A district judge in Wisconsin has sided with an 11-year-old trans girl over her use of the girls’ toilets and temporarily blocked school officials from preventing her access.
A district judge in Wisconsin has sided with an 11-year-old trans girl over her use of the girls’ toilets and temporarily blocked school officials from preventing her access.
Removed by mod
How is educating children “grooming”? Do you say that they are being “groomed” into mathematical ideology by math teachers?
Do you think that children shouldn’t be taught about trans people?
Conservatives (given how anti-intellectual they’ve become) would probably suggest that non-religious education is grooming.
I think it’s very difficult, in practice, to “teach” young children about gender identity without falling back on stereotypes and gender conformity.
Since an 8-year-old girl doesn’t have overtly feminine characteristics like breasts or wide hips to feel physically uncomfortable with, how do you explain what it means to “feel like a boy”? The examples I’ve seen in elementary schools revert to showing a boy in a dress as “feeling like a girl”…when really, preferences for toys or clothing shouldn’t determine your gender or cis/trans-ness. (And even at older ages, being uncomfortable with newly-sprouted breasts or hating periods doesn’t make you a trans boy, of course.)
I also think there is danger in quizzing children about this at a very young age and then taking them literally. Some of my coworkers have “transitioned” their toddlers and pre-schoolers … but these kids are still young enough to identify as cats and dogs and fairies, depending on the day. In this case, the adults aren’t intentionally grooming. But it’s likely that they’re asking leading questions and misinterpreting childhood play through their own lens of having an established gender identity.
IMO, we’d all benefit from taking gender a bit less seriously.
What’s the danger? If a kid decides that they’re a different gender, and then changes their mind back later, what harm has been done?
I think it’s healthy for kids to experiment when they’re still figuring out their identity. The harm comes when adults stigmatize this stuff so that a kid thinks that they’re bad or wrong for being different.
I agree that it’s healthy to experiment. At four years old, I was a “boy” whenever I played Peter Pan. And as a teen, I happened to go through a rather butch phase when I could easily be confused for a boy. I’m thankful that my parents weren’t at all hung up on gender conformity, and neither was the community.
But if parents make a big deal out of changing a kid’s name and pronouns and clothing, and swapping all the gender-stereotypical toys of one gender for another, and joining pride groups and making it a central part of the family’s identity … I think that creates a LOT of pressure for that child to continue in a trans identity (even though it’s pretty unlikely their toddler was actually trans to begin with).
Why not dress however you like, play with whatever toys you like, but hold off on the assumption that gender non-conformity = transgender child? Or hold off on trying to “teach” these concepts to a little person who’s perfectly content just eating dirt and playing tag?
My nephew right now is two and a half and pretty oblivious of gender. He shows no objection with being referred to with male pronouns, and yet his daycare teachers refuse to use he/him pronouns until he “comes out as cis” (in the meantime, all children are “they”). The parents in this community also fly flags and post messages like “trans children are sacred” and “bless the queer kids” constantly. It might sound lovely, and it’s meant to be inclusive … but children are quick to pick up on favoritism and which kids are considered special. In addition to that general sentiment, if parents keep asking, “Are you a boy or a girl? It’s ok if you feel like a girl, sweetie” … then eventually kids will parrot back whatever terms they hear, or whatever they think will earn a positive response. (Case in point: if you ask my nephew in an enthusiastic voice, he may confirm his identity as “cat” and “dog” and “cement mixer”.)
In short: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Don’t create complexity where there wasn’t any before.
My guess is that in the vast majority of cases, adults who officially “transition” their very young children are simply projecting their own desire for ally-ship. And my main gripe remains: if teachers and counselors continue to conflate gender non-conformity with transgenderism, then clearly they aren’t qualified to “teach” what it is in the first place. Let boys in dresses and girls with short hair be just that, without probing for more.
I wish we could all just shut up and not give a shit about other peoples gender
Weird, cause I grew up with authority figures slamming back the f-slur, disparaging gays, and promoting straight movies, books, and media. Somehow I still turned out trans and pan. Weird. Weeeird. You’d think I’d have “learned” to be straight and cis with all of the grooming I got…
The same was said about gay people years ago and guess what? It wasn’t true, because of course it wasn’t. Informing kids and teens of the existence of other sexualities won’t convince them to adopt them.
The increase in transgender youth can be mainly attributed to the increased acceptance and knowledge of the issue among the younger generations. Simple as that.
VERY few people would ever do it for attention, since the attention you get is extremely often negative. Most transgender people are terrified of telling others they’re trans because of the reaction they’d get. The popularity argument is simply unrealistic.
How long would it take to convince you that you were trans?
Everything you said is wrong, but let’s start with an easy question to identify your bias.
What percent of the population do you think is trans and what percent do you think identifies as trans incorrectly?
Removed by mod
Trans people have usually made up less than 1% of the general population historically.
I remember when I was hanging out with some of the gays (I keep them as friends to keep up appearances). Before, I was always the alpha. I could swing by any bar and leave with the hottest lib in my F150. By the end of the night she’d be screaming for her daddy and fully supportive of Trump. I loved converting libs to MAGA-wearing breeders.
But then I hung around the gays, and something inside of me just fundamentally flipped: I love penis inexplicably and wearing the latest Hillary 2024 fair-trade organic cotton shirts I got for volunteering. I’ve never seen such a marvelous transformation!
Yeah, good luck with that. I work at a school where me and my colleagues have put a great deal of effort in educating the kids we teach (grades 1-4) about what LGBTQ+ means (we’re actually certified by a LGBTQ+ organization). Most of the kids could tell you what it means to be transgender, some of the ways in which LGBTQ+ people are being discriminated against and in which countries you could go to prison for being gay. Most of them also agree that people should be able to identify as whatever gender they want and that everyone else should respect that.
Despite of this, not a single kid has ever shown any desire to identify as any other gender than their biological one except for the kids who already identified as trans; the older one clearly saying they’re trans and the younger one repeatedly saying things like “Why does it matter if I feel like a boy or a girl” and that they’re fine with any pronouns when other kids have asked them what gender they are. We have some of immigrant kids who have trouble with pronouns and often the kids get angry with them for using the wrong pronouns (“I’m a BOY, not a girl!”) and, despite of our best efforts, you can often hear them saying things like “We boys are so much better than girls”. Good fucking luck convincing an 8 year old that they should identify as any other gender than the one they identify with.
Removed by mod
Speaking of actual grooming that occurs … Grooming and the Christian Politics of Innocence
Removed by mod