MHFA England - captured?

[soontobeconfirmed]

Currently on MHFA England training. It started off badly with the clearly female trainer introducing herself with her pronouns (she/her), she then introduced a case study using the term "cis" which I find highly offence. A later case study focused on a person called "Lou". During the feedback a participant used the pronoun "she". The trainer told her off for misgendering twice and stated that the case study had been deliberately designed to be a trick question that was ungendered to make us have a conversation regarding gender. This was really out of order in my opinion, especially as the trainer had kept going on about how to not be judgemental all session. We were not forced to have a conversation around any other protected characteristic, so it felt rather ideologically focused.Has anyone else been on this training and had a similar experience? I am so cross.

What's MHFA?

@WindmillOfWimbledon google is your friend

Mental Health First Aid

If someone needs urgent help with their mental health, you should indeed respect their gender identity. It is not the time for ideological quibble.

Why not just say to respect gender presentation, as part of the training? This would provoke a discussion if the trainer wanted it.

And face to face is different from commenting on a case study.

Telling people off for misgendering sounds like the trainer needs some training herself. She is just getting people’s backs up, rather than starting a productive conversation (assuming that’s what she wanted to do). If there is an opportunity for feedback I’d probably mention that there are ways and means of opening up a discussion which don’t involve embarrassing those undertaking the training.

What if it's a gender critical woman who is in distress because of a trans issue within her family? Then what?

Given that there's an alarming number of mental health breakdowns amongst family members apparently. But no one ever wants to talk about that.

I would always respect any bodies gender identity, whether they were in a MH crisis or not. I just don't need trick questions and being force fed this bullshit in training. They person accused of miagendering has not spoken since they were told off, so it may be affecting their own MH to be publicly berated in that

So the point wasn't that it could be quite dangerous to presume gender if someone is in crisis? Because I imagine that's quite an easy mistake to make.

Feedback is your friend. But it does depend on why you're there, whether this is a paid for place via work etc - that's if there may be repercussions for you from the bekind brigade with honest and professional feedback allowed for everything except for this protected characteristic.

Training wise it's good to have our pre conceptions challenged in training and to be exposed to different viewpoints and experiences. But training isn't an opportunity for the trainer to enjoy pointless "gotchas" at the expense of trainees. People with mental heath issues come from all backgrounds and life experiences - only you and other delegates will know whether there was a balance of life experiences raised or whether trans has been elevated to the top of the importance tree again.

Maybe reflect on the whole session and decide on what's the most important issue to feedback on?

That wasn't the point at all. The point was that they deliberately didn't put a gender so they could tell people off for assuming one.

The MHFA training is highly scripted and trainers really aren't allowed to deviate or amend the case studies. Whilst the argument about misgendering does sounds ridiculous the trainers don't have a lot of choice about the content.

If you’re serious about helping people with their mental health then you need to meet them where they’re at. For some people this may mean respecting the pronouns they use.
If you are not able to do this, then maybe you should re-think whether you really want to be a mental health first aider.

I am in a totally captured organisation, but that doesn't mean I won't complain. This issue has definitely been elevated above all others.

I know. Hence why I'm complaining to MHFA England not to her.

Yes, but why did they do that? They obviously didn't explain very well, but you do come across people with quite severe dysphoria when working with mental health.

I can just picture the trainer’s wagging finger at the front of the room. FFS. 🙄

And yet as someone with a serious mental illness who is also GC, I feel MHFAs are unable to support me because if I came across one who started wanging on at me about genderwoo or asking my pronouns in the middle of a crisis it could send me over the edge of feeling completely alone and isolated, I'd pretend everything's fine, then go home and carry on with plans without seeking help.
Meeting people where they're at includes supporting GC women without shoehorning ideology into anything.

Lots of disable people have severe MH, we didn't talk about that. Or MH difficulties related to sex. Or maternity. Or age.

Why would they do that? It seems the lesson is not to assume gender. Not to bang on about genderwang

Definitely ask about how other protected characteristics will be examined during the training. Make sure your replies cover as many of the other 8 as possible.

Numbers of people identifying as trans have increased rapidly lately, I don't think the others have. By all means, complain. But I think it would be a shame to pretend there's no lesson to be learned.

Yes you will. This doesn't mean you should affirm though. This is the trap the Tavistock fell into and the Cass Review felt was problematic.

This also doesn't mean there aren't other scenarios where someone might be distressed and it relates to trauma related to someone using opposite sex pronouns.

The idea that this goes in one direction only is pathetic and ridiculous.

We have a whole series of threads relating to the abuse of wives. We've had various legal cases which have drawn attention to cases where women have been told they can't have been raped, denied medical care, forced to share changing rooms with a male amongst others.

Obviously gender critical women are amazing and never ever have their own mental health issues and if they do it's their own fault for not accepting males dominance over them...

Oh there is a lesson to be learnt. These include ones you don't want to hear...