Introducing the issue to daughters, from a GC perspective

[Babyboomtastic]

I've got primary school age daughters. Neither of any real knowledge of the trans debate, or of trans in general. They are just starting to wake up to the sex inequality around them, and I try to encourage them to read about strong female role models, those that have fought for equality etc.

I know just how captured by trans ideology. Many kids end up becoming by the time they're teenagers, and are wondering what I can do before they reach that age.

We're doing a lot of reading of the famous five at the moment, and George is turning out to be a bit of a nightmare but also a talking point, in that no George definitely can't be a boy, but that it's also no wonder she wanted to be one when the boys were having adventures and she didn't want to stay and make house with Anne!

I'm wanting them to be gently introduced to the issue from a gender critical perspective, not to brainwash them, but so when trans is introduced in school they can look at it critically rather than just believing everything they're told.

Does anyone have any suggestions or recommendations?

I think it's important to give a historical perspective on sexism. My sons have heard a lot about Joan of Arc, and how her going out to fight as a knight when it was forbidden for women never meant she wasn't a woman... Only that she was unjustly prosecuted for it. And that we are lucky we live in a time and space where their mother can have a big corporate job and boss a lot of men around. So when they first heard about a teenage acquaintance who claimed to be a girl because he wanted to have long hair they exclaimed that it made no sense.

I think if we're going into fantastical, really out-there, margin-pushing stuff, we could imagine a future world where men (as a class, not each individual man) don't kill women at a rate of two a week.

Something not in this thread that I mentioned to my children is that you can't adapt your body without some risk of consequence. Gender ideology is premised on the idea that if necessary you can obtain treatment that will make your body conform to your desires and it will all be fine. Looked at that way it's no different to cosmetic surgery for any other reason, or even extreme bodybuilding. We are at a historical extreme. I tell them they they get one body and they'd better look after it - that means letting it do what it wants, and also that "male" and "female" is a factual label that describes a body that a person has.

I absolutely disagree. I would say much of children's literature is about using hypothetical situations to practise thinking about things critically/work out your own opinions.