Roderic O’G: Transgender issues added to primary curriculum

Neurotypical/atypical clearly have something to do with it, else the Indo wouldn't be reporting that "Up to 90pc of people using gender service may be autistic". What is the link, exactly? I've no idea. And nor do any of the people eager to teach children that people on the G.I. Joe end of the "gender spectrum" are boys. So maybe that ought to be looked at before diving headfirst into telling children that humans can change sex in any way other than the creation of a legal fiction.

The Indo certainly would be reporting that “Up to 90pc of people using gender service may be autistic”, and putting the article behind a paywall so that if anyone wants to read it they have to pay. I’m not willing to pay to read the article, but from what I’ve read elsewhere, the National Gender Service are pulling the figure out of their arse. They’ve extrapolated from data gathered from previous audits where the figure was much lower, they’re predicting a figure of 90% of people using their services in 2022 MAY be autistic. There’s no indication that people using their services are either diagnosed with gender incongruence (the WHO standard) or that they have a clinical diagnosis of any form of ASD.

Basically there’s a whole hotbed of political fcuking about going on there where the NGS are looking for more funding and using ASD as a means to get it, with those opposed to correlating ASD with gender dysphoria as a means of preventing people who are transgender from receiving appropriate healthcare -

https://gcn.ie/national-gender-service-crisis-ireland-fails-who-obligation/

(the fact that there are no sources for the prevalence of ASD in the Irish adult population doesn’t help matters, but estimates suggest about 1.5% of the Irish adult population have some form of ASD -

https://assets.gov.ie/10707/ce1ca48714424c0ba4bb4c0ae2e510b2.pdf)

One study which claims to be the largest study of its kind (leaving out the fact that their methodology is fundamentally flawed), suggests at best, a correlation (as opposed to a causal relationship) between gender variance and ASD. You’ll notice the language is sufficiently vague which allows the researchers an enormously broad latitude in the criteria they were selecting for, and even then, the best they could manage is this -

As around 1.1% of the UK population is estimated to be on the autistic spectrum, this result would suggest that somewhere between 3.5.-6.5% of transgender and gender-diverse adults is on the autistic spectrum.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/transgender-and-gender-diverse-individuals-are-more-likely-to-be-autistic-and-report-higher-autistic

We should definitely find out, with a good degree of certainty, if there is any risk that introducing ideas about changing sex to developing young minds has any chance of increasing the likelihood of a child transitioning. Particularly at a time when activist group WPATH, who are listened to by far too many governments and other institutions, are suggesting that double mastectomy at 15 is a-ok, as is surgically removing the genitals of someone who identifies with the (perfectly valid, according to WPATH) gender identity "eunuch". And at a time when an increasing number of children and young people are coming forward to express regret permanent and irreversible changes that have been made to their bodies via puberty blockers, wrong-sex hormones and surgery. Don't you think?

We know already though that it does? I mean, it stands to reason that by making people aware of something, some people will develop an interest in it, others may not, and completely and outright reject the idea. It’s one reason why breast implants are as popular as they are among women for example - because as children, both girls and boys are fed a steady diet through popular culture of what constitutes the ideal of what a woman should look like, and girls aspire to achieve that ideal, by whatever means necessary, even by means which are unquestionably detrimental to their health which lead to them developing eating disorders and so on. And there’s purportedly a correlation there too between eating disorders and ASD, fuelled by the same expert on ASD who sees autism everywhere -

https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/anorexias-link-to-autism-explained/

I won’t say there isn’t anyone would suggest that children shouldn’t learn about healthy eating because some children might develop eating disorders and they should be deprived of treatment because it’s explained by some form of ASD, because there probably is someone who would suggest such an asinine approach to healthcare.

It would be an equally asinine approach to education to suggest that children should be deprived of any knowledge on the basis that some of them will develop an interest in any particular area which they may later come to regret as adults. If that were the standard employed, children would be taught nothing for fear that they might learn something, with the idea being that it is better for them to be influenced and educated by a combination of exposure by self-discovery and popular culture, rather than the guidance provided by participation in formal education. The benefits of arming children with knowledge by far and away outweighs the risk of them falling prey to the sort of shyte that they are exposed to in popular culture, it means they’re better equipped to spot those sorts of influences which have a negative effect on their perception of themselves and their perceived status in society.

And yes, I do agree with you that the GI Joe/Barbie ‘spectrum’ is incredulously useless as an educational resource for teachers, and that’s likely because I have no interest whatsoever in the political ‘debates’ surrounding these issues. I just wouldn’t use it is all.

Don't worry about gender ideology, it's on the way out for good, just forget anyone ever mentioned it.

There won't be any 'gender services' just plain old psychological services, as the NHS in the UK have said after they shut down the Tavistock 'affirming care' clinic.

in your opinion, in specific terms - what do kids need to know about sex overall and about transgenderism in particular, and what should they learn at which ages?

Your question was clearly answered and its you who appears confused. "Trangenderism" is about identity not sex, whatever your views on the subject. That some want to conflate it with sex in an effort to suggest even mentioning it exists is somehow "sexualizing" children is either rank ignorance or deliberate misrepresentation.

I find it interesting in these threads or discussions like this elsewhere online that the concepts of confusing children about adult topics or “sexualising” children is almost invariably only brought up when the immediate topic at hand has something “gay” or “trans” about it. The adult themes of romantic love, marriage and heterosexual attraction are everywhere in the childrens’ stories, media and education — which many would seem to deem the acceptable level of exposing children to adult topics.

In other words, it’s perfectly fine for little girls to go around with baby dolls and toying around with the adult theme of motherhood. It’s OK for little boys to be running about with toy guns and dabbling in the adult themes of warfare and murder. It’s OK for children to be peddled themes of adult sexual attraction in Disney movies. Nobody is screaming “just let kids be kids” when the kids are consuming media of heterosexual romantic relationships and the clear undercurrents of sexual attraction between characters. Nobody is whingeing about children being made to grow up too fast when the princess of the story works her way towards the pinnacle of marrying the prince.

But hey, as soon as things veer off the heterosexual piste towards gay or trans themes — well that’s just sexualising children and confusing them. Even the mere attempt to actually explain and normalise the existence of these things to children is met with a condemnation that those doing the condemning do not apply consistently to themselves.

Not really. Its the reverse. Its not that you dont want it taught through an ideological lens. You only want it taught through an ideological lens you agree with which is about rejecting the existence of trans kids, rejecting any affirmation and promoting conversion therapy.

Can't wait to sue my parents for not allowing me to be a Jedi back in 1987 when I was 9 years old, clearly I was the one who knew better and now they shall pay the price for not allowing my conversion to what I should have been.

If they are going to be taught something that may, as Jack said, make them more likely to start thinking that they might themselves be trans, then they should be told about people who deeply regret transition and end up infertile and scarred and dependent on hormones for life, and not just rare stories of happily childfree trans people who pass.

That’s definitely not what Jack said 😂

This is what you said -

We should definitely find out, with a good degree of certainty, if there is any risk that introducing ideas about changing sex to developing young minds has any chance of increasing the likelihood of a child transitioning.

To which I responded that we already know that it does, referring to the fact that there IS a risk that introducing ideas about changing sex to developing young minds DOES increase the likelihood of a child transitioning.

I didn’t say anything about children being taught something that may make children more likely to think they might themselves be trans, because that’s a stupid argument with absolutely no credible evidence whatsoever to support an unfounded belief. Children who are transgender, know they are transgender, even if they were never introduced to the concept.

That’s why their parents often struggle with the fact that their children identify themselves as transgender, because children who are transgender know long before they ever gain the confidence, or the courage, let alone the language or the ability to explain to their parents in a way they can help their parents understand the concept, that it is unrelated to how they were raised or anything else which is generally the first thing which goes through parents minds when they learn their child is transgender. Parents seek external influences to explain why their child is transgender, because the reality that it is something they had no control over is often a source of confusion and anxiety for the parents involved.



EDIT: I see now too what you really meant by this -

But my whole contention here is not that gender identity shouldn't be taught at all, but that gender identity should not be taught through an ideological lens as fact.

You don’t want children taught about gender identity impartially at all, you want children taught about what will happen to them if they are transgender as though it were fact, through your own shìt covered ideological lens -

they should be told about people who deeply regret transition and end up infertile and scarred and dependent on hormones for life, and not just rare stories of happily childfree trans people who pass.

Teaching children that the way they perform the arbitrary and ever-shifting concept of gender within society has any bearing on or implication for their sex is the exact opposite of challenging gender norms. You'll notice that Little Jimmy is never thought to actually be Little Jenny because of his love of soccer, cars and spaceships. No little girl is ever lead to believe that she might be a boy if she's into Barbie and pink tutus. Might be something worth thinking about, if your aim is challenging gender norms.

I don't see an issue with the juxtaposition, either. What I do find odd is that the response is to suggest opening children up to more adult themes rather than less.

Well then it ought to be very easy to counter those arguments rather than just blowing air about who's making them, right?

I don’t understand your post to be honest. You say I’m wrong to say that the gay community helped pave the way towards wider acceptance of transgenderism but then say this was actually just a subset of the gay community. What? Isn’t that the very point I’m making? This subset was able to thrive or at least be public about itself within the gay community, in a way which it wasn’t in wider society. Dressing in drag, transsexualism etc are concepts which were far more readily accepted by the gay community than they were beyond it. Small subset or otherwise, these were inversions of what many in wider society would have viewed as the masculine norm — and the gay community seems to have long been a safer space for acceptance of that.

And I didn’t suggest that being gay is gender non-conforming — merely that there are synergies between the experience of both the gay and transgender communities and similarities as regards cultural biases against them among heterosexual and / or cisgender people.

So are you going to lump in Jews, Blacks and the Rohingya also, or why merge being gay with being trans?

The whole argument is that trans is nothing to do with sex, so why do you insist in talking about trans along with homo/hetero/bi sexuality?

Sounding more like a Sith than Jedi in fairness.

Well not really actually — the lack of honesty makes the debate intractable because the energy of the counter-argument is devoted to trying to overcome a point that the other person doesn’t really sincerely believe. So if you try to come to an intellectual compromise, it’s impossible, because you’re compromising on something that doesn’t exist. My point is that, from what I can see, the conservative fear is a fear of the “ideology” itself, not the fact that it’s an “adult theme” and there’s a desire to minimise the exposure of adult themes to children. The exposure to adult themes argument is a smokescreen for people who simply think that exposing children to the existence of transgenderism “promotes” transgenderism, and they don’t want it to be “promoted”.

The cognitive dissonance is even more stark in the US, where conservatives have absolutely nothing to say about young children playing around with toy guns (hell, even real guns in some parts) or being exposed to adult themes like gun violence in a country where there is a serious societal problem with gun crime and mass shootings in schools. But exposing children to the existence of transgenderism? That’s when the complaining starts, oddly enough.

To me, it would just be easier for everyone if people just came out and said that their opposition to transgenderism being a visible concept which children are exposed to is based in the fact that they don’t want transgenderism “promoted” to their children because they think it’s either weird, wrong, harmful (or all of the above) — and has nothing to do with fears of children being exposed to “adult themes”.

This may however be indicative of the point I have been making. The issue is that you probably do think that gender identity has a place in schools, because you probably don’t have as much of an issue with how gender identity has traditionally been taught and reinforced in schools. An argument that things just shouldn’t change when it comes to gender identity in schools is not really argument that gender identity has no place in schools — it’s simply an argument that gender identity in schools should be thought of the same way as it has traditionally been (i.e. default subconscious bias towards a traditional cisgender interpretation).

Well, okay, but you quoted a post of mine for your first contribution and I haven't said anything about adult themes or whatever. I just don't think we should be teaching lies as fact to our children, which is what will happen if the people consulted for curriculum changes are organisations staffed by activists who sincerely hold the quasi-gnostic belief that it is possible for a person to be come a sex other than that which was determined at the moment of their conception.

Ironically, many of the people who fail to see this are those who would shout loudest about wanting "religion as fact" type teaching out of schools. Inconsistency is not a partisan trait.