Esther Ghey, school phone ban

[Davros]

I heard her on R4’s Today programme this morning. I thought she was great, really impressive. I wonder how far down the rabbit hole Brianna would have gone if this campaign had been around then.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgng2l7d36o.amp

My line “Most parents wouldn’t have even considered this even before poor Madeline.” was in response to your statement that I copied.

The rest of my comments were a general response to the thread not just your post, which is why I didn’t quote your entire post.

You are being offensive and ridiculous. Calling a male a male has nothing to do with being trans. A male is a male. That's it. Especially a male that punched holes in the walls of his mums house and bullied and threatened his mum who was scared of him. That is classic male pattern violence and male pattern behaviour. And your misogynistic gaslighting of women to deny our eyes and our lived experience as the oppressed sex is cruel and evil. Women say NO! What part of no don't you understand? The N or the O?

That attitude isn’t the problem, you believe what you believe and no one should change that - but as I have said, this topic of a child losing their life is not somewhere someone should start correcting someone’s pronouns and beginning a whole new debate. There’s no respect in that

Yes, I wouldn't use female pronouns to refer to Brianna myself, but I wouldn't take someone else to task for doing so. Whereas I probably would if they were talking about the perpetrator of a crime rather than the victim of one.

None of us are correcting people's pronouns. That is what you are doing by attempting police and guilt us. We are not going to mis-sex a male. No matter how much you try and bully, guilt and gaslight us. It's not going to happen. So please stop. Please stop correcting what pronouns we use.

Calling a male and male does have something to do with being trans, if they see themselves as trans. Why are you talking as if I’m not female myself? I really don’t think you understand my point. This is not the place to debate this, this is a post about a mother wanting to make changes after losing her child in the most awful way.

We are not debating it. YOU are. You came on here to scold us for not using she/her for a violent male. As you yourself said, this is not the thread to debate the issue. So please stop!

You are debating it by making the points, I’ve only really told you to be careful and show respect because you don’t know who could see this. How would you feel seeing a thread about your late child and the child’s behaviour torn into and spoken about and used to debate? (Which is what you have done) A child is a child they make mistakes and they get corrected. Why could you not refrain from the pronoun argument for this one topic? Yes I have argued back to you because as I have said, there is no decency or respect coming from any of your comments

I stated my case. You won't let it go.

I am being respectful to women and girls. You, are being offensive and showing disrespect to women and girls and being misogynistic. And it is not my responsibility how his mum or anyone else feels. My responsibility is to not offend women and girls by calling a violent boy a 'she/her'. There is no decency or respect from your comments, your comments are abhorrent and bullying and rude. Please STOP!

I actually wonder why this thread is in the sex and gender topic.

From reading Esther Ghey's statements on this subject, it doesn't seem as though she is specifically linking the issue of phone use to either Brianna's transgender identity or Brianna's murder.

It seems to me as though she is making rather generalised comments about how over-exposure to smartphones is having widespread negative effects on young people and making it more difficult for their teachers and parents to educate and parent them.

As others have pointed out, children committing horrible murders isn't a new, post-smartphone phenomenon. Look at killers such as Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, or Mary Bell, for example. They didn't kill their victims because of smartphones.

Esther Ghey also doesn't seem to be saying that use of smartphones turned those children into killers. I think there's every chance that unrestricted access to the internet contributed to them being able to plan and carry out a murder, but they might have done it anyway, even if they'd been teenagers 30 years ago.

What is interesting about Esther Ghey's comments is that she is focusing on the negative effects phone use had on Brianna. Even if she was totally happy with her child being transgender, which I don't think she has ever confirmed or denied, she talks about Brianna's smartphone addiction and how this most likely contributed to negative behaviour both at school and at home, and difficulties making friends with other children. The reason why I think this is interesting is that it almost comes close to victim blaming. She isn't saying that if Brianna's killers hadn't had access to the internet then they never would have killed Brianna. She appears to be suggesting that spending too much time on the internet made Brianna an unhappy, anxious child who wasn't doing well at school and found it difficult to make real life friends, all of which could make a child vulnerable.

As I understand it, Brianna went to the park to meet the killers, believing they were going to take drugs. That sort of thing could just as easily have happened in the 1990s or 1980s. It's very difficult to see a direct link to smartphone use here.

What I would say is that the kind of kids who are doing well at school, getting good grades, have lots of nice rule-abiding friends, no mental health issues and see a bright future ahead of them, are unlikely to strike up a friendship with a girl who has been expelled from another school and go to the park with her to take drugs. That is the kind of thing only troubled, unhappy, lonely, vulnerable children do. And Esther Ghey seems to think that excessive phone use contributed to Brianna being that sort of child.

Hey I totally agree. Brianna's mother could so easily have jumped on the 'trans as victims' bandwagon. But she didn't (although I'll bet there are plenty who wish she did).

I agree with Screamingabdabz I feel sorry for her, being a parent is hard. But she’s focussing totally on phones in schools being to blame for her child’s death and I suspect that’s displacement activity so she doesn’t start to ask herself whether she should have enforced some limitations on her child’s internet access.

As a potential policy it needs some sensible analysis of pros and cons that isn’t being driven by a high profile grieving parent.

I think it is possible that among the harms caused to children by smart phones, there is not only the danger of sexual abuse grooming but also trans grooming of vulnerable teenagers by peer pressure, society, porn sites and actual trans ‘hatchers’. Esther Ghey would almost certainly be aware of this now though she may well not have had any real idea when Brianna was alive.

This board is a good place for this thread because smart phones are certainly dangerous for spreading gender illusions.

I do agree though that Brianna and her family’s way of speaking about her should be respected; and Brianna should not made the issue instead of the subject ‘ the danger of smart phones’.

I agree with your point, but if Esther Ghey (a) was unhappy about her child being trans, and/or (b) thinks that smartphone use contributed to Brianna being trans, she has not said so publicly.

For what it's worth, I think this is wise, because by focusing on her child's transgender identity she would be politicising something that should not be political. If she said she was unhappy about her child identifying as trans and suggested that if Brianna had spent less time on the internet then Brianna wouldn't have been trans and also most likely wouldn't have been murdered, she'd get it in the neck from trans activists. If she said that Brianna was murdered for being trans and this makes her child's murder more tragic than the murder of any other child, she'd attract (probably silent) criticism from people who think the murder of any other child would be just as tragic and that we need to be focusing on safeguarding all children, not just trans children.

As such, we cannot know how Esther Ghey privately felt about her child being trans and we cannot and should not attempt to project our own views onto her. She may believe that her child was groomed by "hatchers" online and regret the fact that she should have had a perfectly happy and healthy son who did well at school, had lots of friends and enjoyed normal pursuits. She may genuinely have been perfectly fine with having a "trans daughter" and not see that as being a negative thing or linked to the smartphone use.

Either way, as I said, I think she is wise to keep her opinions about her child's gender identity private, to avoid politicising her child's murder, and to focus on where positive changes could be made to help protect all children. I think she's been incredibly dignified in the face of what must be the most unimaginable pain, and I fully support her current activism.

I entirely agree she has kept this (trans) aspect private. It is one of the reasons everyone is able to focus on the question of children and phones she has been campaigning about without causing a furore that woukd sabotage it.

We will never know exactly what she thinks about this aspect of smart phones, or whether or not she suspects Brianna may have been affected by on line trans activism or grooming, but it can be left private for her purposes.

Esther Ghey did in fact get some really nasty, vicious (and blaming) comments from trans rights activists for suggesting this policy, they aren’t fans of anything which restricts their freedoms.

Just says it all about their mentality, doesn't it?

Who would attack the grieving mother of a murdered trans child for wanting to do something to help protect other children?

Sorry, meant to quote @Ereshkigalangcleg there.

I would take this with a pinch of salt. I'm in Italy and none of my kids' schools have banned phones.

(This refers to your screen shot posted earlier).

But we don’t have to be like them.

Fair enough. I personally think it’s a good idea.

I've definitely seen a few criticisms (not nasty or vicious) along the lines of "she doesn't realise these online spaces are a lifeline for trans kids"

I agree that Esther is wise not to get into Brianna's trans identity. I don't know if she had any strong feelings either way. I suspect that she had a very difficult and unhappy child and was willing to go along with whatever seemed to make Brianna happy.

I think that what Esther is focusing on is what made Brianna vulnerable. That's a perfectly honourable angle to take.

The judge did not find that as it happens. She found an element of transphobia had motivated one of the killers, to the effect that he referred to Brianna by the dehumanising pronoun of 'it'. Because the trial was being conducted on the principle of joint enterprise, the judge therefore made this finding in relation to both convicted defendants.

This is still appalling. But it's not the same thing as a wholly 'transphobic' killing.

The way you are trying to use the victim of murder (a child) to prove a point is disgusting and I hope it's reported.

Do I think many men are masquerading as "women" for nefarious reasons etc ? Yes I do. Do I believe trans women are women ? No.

Is this the time and place to use a murdered child to bolster your argument on trans women? I don't think so

Nobody is "scolding" anyone. You're willfully and with intent referring to a murdered trans girl called Brianna as "he" and "her son" (Brianna was male , yes) we all know that : I doubt anyone does not realise that. She's publicly named as "trans". There's no doubt that Brianna was male bodied. Brianna lived and presented herself as a trans girl. Her family accepted this. It doesn't change the fact of her being male. But if the child was wishing to be known by female pronouns (with us all being fully aware of her biology) she's not duping anyone.

Sometimes in the press they'll advertise a criminal as "she" with no information revealed that the person was in fact trans (or pretending to be) . That's misinformation. This wasn't the case with Brianna. She was a child. A victim of a horrific crime.

Choosing to use a child victim of a heinous murder as leverage for your trans stance and willfully disrespecting that persons memory and presentation of themselves, is in very poor taste indeed.

In fairness most feminists on this board do purposefully use "they " and "them" and the person's name to avoid all pronoun genders when they want to make a point without digressing into willful spite.

A headteacher terrified that her school will be blamed for failing to affirm, I suspect.

Yes, I agree. I'm a retired HoD. There's no way that any teacher would normally describe a pupil in that way: it would be seen as being inappropriate.