Identifying as a different gender

I have left this conversation. It is no longer about the difficulties of establishing safe places for women while not restricting people who wish to change their gender away from their birth sex. It has become (as so often happens) a fight about how people are or are not being nasty to one poster and whether or not suggestions offered in good faith are just attacks.

I'm out. If anyone has any good practical suggestions for reconciling the happiness and safety of both groups and can discuss it without this melodrama I might comment on another thread.

I think I'll leave it too Elegran. Such a shame that posters are being put off from posting here, it was such a good topic too.

So why bring ASC. into it at all VS?
This thread was about gender.
I don’t need (except in your view) any education on disability rights. I’m well enough versed in those through my job and my family.

Iam64

Sorry can I clarify my badly worded list. It’s important to say I remembered you, Violet, wondering whether you like your daughter, is on the autistic spectrum.
I wasn’t the one doing the wondering. Though We have similar experience in that when My grandson was diagnosed at age8, his father realised he is also on the ASD, as was his own father

I openly wondered but I've known in myself for a long time.

People with autism can be entirely different because it is an umbrella not a spectrum but I think yes, it runs in families at times and my daughter and I are similar and her diagnosis led to mine pretty directly actually but I won't go into that.

It is good to understand myself but, I disproved thoughts about what my diagnosis might mean about me before anyone commented to me about it. I misunderstood someone, they explained, I immediately apologised for my overreaction.

Something that has not been reciprocated when I have explained myself

I'm not the problem in this situation

Sorry this is coming out at you Iam but it's not aimed at you

Mollygo

So why bring ASC. into it at all VS?
This thread was about gender.
I don’t need (except in your view) any education on disability rights. I’m well enough versed in those through my job and my family.

I simply explained to doodledog that I repeated something back to her in different words because I was agreeing not arguing and it's an autistic quirk of mine. Much like saying, I missread your comment because my vision is bad and I didn't have my glasses on except, I wouldn't then have several pages of people lecturing me on who I am as a person due to autism despite my repeated requests that stops

Also to do that and then blame me for disrupting the thread is funny

Also if someone is hurt by a comment of mine or asks me to stop doing something I apologise and stop.

That's a normal decent human thing

It may not undo the hurt caused but it is a start isn't it?

Smileless2012

I think I'll leave it too Elegran. Such a shame that posters are being put off from posting here, it was such a good topic too.

I'm out, too.

There's not much more that can be said anyway about this particular case, because the details appear a bit thin on the ground.

It's really important IMO to know whether the teacher was being deliberately 'obstructive' and / or if some of the pupils were possibly taking advantage of a situation to victimise a teacher they didn't like - and I only say that because it's something (to my shame) that I did at school. Although the 'issue' was entirely unrelated to this one. We victimised an unpopular teacher, when given the opportunity. It happens.

I have no suggestions as to how trans issues/safe spaces for women can be discussed constructively Elegran. I’m interested in developing discussions but my experience is it’s impossible. I got dragged into another ping pong for which I apologise
I do not apologise for being gender critical

Mollygo

So why bring ASC. into it at all VS?
This thread was about gender.
I don’t need (except in your view) any education on disability rights. I’m well enough versed in those through my job and my family.

Sorry Mollygo if you post things like When things don’t suit, or problems arise, none of them use the “I’m autistic’ or ‘I’m dyslexic’ excuse you do need educating in disability rights.
It isn't an excuse it is a part of the person. The person has a right to own the disability. They have the right to tell people about it. It isn't an "excuse" it is a part of them.
I've experienced many professionals who failed to understand disability rights. They imagined that they were doing good, but failed to understand the issue of empowerment, partly because in doing so they need to surrender the control they exercise. The one which regards talking about a disability as giving an excuse.

I'm out too, hiding the thread helps

Because my views are only slightly different and I've consistently advocated for safe spaces, fairness in sports and never been pro GRC as i believe thats detrimental to trans people and open to abuse. I just believe there is a reason trans people exist and would like to embrace them.

Yet how I am treated on these threads has become a metaphor not just of how some people need a scapegoat to vent their anger at which is the conplete and total problem with GC beliefs but how they cannot embrace difference and try to place it in a box with a label despite poorly understanding it.

See you all on the next thread, as usual I have learned from this one and will keep finding ways to say the things that make the GC uncomfortable that cannot be reproached 😊

If you bring an unrelated topic into a thread and then complain that you don’t agree with the responses that’s your problem. If you’ve really left the thread, so be it.
Making others uncomfortable?
What an ambition-but it doesn’t work on me. I’ve dealt with worse.

Violet, with respect, it really isn’t all about you. Inevitably though, it seems, that’s where these kind of discussions end up

I wont apologise for being gender critical either Iam, nor will I accept that because I am I need a scapegoat to vent my anger.

I am not angry I am concerned, and not because I cannot embrace difference and try to place it in a box with a label because I have poor understanding.

Is it any wonder that this thread, like so many on this topic becomes one that people no wonder wish to engage with? Especially when it seems that some want to find ways of saying things to make gender critical uncomfortable, rather than take part in an informed and healthy debate.

Difference of opinion is simply that. It is not an indication that those who disagree don't understand the issued being discussed.

I had no intention of making this into ping pong, and will leave the thread if doing so will encourage others to post.

I was genuinely trying to help VS as she so often feels victimised and it seemed to me unnecessary, as on most issues there seems to be little disagreement.

I was not referring any diagnosis unkindly, but to point out that if someone does have such a condition it would be better if they took it into account before getting angry with others. It did seem ironic that VS had just accused someone of playing a 'get out of jail free' card and then followed that up with a reference to a diagnosis of Autism, but maybe that came from an inability to read the room. I don't know, and tbh, I don't care any more. It is impossible to discuss this topic without it descending into this sort of thing, and it's tiresome.

No I didn't hide it yet, I was busy doing dinner

Yet you are still all talking about me and blaming me for your behaviour
That's not me making anything about myself, thats you making it about me

I'm only responding to all of you...

You don't have to talk too or about me

That's a choice

Aa for the thread itself, it was factually incorrect and managed to unnecessarily alarm and upset a lot of people from the beginning

So it really doesn't matter at all

Now why did I think VS wouldn’t really have left?
if at first you don’t succeed . . .

TBH Doodledog I think we've passed the point where people will feel comfortable too, and encouraged to post.

The thread may have digressed as they tend to do, but there was nothing factually incorrect in the OP and I'm not aware of anyone whose participated being unnecessarily alarmed and upset.

VioletSky

Aa for the thread itself, it was factually incorrect and managed to unnecessarily alarm and upset a lot of people from the beginning

So it really doesn't matter at all

Really ?
Doodledog - apologies, I was not accusing you of ping pong. Your calm considered and well informed contributions are one of the reasons I read and occasionally contribute to the trans discussions.

choice

Mollygo

Now why did I think VS wouldn’t really have left?
if at first you don’t succeed . . .

In fairness, I'm still reading the thread, too! Having said "I'm out".

But I don't think I can contribute anything meaningful now. Partly because there are still unanswered questions about the incident at the school. And speculating just doesn't get anywhere.

I hope the issue is resolved and that it drops out of the tabloid headlines - I've just read a report of this event in an American newspaper. The 'journalist' simply quoted the DM's headlines <<<sigh>>>. And based his 'conclusions' on it.

I'd be surprised if the details are ever made public. The school has a reputation to protect, and won't want speculation in the public domain, and the incident is likely to be damaging to the teacher, too.

The pertinent issue, however, is whether the rights of an eleven year old child to insist that a teacher doesn't refer to her/them as a girl should trump the rights of a teacher to hold gender critical views. For those reasons, the case is important in establishing some sort of precedent, even if not a legal one, as it won't go to court.

The rest (the school ethos and the employee relations between the school and its staff) is a matter for them to decide and for the parents to take into account when paying the fees.

Can't a particular case only set a precedent if it goes to court?

The teacher's subjects were apparently philosophy and religious education (greenlady102 Sat 22-Apr-23 12:42:13)

That may be relevant both to her resistance to modifying her stance on transexuals and to the possible perception of her by the class as an easy target for -pressurising-- winding up. Children are not kind to earnest and maybe inexperienced temporary teachers. Religious education is that kind of subject.

Now I really am going to call it a day and go to bed.

Smileless2012

Can't a particular case only set a precedent if it goes to court?

Yes, that's why I said a precedent of sorts, even not a legal one.😀

It's probably not the right term, but I meant that the more these things are resolved one way or the other the more subsequent ones are likely to do the same, even without legal input.