Examining Gender Identity ideology and its impact on Women's Sex based rights and Gay Rights. Exploring how this has taken such firm root in Western societies (Cognitive & Regulatory Capture).
Given my coverage of Ruth Hunt’s role, as former CEO of Stonewall, I am somewhat late to the discovery of her links with OFSTED (Office for Standards in Education). OFSTED are the government body that oversee education standards in England. This is a devolved responsibility so it does not cover the other parts of the U.K.
It has quite a range of responsibilities as outlined here:
The current chief inspector is Amanda Spielman:
Amanda Spielman was appointed as the Chief Inspector in 2016. The appointment was met with some criticism, at the time, and it was not endorsed by the Parliamentary Select committee covering education.
The Education Committee held an on-camera, pre-appointment, scrutiny hearing on the 22nd June 2016. You can watch that on the link below. 👇
Following that session the Chair of the Committee wrote to Nicky Morgan, then the Minister of Education, to express concerns at her appointment. The committee raised a number of issues. One of their specific concerns was about child protection:
Nicky Morgan, Minister of Education robustly defended the appointment and rejected the opinion of the Education Committee. This is a report of the recruitment process, as recorded on Hansard. This was in 2016 and here is the analysis of the shortlisted candidates; which uses the transphobic dog whistles of “male” and ”female”.
Interestingly, Nicky Morgan’s own appointment had attracted criticism from Stonewall because she had votes against gay marriage. Ms Morgan allayed these concerns by appointing Luke Tryl, late of Stonewall, as her special advisor.
The Stonewall influence did not end there. This is the recruitment panel for Ms Spielman’s appointment, present is Ruth Hunt.
Ruth Hunt was then the CEO of Stonewall. Here she is celebrating the fact that Ofsted had joined the Stonewall #NoBystanders campaign. Standing beside her is another member of the recruitment panel, Chris Wormald.
Chris Wormald made the announcement and signed the Stonewall pledge at an event hosted by the Department of Education LGBT & BAME staff networks. The DFE was ranked in the top 100 of Stonewall Employers when the list was public. {After a number of high profile departures, the list is no longer, publicly, accessible}.
Here was Ruth Hunt’s statement at the time which includes the Stonewall mantra at the time ”acceptance without exception”.
Following the appointment of Ms Spielman the love-in continued when Luke Tryl , Nicky Morgan’s special advisor was appointed to a £90,000 a year role at Ofsted.
The cosy relationship continued with Ms Spielman giving the keynote speech at a Stonewall Youth conference.
This was part of Spielman’s pitch, to Stonewall Youth, in that keynote address.
Sabah Choudrey, one of the speakers mentioned above, worked with the All Sorts Youth Project who are behind some of the more egregious school guidance on Transgender pupils. I wrote about that here:
As frequently observed the activists in this field are not satisfied unless it’s supporters show abject compliance with all aspects of trans-ideology. Here Ofsted is criticised for failing to discuss transgender issues with primary school children. This information was obtained by a Freedom of Information request. The email shows Stonewall lobbying Ofsted via back-channels.
Stonewall went on to imply that schools should be “marked down” if they did not discuss the issue of “gender reassignment” with children, that is children in Primary School.
Fast forward to 2021 and, at last, we see some unravelling of the institutional capture as OFSTED finally leave Stonewall Lobby Group.
I will leave you with Ms Spielman’s own spiel to the Education Committee during the pre-appointment scrutiny. Stonewall is a crusader for Gender Identity Ideology and by aligning too closely with their, controversial, agenda many institutions lost sight of their objectivity, honesty and integrity.
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Researching Gender Identity Ideology and it’s ,negative, impact on women’s rights and Gay rights. I also look at institutional capture and the medical consequences of “Gender affirming care”
If you have been paying attention you will have identified some common themes in school guidance to protect “transgender children”. I was surprised this had made it into the Catholic sector but it seems we might have some woke bishops after all. Seems to have become accepted much quicker that gay rights. I wonder why that is? This is the second one I have looked at from within the Catholic sector. I have chosen to blog this one as I am familiar with this school.
Wholesale acceptance of the idea that we have an assigned sex is ubiquitous. As I frequently point out sex is simply observed and recorded in all but an infinitessimally small number of cases. These cases are commonly referred to as “intersex” but are better described as disorders/differences in sexual development. (DSDs). In these cases there may be genuine ambiguity at birth. None of which makes them transgender.
In fact “transgender” is not interchangeable with transsexual. The term transsexual is one used to describe someone who has undergone gender reassignment and for whom the, legally protected characteristic, of the same name, was passed into law. The attempt to claim equivalence with “transgender” is ideological in intent. The Transgender umbrella covers a much wider array of “identities” including part-time cross dressers who may, or may not, be transvestic fetishists which has a sexual motive. In another example of over-reach the school are now teaching children the central tenets of Queer Theory including, as they do below, the idea that “gender” is fluid. Note the idea that “gender variance” may not persist following puberty. We know this so why are the school casually advocating puberty blockers?
The next claim is also straight out of gender identity ideology. Children as young as two can begin to recognise their sex and even perform in ways that match/do not match the expected behaviour for their sex. The idea that two years olds have a “gender identity” and therefore, potentially, a “Gender Identity Disorder” is why we have three year olds referred to the Gender Identity Disorder Service (GIDs). The last sentence is also one being pushed by Trans Lobby Groups who wish to remove the requirement for a diagnosis of “Gender Dysphoria” because it is currently required to access medical treatment/ get aGender Recognition Certificate.
Note also that the school are pushing “Hormone Blockers” in the above quote. The same puberty blockers how declared an experimental treathment which require a court order to put under 16’s on them. This despite the earlier statement that post puberty any Gender Variance may dissappear. Advertising the services of GIDs is also common in school guidance packs which is a shame because this immediately concretises an “identity” without a preliminary assessment for other competing issues, for example autism or homosexuality.
Once again there are indeed nine protected characteristics. One of them is sex. Transgender is not one of them and is not a synonym for “gender reassignment”. This is a common tactic. known as Stonewall Law. If it is not law then simply sneak it into guidance and training until everyone thinks it is. Of course it also helps if every arm of the State seems to be a Stonewall Champion. Including Parliament.
Here we see the elevation of correctly identifying sex defined as “bullying” and ranked alongside actual prejudice due to race or sexuality. Equating this to hate and hate crimes is to criminalise what surely is a hard wired evolutionary attribute: the correct recognition of sex. Whether for mating purposes, or to assess risk, this is a fundamental human trait. Interestingly one of the common manifestations of homophobic bullying is calling gay males “girl”. Now that is lauded as good practice. The self-righteous tone of much of this guidance is elitist piffle…. all that the ignorant need is to be “educated” for which read “indoctrinated”. Presumably this re-programming will take place in a gulag for Gender Apostates.
The brass neck of this. Any male pupil identifying as a “girl” will be a pre-op, male bodied “girl”. Here the school mandates their inclusion in female facilities and any girl who objects will be found alternative facilities. What girl would object in these circumstances? The school are effectively planning to ostracise any girl who feels uncomfortable/unsafe in mixed sex spaces. As mentioned in my previous blog there have been 600 rapes in schools in recent years. These are male on female crimes yet here it is the “transgender” person who is posited as “at risk”. Whilst a male-identified female using male facilities is likely vulnerable so areall females whose facilities are to be shared with males.
Next up. The school will set up a transition plan with the student. Yet they reserve the right to deny the parents the right to know about their own child. I doubt many parents in this school know about this policy. I wonder how many are “educated” enough to agree with it?
Whilst I was on their website I wanted to see what their other policies there were to see how they aligned with one another..So I looked at the sex and relationshp policy. Reverence for fertility is par for the course in a Catholic school but it doesn’t sit well with putting pupils on “hormone blockers” . They will, invariably, progress to cross sex hormones and they won’t have any fertility to revere. They also celebrate joy in their “own bodily nature” unless they happen to be “Born In the Wrong Body”? . Honouring a different “sexual identity” unless you are a femine gay male or a butch lesbian and then we will ccollude with transing the gay away?
Below the School attempts to detail the provisions of The Equality Act of 2010. It is refreshing to see they recognise there are nine protected charactistics and they make a stab at acknowledging the need to balance the needs of all the different groups. They also recognise that Sex is one of them. Here is where the good reviews end, however, since the school has also included “gender identity” which is not only not covered by the legislation there is no definition of what it means. This is straight out of the Stonewall play book. If the law doesn’t say what you want it to say just lie and eventually Stonewall Law will exist in policy if not on the statute books. Of course it also helps if Parliament and many areas of the State are Stonewall Champions.
I am starting to see more references to the Fraser Guidelines and this reads as if lobby groups are trying to scare schools to hide information from a parent. I am surprised this had taken hold in Catholic Schools which tend to promote the family and here are happy to undermine parental rights by hiding information from the parents. These guidelines are named after Lord Fraser and relate to the legal case which defined Gillick competence. This allows children under the age of 16 to get advice on contraception, later widened to sexual health, and keep this confidential from their parents. I suspect references to these guidelines are yet another attempt to justify keeping parents in the dark when our children come out as “Transgender”. Whether it actually does apply is likely something that would need to be tested in court, however, as we have seen Trans lobby groups don’t wait for legislation they just make sure it is embedded in policy as if it is actually the law. These excerpts are likely enough to scare schools into submission. (These are my thoughts, but if anyone has a good legal opinion for me to include .let me know and I will add it)
Here is the school transition plan. Planning to hide information from other parents which means you won’t know if your daughter is effectively forced to share single sex spaces with a male. Even worse she won’t be made aware so is robbed of any agency in proctecting her bodily privacy. Who are the extermal agencies that the school is going to invite in? Mermaids?
Note the emphasis on the transgender pupils’ dignity and privacy but no similar consideration for the girls. And yes this also impacts on boys who also deserve their dignity and privacy but we all know why girls are more vulnerable due to this ideology.
Never mind. The school will clearly have conducted some sort of Equality Impact assessment and looked at all the protected characteristics wouldn’t they? What do they say about the implications for the protected characteristic of sex?
Apparently the impact is deemed to be “neutral”.
Before we all relax and thing the government has listened to women my next blog will be on new guidance issues in December 2020. I have had a cursory look and will cover it in detail in my next blog. You are going to be very disappointed.
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Transgender Guidance, for schools, draws support for its interpretation of the law from the Department of Education (DFE). This document illustrates how they have been cognitively captured by many of the prominent Trans Lobby groups. Many references to GIRES and Stonewall. None to women’s groups. Not a single one. The DFE also reference the Cornwall guidance which was the subject of my previous blog.
This guidance, from 2014, asserted that the protected characteristic of gender reassignment now extended to school pupils. You can read the full document below. 👇
This is the document which advised schools how trans-identified pupils are covered by the, legally protected, characteristic of Gender Reassignment.
It is important to remember that sexual reassignment surgery is prohibited for under 18 year olds, on the NHS. Granting permission to male pupils, to use facilities in accordance with their “gender”, is mandating girls to accept penis in their intimate spaces. Gender reassignment was not intended to cover the modern idea of what it means to be trans.We did not consent to this.
The DFE briefing relies on advice from Stonewall and the Gender Identity and Research Education Society. (GIRES). A brief look at their supporters and trustees shows a heavy presence from trans-identified males. Below is a quick look at attitudes to sexual harassment from prominent transgender activists some of them associated with GIRES.
Backlash?
Anyone remember #MeToo? Is this the backlash?
Carlotta is not the only trans-identifying male who thinks women over react to men’s sense of entitlement to our bodies. There is a marked difference between a male and female perspective on sexual harassment. Paris Lees is advertised as a GIRES supporter on their website. Here Paris celebrates being objectified and arrogantly dismisses female fears about how transgender rights are being used to attack women’s right to single sex spaces. Ironically statistically escalators are more of a risk than Paris appreciated. There were, in fact, more people killed in escalator accidents than trans people were unlawfully killed, by all causes, in the year of this tweet. I would not trust Paris Lees to risk assess women’s expose to harm when single sex spaces become uni-sex.
A cursory look at the hyper-sexualised, look at me, performances of “femininity” from prominent TransGender activists bears witness to the fact that Paris Lees is not an outlier. Here Carlotta illustrates that males look at sexual abuse in a different way to women? For transgender males their perception is skewed because they have an excessive need to be validated, as women, which predisposes them to welcome what we repudiate.
I bring this up because, it seems to me, policy around sex segregated spaces is being DICKtated by males. Yes they may wish to identify as women but they seem unable to identify with our experience. The lobby groups advising government are drawn from this same population. Is it any wonder they have absolutely no idea of what it was like to grow up as a teenage girl? A cursory glance at the trustees of GIRES and supporters is enough to illustrate their likely bias.
School context
As a result of these lobby groups we are opening up single-sex spaces at a time of unprecedented rates of sexual assault in schools. Here are a couple of slides from a presentation by MaureenO’Hara.👇. Over 600 rapes in a three year period. I was staggered by that figure.
Here is your regular reminder De Facto Self-identity, of “Gender” has already been introduced in policy if not in law.
The DFE will end up with a future appearance at the Inquiry into child sexual abuse, the only questin is when. We do not want to wait thirty years. We need to hold people accountable, during their time in office, and not when they are deceased or honoured with a with a seat in the House of Lord and a massive pension.
The usual suspects.
A lot has changed in the six years since this guidance was written. I suspect even the most zealous of Transgender Rights Activists (TRAs) didn’t anticipate the explosion of trans identifying children. My school, of 1000 pupils, had at least three females and one male in one year group! This is no longer “rare”. Eventually one would hope that politicians would wake up to the obvious connection between proselytising Gender Identity Ideology and rising rates of children claiming to be transgender.
Here the DFE expand on the protected characteristic of gender reassignment and why it is deemed to cover school children.
👇 Again they link to GIRES website.
This was surely not the intention of the original lawmakers. Exhibit A. John Bercow. Hansard. Once again the interchangeability of gender as a proxy for sex makes for bad law. Bercow may have intended to reassure over single sex spaces or to obfuscate.
I am starting to come out in a rash when I see the word “gender”. The word that needs to be used all the time is sex. This quote below is disingenuous because all the guidance that flows from this has, effectively, stopped treating sex as a protected characteristic. This is a major change and not simply a reduction in paperwork.
I was not aware that harassment only applies to disability, race and sex but not the other categories listed. I will defer to legal peeps on what this means in reality. One noted feature of this is that gender identity is covered by hate crime legislation, even though it is not a legally protected characteristic. Sex, which is a protected character, is not covered. I am no fan of hate crime legislation, especially the ridiculous hate crime incident category, but women can’t point to any statistics on the hatred we experience using this method. A man can report misgendering as a hate crime but women can’t report any sexist abuse.! Women can’t laugh at a man but he can abuse us with impunity.
The inevitable referral to the Stonewall website and more links to GIRES material. The guide quoted below was made possible by funding from the Home Office which you can find confirmed in their accounts for year ending December 2013. When the fashion for outsourcing took over the governments, of all political persuasions, I had not understood this included sub contracting their own critical thinking. Lobby groups have been allowed to corrupt policy, and law, in this area for far too long.
It is well worth having a look at the GIRES website and, in particular, their trustees. Populated by trans activists with a strong presence from late -transitioning males with backgrounds in hyper-masculine occupations. They also have a trustee who is steeped in Queer Theory and can be found quoting Judith Butler in what reads like a PhD level argument for men who want to retain their penis. Here is a quote from Reubs Walsh from their public writing and their YouTube channel.
Reubs can also be found opposing the Keira Bell judgement and arguing for the early medicalisation of children. Once again I am struck by the contrast between adult men constructing arguments against surgery, presumably for themselves, but advocating medical solutions for children.
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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.
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 genderessence 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 “genderexpression” 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 “genderidentity” is biological. Here the school guidance acts as a drug pusher for “hormone blockers” ; which are presenting as a necessary treatment for “symptomsassociatedwithbeingtransgender“. 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 “gendervariant” 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.
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!
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I have done a number of twitter threads on School policies, ostensibly, about protecting “transgender children”. I have already blogged, on the way they treat parents. We are treated as potential bigots who need educating on Gender Identity issues. The Schools, invariably, take it upon themselves to keep parents in the dark about our “Gender Dysphoric” kids. They blithely inform us our kids are at significant risk of attempting suicide but still think it is good practice to hide pertinent information from parents. You can read that post here: Putting the Loco in Loco Parentis.
This is the second of a series on the policies I have found. Some have already been withdrawn but we need to preserve a record of the extent of the policy capture. Note that this series will be repetitive as they are clearly modelled on a small number of templates. The poor practice is widespread due to the cut and paste nature of the policies. The positive spin on this is that we can recapture in the same way. We only need sensible templates which balance the needs of kids with Gender Dysphoria and the protected characteristic of sex. We also need schools to stop usurping Parental Responsiblity. I know of multiple parents who only found out their daughters were adopting male identities, at school, due to an administrative error! This cannot be right. I was fortunate that this was not the case for my child, possibly, because it was back in 2015.
This post is on the Suffolk guidance. It is modelled on the Allsorts toolkit, which was the first one I covered. You can access the document below:
In the introduction we are told this was produced with input from transgender children and their parents. The other agencies they reference, quote, or signpost are listed below. Nearly all of these are Lobbying groups; advocating for the inculcation of Gender Identity Ideology in our schools, universities and other public, or indeed private, institutions. Stonewall, Mermaids, Gendered intelligence, Gires all get a mention.
I can’t possibly include all the clips I made of this document. I will just select the most egregious examples.
Predictably we go straight to the suggestion that trans-identifying children are at a greater risk of self-harm and suicide. This fear is leveraged to insist we have a “moral imperative” to act using emotional blackmail to demand “effective support”. What they propose , however, is the wrong kind of “support”.
I have rebutted the data on suicide many times on this blog. Below it is referenced once again. It is based on a study which included 27 trans-identifying people under the age of 26. Of that sample 13 had self-reported a suicide attempt. Even the author, of the PACE report, confirmed the difficulties that arise when research is used by lobby groups for their own purposes. Be very skeptical about suicide data in this field. It’s use, in my view, is not far removed from a terrorist tactic. Politicians are fond of saying they won’t negotiate with terrorists. In this case they have outright capitulated to lobbying groups deploying the most egregious of threats. Do this or I will kill myself/Your child will .
So how are Suffolk defining “trans”? Here is the list. This is unscientific nonsense and the last catetory is nonsensical. The authors clearly know we are making up genders, daily, so have added a catch-all category at the end.
Stonewall Lesbian
They also add this revealing caveat about why they are omitting “cross-dressers”. Most people don’t know that transvestites are considered to be “Trans” and covered by the Stonewall Umbrella.
It seems, for children, the authors recognise dressing up in clothes “stereotypically intended for the “opposite” sex” (note the inverted commas around the word “sex”) doesn’t make you “trans”. So what changes when you are an adult? Kids who experiment with dress are not automatically assumed to be “trans” but adult men who indulge in fetishistic transvestism are? Here we are grooming children to accept transvestites as some kind of “woman” when many do so for a sexual thrill. An erotic charge which can be heightened when undertaken in a forbidden (female only) space.
Below they engage in the linguistic gymnastics to change the definition of sexual orientation, a legally protected characteristic, by some careful wording. We used to call gay love the love that dared not speak it’s name. We are doing the same thing in 2020. This alteration of the meaning of sexual attraction to “romantic” is designed to make sure a heterosexual man, who identifies as a woman,can still be a “lesbian”. I concede that, if you are new to this subject, that last sentence will sound like an outlandish statement. Bear with me!
Here is Alex Drummond. Stonewall ambassador and bearded “lesbian”. Note the stance. I don’t think I have ever seen adult women adopt this, toes turned inward, stance. You won’t find a better take down of Alex than is to be found on the YouTube channel of the late, great, Magdalen Berns.
Safeguarding
We have just been told that any trans-identifying children are at a higher risk for self-harm and suicide but, now we are told there are no safeguarding issues. At the same time we also telling staff that it is Ok to allow children and young people to use the toilets and changing rooms of the opposite sex. NO SAFEGUARDING ISSUES?
Our children are also being taught that all people’s bodies and genitals are different. Not males and females have different bodies but “peoples”.
Yes we know the male people have different genitalia to the female people. Here they are indoctrinating children to divorce sexed bodies from “gender identity”. Specifically suggesting that recognising biological sex is based simple on “societal assumptions”. It is absolutely reckless to lower girls boundaries about male-bodied people, in their spaces, in this way. The tiny number of people with Disorders of Sexual development (here they use the term intersex) don’t undermine the fact that we are sexually dimorphic. This is why the word “gaslighting” is ever-present in this “debate”. if you don’t feel crazy trying to keep up with these teaching materials then you might not be sane!
Autism
Next up they acknowledge the high prevalence of children with autism who are questioning their gender. Here they warn staff not to limit the autonomy of the autistic child by questioning their gender identity. In fact the guidance is contrary to what is needed here. Children who are autistic are particularly vulnerable to gender identity ideology and ought to be protected from being defined as “trans” for behaviours common in autistic children. As an aside Autistic Charities have been reckless in their rush to embrace Gender Identity Ideology. Those thathave colluded with sterilising autistic ought to be removed from their posts. A clear out of senior staff at Autistic Charities is well overdue. I suspect, instead, they will end up in the House of Lords.
Withholding Information from Parents (again!)
Another common thread is the schools deciding to withhold information from parents about their own children. Parents are not told about a child’s transgender identity despite believing this makes them in a high risk demographic for suicide and self-harm. They don’t seem to see the safe-guarding concern in the denial of salient information to parents. On the contrary they see the safeguarding risk as originating with parents. Once again painting parents as less likely to care about our children than a transient person in the school. I would argue we are setting up a situation where a child has a secret with an adult which may make them more vulnerable to grooming by that member of staff?
Furthermore other parents are not to be told that a boy, a male for clarity, is using your daughter’s changing rooms. I absolutely hated even single sex, communal changing rooms and showers and I was not alone. It is beyond belief we would consider it Ok to put girls in this position.
Here it is made explicit that this is also intended to apply for overnight stays. 👇
Overnight school trips was that it was an important rite of passage to have nights away from home and typically the teachers left the girls unsupervised in the dormitories. This was a key part of the trip. The above guidance, however, means a teenage boy could be left in a girls dormitory. What will it take before some grown-ups step in and acknowledge that sexual offences, in schools are off the scale and are being committed by males, as a sex class, not as a gender identity.
The second point about that guidance is that any girl who feels uncomfortable will be stigmatised because she will be told she has to be the one to move. What girl will speak up in this climate?
So now we move on the case studies which, if you think I have been over-interpreting the guidance, lay out it clearly. This is a shameful misuse of the phrase “Human Rights” by the way. There is no human right to invade, women and girls, single sex, spaces.
Now we have taken away the right to single sex spaces what other ways could we screw over the female pupils? Oh, that’s right Sport. I am absolutely staggered that this policy was accepted without question. Of course a girl is going to be at risk playing a contact sport, like Rugby, against a male. And look at the language. “Trans boys are boys, not girls”. No they are females in flight from their sex but they are still female-bodied. Also make no mistake they always subsitute an example of a female (transman/boy) when they know using a male (transwoman/ girl) will look more blatantly wrong. .
Scenario 4 is yet another example of parents being painted as problematic if they resist affirming a trans identity. I think they deliberately used the idea of a Father opposting a gender non-conforming male because we all know gender non-conforming, gay, males who’s fathers had a hard time accepting having a gay son. So, let me present an alternative scenario. Supposing a young girl, with no history of any difficulty with their birth sex suddenly identifies as “male” in her teens. The mother is aware that her daughter shows autistic traits, or had a traumatic experience with childhood sexual abuse or has been bulllied after declaring herself attracted to females. The parents are not told about this and their daughter is allowed to express herself as male in school. She is using male toilets and changing rooms and she is wearing a breast binder, all unbeknownst to her parents. She is potentially placing herself at risk, using male facilities, and potential health issues by extended use of a binder. This can cause breathing difficulties and even , in extreme cases, broken ribs. This is not suppositiion. There are numerous YouTube influencers who have done all of these things before telling their parents and with the complicity of the school.
What is horrifying is that this guidance consistently ignores safeguarding red flags except when they wish to infer that we parents may be a risk to our children. Bearing in mind this risk appears to relate to parents who are not prepared to affirm a “gender identity” and any medicalised pathway for under-age kids. Does not mean we are not, for example, affirming their sexuality or their desire to mess with expected norms of dress. All of this was pretty standard fare as far back as the 1970’s. What it didn’t mean was that we advocated drugs and surgeries for teenage angst.
Here are all the usual suspects in the list of useful websites. A list of transgender lobbying groups, mainly, and not one womens’s group who might have an alternative perspective on the plight of confused girls. Also not included are any actual Gay Rights organisations. The kind that might take issue with the idea feminine gay males being told they might be girls. Make no mistake I definitely exclude Stonewall from any list of Gay Rights organisations. They have lost all credibility.
I note there is a policy for whistleblowers linked in the guidance. I feel for those teachers, of which I know many, who are apalled at what is going on in schools. Problem is this guidance is everywhere and I expect many teachers feel isolated and afraid to speak up.
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This teaching has been going on in our schools now for at least 5 years. We are now seeing the fruits of this propaganda in the generation of teens who are identifying out of their sex.
Shrier’s book is a timely contribution documenting increasing levels of concern over the rising rate of Trans-identifying Females. Young girls are having drastic surgeries/medical intervention, at ever younger ages, in a quest to become their “authentic selves”. Sadly, some of those young women are emerging, in their earlier twenties, to the realisation they were simply Lesbian or in flight from their sex for other reasons. This self-knowledge sometimes comes after years on testosterone, double mastectomies and even hysterectomies /ovary removal.
Facts and figures on the rising numbers of these girls are included in Shrier’s book. Many of the statistics are from the UK because the NHS makes it easier to keep track of the figures. In the US there are now tens of “Gender Identity” clinics to service the rising rates of “transgender” children /teens. This is a phenomenon across North America, Europe and Australasia. Shrier’s book documents this with extensive references, an excellent bibliography and conversations with many people at the cutting edge. This includes practitioners working in the field or reporting on this area. She also shares personal testimony from the young women and their parents.
I have kept quotations to a minimum because you really should buy this book! I have, however, interspersed some links/blogs to expand, or reference the UK context.
Censorship.
When research papers, articles or books, are published on the phenomenon of Trans-identifying children/ teens, they are inevitably followed by calls to ban them, accompanied by attacks on the author, sackings, loss of office or sponsorship. This book is no different.
Here is Chase Strangio, from the ACLU (Americal Civil Liberties Union), calling Shrier’s book “dangerous polemic” and calling for it to be taken out of circulation.
The ACLU have a proud history defending Civil Liberties and Free Speech. A legacy which has been utterly squandered by its advocacy of Gender Identity Ideology. As an organisation they appear unwilling to accept that Women, LGB people and even Transsexuals, have legitimate concerns about the extremist positions of Gender Identity Ideologues.
Chase Strangio is a Transman and ACLU Lawyer. Anyone questioning the transitioning of children seems to be perceived as an attack on Chase’s identity, as a man. Choosing to critique a book without reading it seems to be common in this “debate” but Chase claims to have actually read it. This doesn’t prevent Chase from seeking to deny other people the opportunity. This smacks of authoritarianism and is shocking from an organisation which, not too long ago, defended the right to free speech for members of the Ku-Klux Clan.
What is happening to Abigail’s book follows a familiar pattern of silencing. This happened to the work of Michael Bailey, Lisa Littman, Ken Zucker and many researchers whose work I have covered on this blog.
Lisa Littman
Lisa Littman coined the term “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria”. Lisa Littman spoke to parents with children claiming to be transgender. These children/teens had not shown any signs of discomfort, with their sex, during childhood, and their stories were also at odds with the experience / recollections of their parents. Diane Ehrensaft, a proponent of Gender Identity Ideology, made this statement about talking to parents (p.28). claiming it was akin to “recruiting from Klan or alt-right sites to demonstrate that blacks really are an inferior race”. I would contend that parents are demonised because we know when our children fabricate a fantasy trans-narrative. This knowledge is perceived as dangerous, as is (legal) parental responsibility, to safeguard our children from youthful mistakes. Parents who affirm biological sex are a direct challenge to ideologues, like Ehrensaft, who contend three year olds are competent to know their “gender identity”.
Ms Shrier’s book centres teenage girls. This makes sense because young girls are emerging as the main demographic being harmed. The causes are also different for females. As a parent of one of the boys, caught up in this, I contend that, whilst there is some overlap in the causality, this is primarily a tale of two sexes. It therefore makes sense to cover boys separately. Let us hope someone takes up the challenge to look at the Transgender Craze in Our Boys.Maybe I will.
Autogynephilia
Shrier does not shy away from covering the more controversial issues accompanying Gender Identity Ideology in our society. This includes a reference to Autogynephilia (AGP) which is a male paraphilia. The love of oneself, as a woman, is the new love that cannot bear to be named. Acknowledging AGP tends to provoke narcissistic rage and backlash and explains a lot of the testeria in this “debate“.
Shrier also talks about the erosion of female only spaces (see anecdote about the bra-fiting for a teenage girl. p.143). She also covers the potential /actual destruction of female sports due to male inclusionary policies. Shrier quotes young women who told her the social cache attached to a transgender identity is in direct contrast to the disregard for Lesbians. (p.151). Why would you want to be Lesbian when it is mainly known as a category of porn? Indeed the depiction of young women, in porn generally, seems suffiicient explanation for a flight from the female sex. Looked at one way adopting a male identity is a perfectly rational response to a hostile environment.
School Policy
Shrier is also excellent on the way Transgender ideology is disseminated, particularly in schools. The same phenonemon is at play in the UK. Sometimes this is done overtly via a Transgender Policy but other times it is slipped in, covertly, under the guise of anti-bullying. To truly root it out you have to check school transgender policy but also anything referencing bullying or equality or inclusion. I am doing a series on all the policies I have found and downloaded. This is one.
Shrier’s also documents how parents are treated by these policies and by schools, generally. Parents are painted as a safeguarding risk to our children, if we don’t immediately “affirm” a trans identity. I blogged about this here 👇 covering school policies advocating lying to parents about our children and “socially transitioning” them behind our backs.
Another issue subject to scrutiny is the threat of suicide and the topic of transgender kids. Not just in the US but globally. This is despite the fact suicide attempts are actually no higher in trans-identifying children than other kids with mental health issues. Completed suicides are actually very rare in transgender youth but they are higher in the adult group post transition. One Swedish study, with the longest follow up time of any other study, found the suicide rate to be significantly higher than their comparator sex. You can read about this here:
This is one of the longest follow up studies and points to a need for more after care and a review of the outcomes for post-operative transsexuals. This area is replete with references to suicide as evidenced by the repetition of “Better a live daughter than a dead son” . Yet discussion on post-operative mental health issues is verboten.
I wrote about suicide, in transgender youth, below.
Shrier seems to have spoken to most of the prominent voices in this debate. Ray Blanchard is the man who coined the term Autogynephilia. He is very good on the psychological toll it takes to present as the opposite sex. I have written about this, which I call “imposter syndrome on steroids” , after observing and listening to adult transsexuals. Blanchard goes a bit “bad on bothsides” re Trans Activists and Gender Critical Feminists (p. 132) but then we do appear to be, or are, critiquing his life’s work.
Medical Treatment
The book is bold and unflinching on the paucity of medical research and provides case studies on the deleterious impact of experimental, medical, solutions to a trans-identity. She points out that there is no reliable test for an innate “Gender Identity”. There is no biological marker. Detransitioners met the diagnostic criteria in the same way as did those who persist, for now, with a medicalised solution to their distress. She explodes the myth that puberty blockers are a pause and emphasises the public data which shows that 100%, put on puberty blockers, will continue to Cross Sex hormones. This is not a pause, it is the introduction to, an almost inevitable, pathway to medical transition. Shrier deals with the risks of puberty blockers (p.165); the shocking statistic of a 5 times higher rate of heart attack in females on testosterone (p. 169) and the medical complications leading to the high rate of hysterectomies after 5 years on testosterone. (p.171). She is also not afraid to name leading proponents of Gender Identity /Medical transition such as Jo Elsson-Kennedy who dismisses post mastectomy regret with this flip response “if you want breasts later on you can go and get them”. (p. 172)
Personal Testimony
The book is packed with personal stories from parents, adult transsexuals, desisters/de-transitioners. The bulk of these are females, as you would expect, but she does also reference young males. This approach allows us to meet some of the young girls/women caught up in the Transgender phenomenon, putting flesh on the bones of the statistics, just as surely as flesh is being put on the line. We hear the voices of parents endeavouring to navigate a path to protect their children, without alienating them. This is difficult and not always successful. Young women share their stories, one on being a Butch Lesbian, who identified as trans. The anorexic who swapped pro-ana sites for transgender ones. Crucially she ends the book with stories of those who made their way back, to reconcile with their sex and, very often to their formerly estranged families. Because: There is a way back!
Cultural differences
This is clearly a global phenomenon as I have tried to demonstrate. There are also some cultural differences. I don’t think therapy and medicalised responses to children/teenagers distress are quite as embedded in the UK. Though I am from the North of England and we can be a bit “haven’t you got any mates?” (Crocodile Dundee Style😉) about North American reliance on therapy. Shrier has lots to say about parenting styles and our growing impulse to step in when our children encounter difficulties. The phenomenon of Helicopter parents is less embedded in working class culture but is definitely rampant in middle class parenting. Overall this book translates very well, to the U.K. context, and it is eerie how much commonalty there is in the experiences of parents on both sides of the atlantic.
In Conclusion. This is a very important book.
Purchasing Abigail’s book via the link, below, will provide funds to a UK Parent’s group (Bayswater Support Group) who support families, with children who identify as transgender, to navigate a path to wholeness.
My copy of this book will be going to a generous donor who has purchased it to help fund my work. If you wish to support me you can do so here.
If you are able to support my work please do so. I am unwaged and all my content is open.
Investigating the march of Gender Identity Ideology. The impact on Women’s rights and the cost paid by our Gay offspring & children on the Autistic spectrum.
I have done a number of twitter threads on School policies, ostensibly, about protecting “transgender children”. The only one I have blogged, thus far, focussed on the way they treat parents. We are treated as potential bigots who need educating on Gender Identity issues. The Schools, invariably, take it upon themselves to keep parents in the dark about our ” Gender Dysphoric” kids. They blithely inform us our kids are at significant risk of attempting suicide but still think it is good practice to hide pertinent information from parents. You can read that post here: Putting the Loco in Loco Parentis.
I will now do a series on the policies I have found. Some have already been withdrawn but we need to preserve a record of the extent of the policy capture. Note that this series will be repetitive as they are clearly modelled on a small number of templates. The poor practice is widespread due to the cut and paste nature of the policies. The positive aspect of this is that we can recapture in the same way. We only need sensible templates that balance the needs of kids with Gender Dysphoria, with the protected characteristic of sex. We also need schools to stop usurping Parental Responsiblity to the extent they have done. I know of multiple parents who only found out their daughters were adopting male identities, at school, due to an administrative error! This cannot be right.
This document, I have based this on, was revised in 2019. I do have a copy of the 2014 document but I have done this blog based on the later version. You can access the document below:
This document was produced in Brighton which is a city with a such an open minded attitude it calls to mind the redoubtable Magdelen Berns’ quote: “Your minds are so open your brains have fallen out”. Brighton has long been a,commendably, friendly city to the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual community and now it has embraced the mulitplicity of Gender Identities. Brighton institutions are at the forefront of leading a societal change to prioritise “Gender” over Biological Sex. This policy, implicitly, endorses the idea that some of us can be “born in the wrong body” ; there are multiple Gender Identities and there can be a mismatch between Gender and Natal Sex.
In the introduction we are told this is a revised version following input from transgender children and their parents. The other agencies they reference, quote or signpost are listed below. Nearly all of these are Lobbying groups; advocating for the inculcation of Gender Identity Ideology in our schools, Universities and other public, or indeed private, institutions.
I can’t possibly include all the clips I made of this document. I will just select the most egregious examples. This guidance is amongst the most blatant in its evangelical zeal to propagate Gender Identity Ideology; to students, staff, parents, governors and wider society. The claim is made that children can choose whether they are “male” or “female”. Sex, it is argued is assigned at birth, whilst, in reality it is observed and recorded bar a tiny number of children whose sex is not apparent because they have Disorders/Differences in sexual development. People with DSDs are routinely wheeled out in this debate but, in fact, do not figure significantly in the Trans community. Gender , we are told, is on a spectrum and the guidance dismisses the idea of sex being either Male or Female. Anyone labouring under the delusion this guidance is merely a way to promote sensitive care for “transgender kids” needs to realise this is actually social engineering.
Here it is made explicit the aim is to challlenge “long accepted ideas of sex and gender”.
These long accepted ideas include the idea that we are sexually dimorphic species and biological sex is real. One parent even reports that they were pleased the school discussed how to teach about sexual reproduction before their “trans” child had to take the lesson. Since when is it healthy for a pupil to be so coddled they can’t hear scientific facts without a specially tailored lesson?
Next up we look at the practical implications for children with a disordered sense of their sex.
The guidance makes it abundantly clear that any child who feels they are of the opposite sex will be allowed to use the toilets and changing rooms based on their feelings, not their anatomy. They even state that this is because the boy who says he is a girl is actually a real girl and furthermore the school will challenge this wrong think by training and awareness raising. 👇 . Teachers are given scenarios and advise on how to challenge these attitudes.
Children are to be groomed not to raise a rumpus about a person of the opposite sex in the most intimate of settings, Anyone who doesn’t see the safeguarding issues, inherent in this enforced removal of children’s boundaries, is, at best naive, and at worst reckless / with nefarious intent,
Even worse the child with trans status is to be re-educated to revise their own belief of what is socially acceptable Here 👇 the school will actively teach the child to ignore the “unwritten” rules about which toilets to use, Notice that in this clip they suddenly shift to “public” toilets. Could that be because they know schools are legally obliged to provide single sex toilet facilities? Furthermore the school, in the name of the trans child’s privacy will withhold the information from other pupils and parents. Thus a female child is to share spaces with penis bearing “girls” and her consent to this is disregarded.
I am a parent of a trans-identified male (biological kind) he did NOT use female spaces. Still doesn’t. No harm has come to him. See also @FionneOrlander. Fionne doesn’t use female spaces out of respect and, interestingly, because it “feels too much like male entitlement”.
In order to ensure the girl (or boy) knows what is expected of them their biology lessons will be tailored to reinforce the primacy of gender identity over biological sex.
I presume this teaching strategy was endorsed at the highest levels in the school and nobody had a moments disquiet? Nobody! I know from my own son’s, school that the biology teacher felt obliged to apologise for the way she had to teach about reproductive biology. Thankfully she taught the biological facts but with the caveat that she knew this was old-fashioned.
As this pack originated in Brighton most of the pack assumes that the school will be working with the trans child and their parents. It does, however, seem they anticipate some parental resistance and not just from the other parents. They recognise that some pupils may not have “supportive” parents and they outline strategies for dealing with the non-compliant parents. They just won’t tell them! They even make sure their computer system is adapted so the teachers, ancillary staff and even the other pupils, will know your child is identifying as the opposite sex and you, the parent, will be kept in the dark! 👇
Suicide risk.
I have written many times about the suicide statistics quoted in this document. The school claims 48% of trans identifying children will attempt suicide.
This report they quote is based on a tiny sample of self-reported attempts. (13 out of 27 young people) It’s flawed data and shouldn’t be used . You can read more on this here Suicide in the Trans Community.
Parental Responsibility.
The fact remains the school assert that a specific demographic is at high risk of attempting suicide and yet they still state there’s no safeguarding risk. They regard themselves as entitled to withhold information from parents as a result of a condition which may result in significant self-harm or death. Furthermore the only time they do recognise any safeguarding issues is when they may apply to the parents. 👇. The framing of this advice is deliberately worded to paint the father as unsympathetic to a non gender conforming male child. 👇 Parents who affirm the new identity are described as doing their “best to work alongside their child”. The school is to be a safe environment for the vulnerable child which implies the non-affirming, home environment is unsafe. This impression is strengthened by the reference at the end. The inference is that non-affirming parents may be more likely to be a risk to their child.
So, let me present an alternative scenario. Supposes a young girl, with no history of any difficulty with their birth sex suddenly identifies as “male” in her teens. The mother is aware that her daughter shows autistic traits, or had a traumatic experience with childhood sexual abuse or has been bulllied after declaring herself attracted to females. The parents are not told about this and their daughter is allowed to express herself as male in school. She is using male toilets and changing rooms and she is wearing a breast binder, all unbeknownst to her parents. She is potentially placing herself at risk, using male facilities, and potential health issues by extended use of a binder. This can cause breathing difficulties and even , in extreme cases, broken ribs. This is not suppositiion. There are numerous YouTube influencers who have done all of these things before telling their parents and with the complicity of the school.
Social Engineering?
Here is another startling clip from the guidance. Here they assert that Every Person will experience this disassociation from their biological sex. Yes! Most people don’t conform to the stereotypical expectations for their sex 100% so why are we pathologising this? Below we are also told that some people maybe “partially male and partiallyfemale“. This is beginning to look like a recruitment drive. It also doesn’t make any sense. The first sentence imputes that we all have a gender identity but the final one allows someone to identify as “agender” . Even ten years ago we would have laughed this guidance out of court. Now we actually having to threaten, or actually undertake, Judicial Reviews to reinstate logic and reason into the school policies.
The Trans Umbrella
Another interesting aside is the school’s decision to leave out “Cross-Dressers” from within the school context, even though they are included in the Trans Umbrella, according to Stonewall.
Ostensibly this is becase we know many young people play “dress-up” and, allegedly, the authors wish to avoid confusion. Really? I am an adult and I find this entire document mind bogglingly confusing. Could it also be that the authors of this report don’t want to trigger the idea of sexually motivated transvestites? Dressing in female clothes, for the purposes of sexual arousal, is a known male paraphilia. Yet, under this ideology, these males are “trans” and, whilst the law allows males to be excluded from single sex spaces, many organisations have unilaterally changed spaces to include people who identify as “transgender” and as a “woman”.
The pack provides a handy crib sheet to emphasise key learning points, lest you forget.
The report then proceeds to quote some research from 2014 which highlights that over 90% of LGBTQ+ people report that they learnt nothing about trans in their sex and relationships education. Fast forward 6 years and it is ubiquitous! Yet we are all supposed to pretend there is some mystery about a massive spike in referrals to Gender Identity Clinics! We are actually inculcating it by teaching it to our vulnerable kids.
This next paragraph reads as if someone wanted to pack in as many types of oppression that the school needs to tackle. On a surface level this is all highly laudable but are they actually consistent with this guidance? I would argue they are not.
Any problems encountered by trans identifying people are above dismissed as being due to “transphobia“. This word is so over-used in the twitter sphere, and the media generally, as to be virtually meaningless. Recognising biological sex is real, being a Lesbian who is not attracted to people with penises, wanting a member of the female sex to perform intimate examinations. All of these are routinely described as “transphobic”. The idea that “transphobia” may be linked to “sexist and stereotypical ideas about what it means to be a man or a woman” is counter-factual. What this is saying is that if you compute someones biological sex, which lets face it is evolutionarily hard-wired, you are being “transphobic”. How has such an ideology taken hold in a rational society?
Yet in the next breath we are told that Gender is a social construct and learned behaviour. Children, we are told learn how to behave in line with the expectations for their sex. Thus far I agree. This includes “roles, clothing and activities”. However anyone who doesn’t conform is not necessarly showing us an indication of their gender identity. Again. Butch Lesbians, Femme Gay males and in fact many, many, heterosexual men and women don’t conform to varying degrees. That is because it is based on a social construct. So why are we medicalising gender conformity to mimic the sexual characteristics of the opposite sex if “gender” is just a social construct? Why not, instead, challenge the Social Construct?
I am no closer to finding a definition of “Gender Identity” that doesn’t rely on socially constructed idea of “Gender” which are derived from sex (and often sexist) stereotypes. We have already been told that it is not connected to Gender Expression. A boy can be a boy and wear a dress. (Seriously have these people never heard of David Beckham in a skirt of Marilyn the Gender Rebel popstar and celebrity, or an androgynous Annie Lennox). This stuff is not new. We could go back to the Eighteenth Century where Dandy’s were common in certain circles. Alternatively Ann Lister in the 19th Century and Radclyffe Hall in the twentieth. (Notice that the many/most were homosexual) .
The nearest definition occurs in this clip on Sexual Orientation which manages to redefine homosexuality to water down the homosexual element, with the addition of “romantically attracted”. It also assigns sexual fluidity to Gay males, and Lesbians, who fought long and hard to win the right to exclusive same sex attraction.
So it is defined as an “internal sense of self”. An entirely unverifiable definition. How does a man know what it feels like to be a woman? He can’t. There is no right way to be a woman. We are women by virtue of our sex. Some of us are more aligned to expectations for our sex and some of us are less so. A butch lesbian is a woman by virtue of her sex not by how well she performs the sex stereotypes encoded in “gender”. Same with a “femme” gay male. Notice that sexual orientation is now defined to include attraction by virture of sex and GenderIdentity. The notion that someones sexuality can change over time is also slipped in. This allows males to describe themselves as Lesbians and Trans Men to identify as gay males. How this watering down of sexual orientation has been endorsed by erstwhile Gay Rights groups, like Stonewall, is a question that will result in PhDs. One Day!
Hate Crimes
Another common theme is the encouragement to record “transphobic incidents”. Here an incident is to be labelled “transphobic” if there is a trans child in the class the incident will be challenged and recorded. However the pack also warns teachers that more serious incidents should be reported to the police. Worth noting that women are not protected by Hate Crime legislation because misogyny is not covered. Not to worry. Men are so busy killing us we don’t have the energy to get upset about being mis-gendered. Note, I am not being flippant here, hate crimes are recorded in accordance with the self-perception of the person doing the reporting. Using factually correct pronouns has been reported to the police and will be recorded as a hate incident.
Medical Transition
In common with all of the packs I have read the guidance also includes details about how children with gender identity issues can seek medical support. This pack was written in 2019 but even then there was disquiet about describing some of these interventions in the way they are described here. The very idea that a school guidance pack contains detailed information about a serious medical intervention is anathema to any idea of child safeguarding. Blocking Puberty is not merely a “suspension” and as I have covered in my blogs on puberty blockers. Puberty Blockers. Part One
The way they are talked about here is reckless and ill informed. 👇
Even more reckless is the way the pack signposts ways to circumvent delays in accessing treatment. If you don’t want kids/parents to use doctors over the internet why are you telling kids/Parents that it is possible. This looks disingenuos to me. Signposting with a note of caution looks like an attempt to claim “plausible deniability”
Female Sports
Another issue that the guidance glosses over is the physical differences in males and females when it comes to sport. Certainly by the time my sons were 11 they towered above me and thereafter rapidly proceeded to a male puberty that conferred many sporting advantages. This scenario, to deal with a parental complaint, is grossly dishonest.
Some sporting bodies have cravenly capitulated to the lobby groups and include players on the basis of Gender Identity. This has resulted in females losing to male players in fields such as cycling, boxing and cricket. In the UK, fear of lawsuits due to injury, I assume, has prompted the resignation of Rugby referees because of the danger to female players forced to play against males. The battle over women’s sports is , however, far from over. The long term consequences for females entering sport will be massive if they learn very early on that there is simply no point in taking part in an unfair competition with the odds stacked against them.
Woke Red Guards?
Bring me the child at seven and i will bring you the (wo) man. This image is included in the pack showing how children as young as seven are now parroting the idea that they are not the right sex,
This teaching has been going on in our schools now for at least 5 years. We are now seeing the fruits of this propaganda in the generation of teens who are identifying out of their sex.
I want to end with a particularly ridiculous scenario. One that has in fact played out at my son’s school. They have a handful of girls who identify as boys. One of them has had two male names and has reported people for using their last deadname, even though male. They play on the female netball team but reported their teacher for use of the word “girls” when cheering on the team. We are handing over an unprecedented amount of power to troubled kids. Is it surprising that some want to wield that power? Children as young as 7 are repeating the ideas they have been taught. The pack includes this drawing done by a seven year old.
Here the teacher is instructed to follow the child’s instructions about their pronoun use, even though they are Gender Fluid and may wish to be addressed differently on any given day. Remember it is not appropriate, we are told, to conflate Gender Expression with Gender Identity so here is the solution….
In the Chinese Cultural Revolution children were indoctrinated into the new religion via state education. Teachers were denounced, humiliated for not complying. Many went to their deaths, some betrayed by their own children. Children even changed their names to disassociate from their families.
I am not equating the rise of Woke Ideology with the Cultural Revolution in terms of scale and consequences but there are worrying parallels. The righteousness of the proponents of Gender Ideology who are so convinced they are on The Right Side Of History bring to mom this quote from James Baldwin.
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 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.
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. 
👈 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. 
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”. 
Our children are also being taught that all people’s bodies and genitals are different. Not males and females have different bodies but “peoples”. 
The ACLU have a proud history defending Civil Liberties and Free Speech. A legacy which has been utterly squandered by its advocacy of Gender Identity Ideology. As an organisation they appear unwilling to accept that Women, LGB people and even Transsexuals, have legitimate concerns about the extremist positions of Gender Identity Ideologues. 
