Kent council remove trans childrens books from libraries

[WomenShouldStillWinWomensSportsIsBack]

Just heard this on the radio. Can't see another thread on it. R2 had a delightful quote from a random outraged American-sounding TRA but nothing for balance from the other side, just a secondhand statement from the council. Article slightly more balanced. Hope this becomes more widespread.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6257p2vry3o

If Kent has done this then we are winning. Kent is a bellwether - the Men of Kent led the Peasants Revolt!
I notice most of the protestors link LGB with trans - there is no mention of removing LGB books (though this may be the case?).

"As far as impact assessments are concerned, I would have thought that question should have been asked before these books were placed in the children's section to begin with."

This a very good response to the question asking if impact assessments were made before removal.

Kent CC is a Reform council isn’t it?

Yes!

Excellent.

Looking at the low quality or complete lack of EqIAs in NHS “single” (really mixed) sex accommodation policies, I am not remotely surprised that no impact assessments were done before the books were included.

Oh that's interesting. I probably did know about the Peasants Revolt at one point, I'm sure we did it in A-level history, but it was so long ago! And yes, I'd be interested to know if LGB books had been pulled as well, but haven't seen anything that confirms that.

@DameMaud I was considering pulling that quote for my OP as it was brilliant.

Policy and protection of single sex spaces is one thing, but trans people have always existed. Records of them go back centuries and centuries, and from many cultures around the world. I'm not sure removing books relating to transgender people is a good thing. Historically the people banning and removing books from libraries haven't been the good or progressive ones.

Good-get this harmful ideology away from children

I'm instinctively against censorship, particularly when it's so clearly coming from a fairly extreme political viewpoint. The original complaint was about the positioning of a display which is very different from wanting all children's books that mention Trans people being removed. What happened to 'give them light'. I think we need to see a list of the books that have been removed, the ages that they are aimed at and a description of the harmful content. And, very much so, how much of the literature about the LGB also been lost in this censorship. When I was looking for sex education books when my DC were young most of them had a short section about trans people, so does that mean they have no more sex ed books? I don't think this is necessarily the victory we think it is unless there is a plan to ensure we're not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

It isn't actually true. There were no trans books in the children section in the first place. BBC didn't fancy check. Reform are stirring it

I don't think they are banned, just removed from the children's section. Lots of books aren't in the children's section.

Can you recommend me a book about trans people during the napoleonic era? Perhaps tudor times?

So nothing is being censored, just moved to the correct age category? Non-story then.

I can't recommend you a specific book, no, because I don't know one, but here is an interesting article - scrolling down to the heading 'Gender Dysphoria and Eleanor Rykener' may be of particular interest:
https://publicmedievalist.com/transgender-middle-ages/

There's also so much evidence and discussion out there around gender labels and attitudes to sex (sex as in gender, feel like I'm getting clunky with language) in tribes and non-western societies, both historical and contemporary. For example:

'The Navajo tribe from the south-west United States have a gender category called Nadleeh, which can refer to transgender people who have transitioned in one direction along the gender binary, gender fluid individuals and to those whose gender presentation is more masculine or feminine than their gender identity suggests.' from: https://blog.lboro.ac.uk/edi/gender-identity-in-indigenous-cultures/

It's a very, very real thing. I'm not against the protection of single sex spaces at all, but to me that's not the same thing as denying that trans people exist. Their history and identity shouldn't be scrubbed - it exists and children should be able to learn about it in an age appropriate way, like anything else. People in tribal societies today live as the opposite sex to what they were born, should we deny to children that that happens just because we want to defend single sex spaces? I don't think so. It's clearly more complex than that.

EDIT: @Crouton19 this was written as a reply to you, I don't know why it didn't post it as one!

😂

I don't see what there is to laugh at. Its a valid question. There are indeed records of transgender people throughout history and around the world. That fact doesn't mean we shouldn't protect single sex spaces. But it also means, in my opinion, that we shouldn't remove the topic of transgender from children's book sections, because I think that's a dangerous slippery slope. Children should learn about all different kinds of people. That's not automatically the same thing as promoting a specific ideology or approach to sex-based policy and social issues.

It’s just a bit of red meat for the reform voters. I’m a regular visitor with the DGC to the children’s section of a Kent library, I haven’t noticed any books with obvious trans characters.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenderhistory

This is also a great resource for trans and sex/gender related things throughout history globally. I am pleased to see that it discusses the fact that we can't assume someone was transgender when expressing different gender norms to what was expected of them at the period in history they were living.

This is from the section of gender expression in India:

'Indian texts from as early as 3000 years ago document a third gender, which has been connected to the hijras who have formed a category of third-gender or trans-feminine people on the Indian subcontinent since ancient times.[197] In the Rigveda (from roughly 3500 years ago), it is said that before creation the world lacked all distinctions, including of sex and gender, a state ancient poets expressed with images like men with wombs or breasts.[198] The Mahabharata (from 2–3000 years ago) tells of a trans man, Shikhandi.[199][200] In the Ramayana (from roughly 2000 years ago), when Rama asks "men and women" not to follow him, hijras remain and he blesses them.[201][202] Most hijras are assigned male at birth (and may or may not castrate themselves),[203] but some are intersex and a few are assigned female.[204] Hijras wear feminine clothing and usually adopt feminine names, often live together in households (often regardless of differences in caste or religion) and relate to each other as female fictive kin (sisters, daughters, etc.), and perform at events such as births and weddings.[201][203]'

Well, that word salad is a prime example of what happens when Wikipedia (almost all of whose trans-related content is written by a handful of cranky activists) gets its hands on non-Western cultures and their mythologies and social rules.

Just because a decision has been taken that might parrallel one that feminists might make, there is no reason to support it.

As Reform will have implement this for non feminist reasons I would prefer to see more information about what they have actually ordered.

It may well be that in a sense it could be argued that it is in line with stopping forced conversion for children who may be in some may gay or lesbian. But I very much doubt that will be the basis on which they have taken this decision.

Does anyone know if they have also banned books about lesbians and gay men from the children's section?

That link doesn’t work. What examples are there in British history of all these trans people? (Genuine question- I can’t think of one).

Horatia Hornblower ?

Don't people ever get tired of the line "but trans people exist"?

No one is denying their existence.

Well it seems relevant here because removing books about a type of person is a far cry from wanting policy that protects single sex spaces. Removing books from kids' book selections about trans people seems more along the lines of wanting to stop kids learning that trans people exist, rather than what sex-based policy should be.

I mean it's wikipedia, it often looks a bit garbled because it's from so many different sources. You can easily click through to any of the individual sources or google anything you find on there to read more well-written articles or books.

I'm not here to write a book myself 😂my point is there is interesting and relevant evidence of trans people and gender expression throughout history and around the world and that I think children should be able to read about that, like they should be able to read about anything as long as it's age appropriate.