Cornwall: Transgender Guidance

Introduction

Cornwalls guidance has a particular flavour no doubt influenced by a collaboration with the police force. This one has a stronger emphasis on defining and reporting transgender hate crimes. The document is a joint effort between the local constabulary, the council and intercom trust.

You can read it, in full, here. 👇

Cornwall schools-transgender_guidance_booklet-2015

Intercom trust were familiar to me as they won a Pink News award for LGBT+ Community in November 2019. I noticed, at the time, their entire website had extensive guidance on Gender Identity issues but the FAQs for homosexual issues were not populated. One year on (02/12/2020) this part of the website remains unpopulated. 👇

This is a common pattern.  Organisations purporting  to be about the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual community are, instead, directing teens to gender identity resources.  

The guidance is also, we are told, available on the Department of Education website.

The pack is in line with many of the other materials in that it uses the captured language of gender identity ideologues which claims sex is “assigned at birth” . Here pupils learn about gender essence and claims there can be a mismatch between your sex, and your gender, which they seem to reduce to “external appearance” in this excerpt. For anyone having trouble keeping up with the trans ideology note that, elsewhere, we are told that “gender expression” can be different to both your sex and your gender identity. The ground keeps shifting beneath my feet as I labour, in vain, to find any coherence to this ideology.

For parents struggling to understand how your child has returned home convinced they are transgender do check your schools. The obvious place to look is the Transgender Guidance but this also permeates anti-bullying policies and PSHE lessons. Furthermore guidance from Stonewall shows teachers how they can embed this ideology across the curriculum by providing examples that can be used in maths, science, history etc. Some of these examples, like Alan Turing, are welcome additions to the curriculum. Perhaps, after the Keira Bell case, we will see a bit more attention paid to the role of chemical castration since Turing was subject to hormonal treatment to suppress his sexuality. We live in hope.

This next excerpt has a revealing use of the word “enabled” in this section which explains the role the guidance believes it plays:

The school should indeed protect any child struggling with Gender Dysphoria. The problem with much of this guidance is it takes its duty to “inform” to propaganda levels. Furthermore,  it is not the schools responsiblity to “enable” a pursuit of a medicalised identity yet, as with much of this school guidance, they are far too keen to include references to puberty blockers and sign post kids to Gender Identity Services.  It almost takes on the appearance of free advertising.

The idea that gender identity disorder manifests at age two is a deliberate attempt to reframe a child’s understanding of their biology as evidence “gender identity” is biological. Here the school guidance acts as a drug pusher for “hormone blockers” ; which are presenting as a necessary treatment for “symptoms associated with being transgender“. Except they try to have it both ways because they also argue that someone who is transgender can still be so without having a diagnosis, or even having, Gender Dysphoria and without having any treatment. This mental gymnastics is necessary to include the growing number of adults, who claim to be the opposite sex, with no bodily modification.

More product placement as the guidances makes it clear where treatment is available. Though again they are keen not to offend the blue-haired, pronouns only, brigade who don’t want any “treatment” to join the queer community. Non-binary is the idea that people claim to have no “gender” which is interesting since we spend half the time being told everybody has an innate “ gender– identity“. Just to confuse things further we also have “gender variant” people who presumably have a mix and match approach to their gender identity and signify it via their pronouns and clothes. I know 😳, I don’t make the rules.

Good luck legislators. I fear you have bitten off a bit more than you can chew / define.

Definitions are subject to endless re-drafting in Stonewall law. Gender Reassignment was a category that was intended to cover transsexuals. It was envisaged that this would cover post-operative transsexuals but, somewhere along the line, it expanded to includ those who, it was argued, may not be able to acccess surgery. It was never intended to cover the “transgender” community as it manifests itself today. This doesn’t deter the activists, however, who simply re-write the law to say what they wish it said! The use of this characteristic to include school pupils is a bit of a stretch but it is such a bad piece of law anyone can say they “intend” to undergo a medical procedure. I can’t blame them for trying.

This guidance it not the worst one I have seen because it recognises a responsiblity to the wider school community. It does not, for example, insist that a boy has to be recognised as a girl in respect of changing rooms and other facilities. I have an issue with the default position of assuming the disabled facilities don’t already have a designated purpose, so it is only a partial victory, but here they appear to accept girls facilities should not be opened up to boys.

Generally the issue of toilets, in the other guidance I have read, prioritises the gender identity over the rights of girls (and boys) to sex specific spaces. Here they frame it in terms of the vulnerability of the “trans” child.  I actually don’t disagree with this.  A girl who uses male changing rooms would be at risk of unwanted attention however she identifies.  Boys who are less than macho have always been bullied and toilets/changing rooms are ideal theatres for that sort of behaviour.  

The usurping of disabled facilities is something that sets a, potentially dangerous,  precedent but it may be a proportionate response depending on the school population. At least here the dignity of student’s with disabilities are also considered.  It remains to be seen how this is managed to ensure that the rights of disabled students/people are not cast aside for this group. 

 👈 Another interesting aspect of this guidance is that it includes this comment from a parent. It seems parents are at the risk of being over-ruled by zealous gender identity idealogues even when they have negotiated a pragmatic path for their “trans-identifying” offspring. I am surprised this comment made it passed the editors.  This may have been due to the influence of the, female, police officer.  Maybe not. As we shall see the more problematic bits of this guidance are the way they address the issue of “hate crime”.  No doubt this is a reflection of the inclusion of the police in writing a transgender guidance document for schools.  It’s an odd partnership.  I will come onto the issue of hate crime. 

The guidance on changing rooms and sports is grounded in reality and the needs of other students as well as the “trans” students. The needs of the trans student should be sensitive to the needs of other groups. This should be considered for girls only facilities (defined by sex) and the needs of disabled students. 

The clip further down also recognises biological reality on the sports field.  If you have read the earlier blogs,  on transgender policies,  you will know that it is by no means the norm for any concession to be made to biological facts, or the needs of other pupils. 

The treatment of parents in these guidance packs is something I covered in my blog below. 👇Parents are sidelined, information is withheld, and we are painted as potential villains. Here the Cornwall guidance cautions that parents may not be the “most supportive or appropriate person to assist the young person through transitioning”. I suppose we should just leave it to the Tavistock! What could possibly go wrong? Clearly the school here are completely prepared to keep parents in the dark and allow pupils to take steps to “transition” without informing their parents.

Putting the Loco in Loco Parentis

These are the clips on the treatment of transphobia as a hate crime. An example of transphobia, provided below, is using the incorrect pronoun. Notice how soon this escalates into the language of hate crimes and victims. It also argues for mandatory re-education on gender identity.

The document then goes on to suggest appropriate learning materials with which to indoctrinate oops educate our children.

This includes some publications which are innocuous enough and could be used to dispell myths rooted in sex stereotypes.  Until we get to Alex Drummond’s book about being a “girl”. 

Alex has a degree in gender studies and discovered his inner lesbian after jettisoning critical thinking for a dose of Butler Bollox.  He is a Stonewall Ambassador who claims  he is expanding the bandwidth for women.  Not so much expanding the bandwidth as destroying the category of “woman” entirely.  When a man, with a beard, claims  to redefine what it means to be a woman he displays the male privilege that is the power of naming.  He also claims  to be a lesbian, who brings out the inner lesbian in women, just in case he hasn’t destroyed heteronormativity enough to claim his place in the annals of gender identity HIStory.  To be fair if Alex was everyman he would create a fair few political lesbians providing we could stick to the old-fashioned type i.e. women, the biological kind.🧐

Below is some homework to begin your re-education. I am sorely disappointed they failed to share some examples of trans history for us to debunk.  Learn the terminology and make a mistake at your peril.  We are watching you!