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

I tell you what, if Kent CC, or any other Reform council, promised to get Juno Dawson's pornographic books out of the children's section of the library, that's a cheap and easy way to win votes.

I agree with you here. I believe that some of the instances talked about in the links I've posted are not that, though. Many are deliberate instances of people claiming the gender they weren't born as, as opposed to simply living in ways contrary to gender norms of their time. The wikipedia list of around the world examples has many of these.

However, the council said a single transgender-related book aimed at adults was relocated from a display at the entrance of a library to a section unlikely to be visited by children

so one book has been moved

I suspect that nuns and monks had different opportunities in the church.

So an adult book was moved back to the adult section?

This is such an important point I want to amplify it. Reform will not politicising this for feminist reasons.

And celebrating it like a football match does the GC cause harm as it makes it look like the GC cause is aligned with bigots.

We need to stay well clear of any campaigns run by Reform. Firstly, because their reasons will be nasty. Secondly, because GCers will be associated with them and other far right/anti progressive causes. Which will harm the GC cause.

What about kids picture books, like "my shadow is pink"? I can't see where else they'd be placed in a library.

I'm no fan of pushing ideology onto children as though it's universally accepted fact (and I particularly hate that pink/blue shadow book) but I feel very uncomfortable about removing/banning books altogether. For example, I absolutely support having a beautiful illustrated children's bible in the library, even though I don't believe in it myself, because I know there are families within the community that would really value having access to that book.

This is exactly my point.

trans people, which we can all agree on existing otherwise there would be no debate (the validity of transness as an identity is another matter), have existed all around the world and have cropped up in historical record very far back in history.

Historically, 'trans people' seem to have been people who, for many different reasons, chose to pretend to be the opposite sex.

Women who wanted to do things which they were not allowed to do as women chose to pretend to be men.

Women who wanted to enter a profession from which women were banned sometimes pretended to be men. A lesbian might pretend to be a man so that she could have a legitimate and 'respectable' relationship with another women.

Men who wanted wanted to do things which they were not allowed to do as men chose to pretend to be women (or a 'third gender').

These men appear to have been gay, and this arrangement allowed gay men to remain part of society.

So historical transness was about hiding homosexuality and allowing women greater participation in society. Nothing to do with modern 'gender identity feelings'.

I can't see that quote in the BBC article.

John of Ark?

I get the sense that this is going to be like the Florida scare, where they passed a law saying SRE lessons had to be age appropriate, and tried to remove porn from school libraries, and half of America believed Florida had literally banned teachers from telling kids that gay people exist.

'Claims to be a gender' as in, if someone is born male, grows up to say 'I am a woman'.

Such a person is a liar. No man is a woman. If he truly believes what he's saying, he's still a liar, but deluded.

You know what I mean when I say trans person. Someone who says they don't match the sex they were born.

In what way don't they match? Sex is biologically defined, it's not possible to 'not match' your sex.

My point here is that I think children should be able to learn about trans people in history and the modern world.

Why? Transsexualism is a bit of a niche area even for adults.

I don't think transgender-ness needs removing from children's reading material, as long as it's appropriate.

Introducing children to weird adult sexual practices is never appropriate.

This simply isn't true.

There are a great many instances and societal trends that are exactly what you describe, but it isn't accurate to say that that's the ONLY occurrence of people in history presenting as the opposite gender.

Many people did and continue to do so consciously and deliberately to claim the opposite gender, historically and in different cultures today. Another example is the sister girls of Aboriginal tribes, which is the oldest indigenous group of people in the world. Sister girls and other similar groups in Aboriginal culture are in their historical and cultural records. I'm not here to say that 'a sister girl is a woman', but I am saying kids should be able to read about sister girls, for example.

'Claims to be a gender' as in, if someone is born male, grows up to say 'I am a woman'.

Such a person is a liar. No man is a woman. If he truly believes what he's saying, he's still a liar, but deluded.

Is not the correct expression "I am a lady" ?

Yup, and nobody was pretending that men were really women, or vice versa.

Really, there’s a long history of people who didn’t conform to the sex stereotypes of their era. “Trans” as described in the current claim, relating to some kind of sexed “soul” which overrides bodily sex, thus literally making a man a woman, is a 21st century invention. Prior to that, there was full understanding that your sex was immutable, however much you wished it wasn’t.

I don't feel you're arguing in good faith.

I'm not here to argue the validity of trans-ness as an identity, but whether you agree with it or not, there are people who claim they are the gender (not sex, because you can't change sex) opposite to what they were born as. I gave the example further up of sister girls in Aboriginal tribes. I think kids should be able to learn about them, whether or not you believe a sister girl is a woman or not. Many people don't believe a marriage between a man and a man is valid yet gay people still marry. The validity of an action or belief isn't the same as whether that belief exists.

Oh god no I can’t cope with “but this ancient people with a wholly different culture and society did xyz therefore I’m going to culturally appropriate it to prop up my 21st century privileged take to justify not saying no to men” again

Really, there’s a long history of people who didn’t conform to the sex stereotypes of their era.

Whatever those stereotypes were - that's a key point.

Who likes weird facts ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_von_H%C3%BClsen-Haeseler#Death

During a formal evening function, von Hülsen-Haeseler appeared dressed in the pink tutu and rose wreath of a ballerina,

The rest is history introduced me to this story 😆😆

Even here you are assuming a distinction between gender and sex that wasn’t part of the general discourse until this century.

Opinions on appropriate material for early teens, that awkward crossover from children's books to adult? I read my mother's copy of Jan Morris's autobiography (Conundrum) when I was 13. It was an 'adult' book but totally age-appropriate (even at 13 I knew it was odd that she could no longer parallel-park after "becoming a woman"!). "Tales of the City", I must have been c.16 when the first volume was published and those are 'adult' books I'd be happy to give to a 12 year old, to get acquainted with gentle, loveable, mean, sad, happy, gay, lesbian, straight and trans people. Please don't shout at me - I can also be very conservative (anyone remember 'Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin'? Very early 80s. Photos of a pre-schoolage child in bed with two naked adults shocked me: my gut knew it was inappropriate, couldn't understand why anyone thought it was defensible.)

https://www.kristinholt.com/archives/15615#:~:text=Extended%20theory%20about%20women%20at,Patrick%20N.

It was a popular belief that women were not built to take in much knowledge. In his 1875book Sex and Education; or, a Fair Chance for Girls, Edward Clarke claims that while girls can go to school and study as boys do, this will cause them to suffer from: “euralgia, uterine disease, hysteria, and other derangements of the nervous system“

1875 is only a few generations ago.

How do you begin to impose the concept of gender identity onto a society that thought education literally harmed women?

I wish my local authority would have a good, hard look at some of the stock on our library catalogue.

I work in a library and I can tell you there are a fair few books on our catalogue across the city that I think are completely inappropriate for children.

'She's my Dad!' by Sarah Savage is one. Absolute brainwashing for kids. 'You need to chill' by Juno Dawson is another. Both books coming from a position that any kind of disagreement is bigotry. 'Grandads Pride' and the board book 'ABC of Equality ' (I think) are aimed at really young children. A board book FFS.

It's the approach to the subject that's the problem, not the actual subject matter itself.
All our wonderful children's books about religion, for example, make it clear that it is all about the beliefs held by this particular group of people. 'Some people believe...' etc. They are educational and interesting, even for an atheist like me. This is a completely different approach to the trans centred books, which absolutely do NOT explain that some people believe this, just that they ARE what they say they are, which is demonstrably untrue and has no place in children's picture books/NF.

We have many well meaning, if naive, staff who are desperate to make sure that our stock is inclusive and diverse - unfortunately, this means they will sometimes buy/request wholly inappropriate stock without realising just how inaccurate, emotionally manipulative and downright dishonest these books are. it's extremely frustrating.