a rejection of gender stereotypes. As such, we need more of it.

So much of the toxic TRA argument hinges on the conformity to gender stereotypes. Every man that puts on a dress & make up, a wig (or grows their hair long) and claims to be a woman, to be ‘living as a woman’ is actually just conforming to a gender stereotype. A dress and make up don’t make the testosterone & penis magically disappear, under that dress they are still physically, biologically male.

Same goes for women who wear trousers, cut their hair short, stop wearing make up, they are still biologically female, they are just not conforming to the gender stereotype that is considered female. They are not men.

I do accept that there are some people with dysmorphia so acute that psychotherapy alone doesn’t help, and these are the people that sex change surgeries were intended for.

Self-ID doesn’t change your sex. It may mean you are free to wear anything you like, irrespective of your biology, but it doesn’t change biology. I’m so tired of people confusing sex and gender, and so done with gender as a whole.

My social media is full of outraged emotional posts about supporting trans rights, and I don’t know how to respond. I’m almost scared to respond. I feel like I’m in limbo.

Good god! I hope complaints were made. How dare he tell your son who he can judge as a good person or not.

Was your DS given the opportunity to outline what JKR has done for charity?

Did the teacher give any examples of the "transphobic tweets"?

I think they were given a " good" and "bad" thing about each person, her charity work was mentioned. No example of the " transphobic tweets" though. This is Cornwall, ideologically captured at county level, they produced the Trans Student Handbook , circa 2012, and his school hosted a Trans Youth conference ( out of school time). My son knows exactly what JKR tweeted, unfortunately all the other children probably believe the teacher's nonsense.

I have a relative through marriage who won't let her daughters cut their hair short, in case their schoolmates think that they're trans. They're at primary school.

In the meantime, both their great-aunts have short hair and the daughters seem to have no difficulty in realising that they are in fact women.

In my final permanent post, the girls who temporarily became trans were those who came up to secondary school with short hair.

40 yrs ago, no one blinked at a girl with short hair in the classroom. Nowadays, I'm seeing girls coming in with what I would term full evening make-up including fake lashes, fake nails...I could have wept when one girl said that she get ups at 5 in the morning to do her hair and make-up.

I feel so sorry for girls nowadays.

You would think that non binary would be the way to go. But non-binary is as part of the + part of LBGT+ as any of the other identities. They take the identity as part of the edgy, cool part of being in the rainbow family, not because they reject gender.

In fact, according to Wikipedia: "Non-binary people may identify as an intermediate or separate third gender,[6] identify with more than one gender[7][8] or no gender, or have a fluctuating gender identity." So these people often switch gender ID - one minute they are male, then female.

Most of the schools that I've worked in are now displaying the most recent LGBTQ+ flag. (I never moved around a lot when I was working full-time, but I'm now ancient and only on the supply list so I get around a bit more these days.)

This is a bit outing, but in my final permanent post, my remit included Multicultural Education. My HT changed that to Diversity.

I then discovered that he'd been castigated by a local councillor for not having LGTBQ+ posters displayed in the school corridors. He pointed out our neighbour school didn't display them either.

"Ah yes, but an exception is made for them." [It's the local Catholic school.]

@WearyAuldWumman it's difficult to find out where the pressure comes from and who is a true believer. I don't see our county backing down. We do at least have three choices of toilets at his school. Funniest thing was a girl refusing to use the Gender Neutral facilities because she isn't " A Gender Neutral ". Neither boys or girls want to use them, even when they're the nearest ones.

An exception is made for the Catholic school.

So they are acknowledging that belief in trans is a faith thing, presumably?