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

Are you referring to Brianna here ?

Lots of teenagers cause their parents hell. It's not just male children.

Teenage stroppy aggressive behaviour still isn't a reason to deserve to be murdered in cold blood by your peers. Brianna's memory still deserves the small respect of not purposefully plastering "he" "her son" when that's not how Mrs Ghey referred to her child.

Do you correct a child everytime they call their adopted parents "mum and dad " (biologically they are absolutely nothing to do with their own child ) but you wouldn't walk up to them and keep saying "well. Yeh. But they're not your mum and dad are they ?"

And this is effectively what you're doing in Brianna's case. Brianna didn't use her trans status for nefarious reasons. Brianna as an individual is not the problem. For the sake of concentrating on the debate in hand ,it really wouldn't kill you to just call the child 'Brianna' (even if you don't use she ) you're being willfully spiteful to a dead child's memory.

There were plenty of nasty comments on Reddit and BlueSky.

Yes I also remember the ridiculous, inappropriate post by the headteacher.

My experience as a retired HoD is that smartphones have their uses, but can also be extremely dangerous. I'd rather that children be given the brick variety.

We had children addicted to Snapchat: "I can't put my phone away! I'll lose my streak!"

We had children being contacted by predators. Elsewhere on these boards, i've recounted what happened when two of my thirteen year old pupils were befriended by an adult male predator. One of the girls showed me her phone - he'd sent them a dick pic.

Police were called in and one of the mothers refused to hand her daughter's phone over to the police.

There were issues with older male pupils targeting junior girls. I recall one mother claiming that her thug of a son had had his phone hacked. (I presume that the day that he prevented one of the juniors from leaving a corridor during break, his body must have been taken over by an evil spirit, then?)

We had one girl who was in absolute bits because her 'boyfriend' had persuaded her to send a topless photo to prove that she loved him. Of course, he sent it to all his pals and they sent it to many others in the school.

On more than one occasion we had to idiotic parents messaging pupils during class time to tell their child of a family tragedy. Selfish and thoughtless. Who does that to their son or daughter?

Oh I can believe that.

It actually makes me respect Esther more. She's trying to think things through and do something constructive on her own terms. The path of least resistance would have been to become a figurehead for TRAs.

That's definitely not the case with the father who referred to his murdered son as his son and got a lot of abuse from TRAs. They were demanding how a father deal with his grief over the murder of his son.

That male, who was a child, and the victim of a henious cold blooded calculated and planned murder and left to bleed out and die in pain on a concrete step, presented themselves as a "transgirl" with the name "Brianna". That child's mother referred to the male child as Brianna and "my daughter". Adopted parents refer to a biologically unrelated child as their "son or daughter" neither are factually correct. But out of respect, given the circumstances, it is appropriate to valid their wishes.

This isn't the time or place for purposeful disrespect towards a child victim and their mother.

That's clutching at straws. Brianna and Brianna's mother referred to Brianna as a trans girl. The trans bit isn't hidden. We all know it means Brianna was biologically male. Doesn't mean we should willfully call a child "he" "her son" when the dead child was trans identifying.

Invalidating and shaming?

How is it shaming a man to call him a male, thats a rather bizarre take on a situation.

Wheres the shame?

If we're being as tediously pedantic as you apparently think necessary, then the polite and respectful way to refer to Esther Ghey is 'Ms Ghey'. Not Mrs. That is a presumption based on a status you don't know.

See?, two can play at being unnecessarily provocative and deliberately attempting to derail a discussion.

Annoying, innit?

I thought the murder was random choice in that the murderers had a list of people it would be fun to murder, and B. Ghey was second - and was chosen because they could not murder the first on the list.
You can use 'transgirl' if you like, of course. It means boy.

I think you are very obtuse. Luckily others are reading this thread and will see that.

Yes, this.

Indeedy. They very much can. Fortunately you are mere pixels to me and it's of absolutely no consequence what you think.

HTH.

I am sure you are right about night being the worst for leaving the gate open for phone harm, but I heard Esther Ghey say Brianna was using her phone a lot in school, going off to the toilets to spend more time, and getting in trouble with teachers. It seems like an absolute addiction that was not really relieved as much as it ought to have been by being at school.

@ScrollingLeaves But EG should have done more when school highlighted the issue. B took her phone into school. EG didn’t keep it at home. It’s all in hindsight really. It’s definitely a very sad situation that B was in detention because of phone use with 2 dc who plotted murder. Shame B was anywhere near them. Even bigger shame no one noticed these dc as being very disturbed.

@BollyKnickerzVery well said!

'If' and 'should' are about the most futile words in the English language. 'I should have done this'; 'If only I hadn't done that', are words tantamount to torture. This poor mother probably experiences replays of this every day of her life. And, whatever mistakes she may have made, I don't believe she deserves superficial, armchair parenting judgements of the kind levelled at the McCanns.

She's human. We make mistakes. Nothing she does can bring her child back again. She can't turn back the clock and make those decisions differently. We only get one chance. Fortunately for us all, most parenting fuck-ups don't have fatal consequences.

The podcast from the tech experts who commented on this case was truly horrifying. IMO every parent should listen to it. Brianna's situation - not least the details of the kind of content her depraved killers were downloading via TOR - would have deterred me from giving my own child a smartphone had I not already been resolutely set against it.

The same message might also be getting through to other parents. Banning these things in school won't help all situations. People also have to take responsibility as parents. But at least a schoolwide ban will prevent smartphones from having detrimental impact on children's education. It's a start.

The rest's down to education - similarly to the S.O.P.H.I.E foundation started by the mother of Sophie Lancaster. We can absorb those warnings or not as we choose.

I have nothing but sympathy for Esther Ghey in her dreadful loss, and support her campaign to the hilt.

@SerafinasGoose. you seem to complain about what I wrote and then say “most parenting fuck-ups don’t have fatal consequences”. So you agree parenting was an issue here. It’s ok if she said I made a huge mistake but we seem to be told it’s the fault of schools. It’s not wholly the fault of schools.

By the way, the development and education of dc is harmed by phones out of school. Most schools don’t want phones in classrooms now but heads were slow to act because stupid parents give dc phones and argue with schools when they try and control use.

Having been around for the zomg-tv and zomg-pc times, no, it was not the same.

Yes, people worried that others were supposedly losing their minds, but the so-called victims didn't neglect their kids, if they had them, didn't stop having other interactions, didn't have less sex. (Except for some gamers, which pretty much proves the point. Games were also written for maximum engagement, even if primitive by current standards.)

The difference now is social media has an army of extremely intelligent people paid to figure out how to addict users. It doesn't work on everyone. But it works on enough people that if you're, say, a school or college teacher who sees repeated cohorts of young people go through, the difference in the post-approximately-2006 students and those who grew up before is downright scary.

We're doing a huge population level experiment on dumbing people down and making them less functional. Maybe it'll all work out. But if it doesn't, we are screwed.

I agree. She couldn't control her own child and in fact allowed all the gender bullshit to happen in her own home but wants schools to enforce a ban.
I feel deeply for the woman but it wasn't the fault of the school.

‘If’ and ‘should’ - There but for the Grace of God…

The podcast from the tech experts who commented on this case was truly horrifying. IMO every parent should listen to it.
Thank you, you help really make the case for absolute resolve on the issue of not letting children have phones..
Please would you say the name of that podcast?

You're another bully. I am not trying to 'prove' any point.

I am simply saying I won't use female pronouns for a male, any male, whether alive or dead.

That's all.

Now please stop hounding me.

You are scolding me for using he/him pronouns. At least admit that.

I am simply saying I won't use female pronouns for a male, any male, whether alive or dead. Whether the male person is a victim or not a victim doesn't change that. I don't change my processes on whether the person is alive or not alive. You're trying to use emotional manipulation. That he's dead is not relevant, that he was a victim is not relevant. I don't care what Brianna's parents do. I don't care what others on this site do. I am not correcting anyone who uses she/her pronouns, that's an individual poster's choice and I respect that. All I ask is that you respect my right to use he/him pronouns, even if you disagree, and stop scolding and bullying and hounding me and respect my decision.

Choosing to use a child victim of a heinous murder as leverage for your anti-feminist stance to emotionally manipulate that correct-sexing is "willfully disrespecting that persons memory and presentation of themselves", is not just in very poor taste it is manipulative, scolding and bullying and is in very poor taste indeed.

The male person being a victim does not change my pronouns for them.
The male person being murdered does not change my pronouns for them.
My pronoun usage does not rely on innocence vs guilty or dead vs alive. I won't be guilted just because the person is no longer alive. I'm sorry they were murdered and I'm sorry for what the mother is going through. But no. I will not change my pronoun use just because they were murdered. And the correct use of pronouns is not "willful spite", it is just what it is.

That's all.

Now please stop hounding me.

Brianna's memory still deserves the small respect of not purposefully plastering "he" "her son" when that's not how Mrs Ghey referred to her child.

No. Again. You're not listening. You think because Brianna was a victim that that means I should not use he/him. I don't care how Mrs Ghey referred to her child. It's not relevant to me. I will not call a male person - whether adult or child, alive or deceased 'she/her'. Not now. Not ever? Do you get it yet? None of your attempts to browbeat and emotionally manipulate me because we're talking about a child or because said child has sadly been murdered will change. By pleading with me to use 'they/them' you're bullying and harassing me.

I said no.

That's it. End of story. Now you are coming across as willfully spiteful in continuing to bully and harass me. I said no. I will use pronouns as they are meant to be used. Nothing will change my mind, and I don't care what the mother or anyone else thinks. I have the right to be true to myself. Now please leave me alone. I will not change my mind. I am not attempting to harass you over your choice, so respect mine. Whether you agree or disagree with me, it is my choice, so please respect that and stop bullying and harassing and scolding.