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August 11, 2022 - 10:00am
Suella Braverman has put schools on notice: the social transition of pupils is not a neutral act. In a keynote speech yesterday, the Attorney General described it as a “serious intervention and should only be done upon the advice of an independent medical practitioner”. Braverman added:
She had much more to say. There was clear guidance, for example, about school toilets, dormitories and sports teams. In short, sex means sex and children cannot self-identify into spaces reserved for the other sex. Schools that continued to allow “trans girls” (biologically male children) to use the girls’ facilities might — in Braverman’s words — be guilty of, “unlawful indirect discrimination against the female children”.
But most significant for me in this speech was the cautious approach to the social transition of children. Social transition had a profound impact on me — and equally significantly — those around me. It changed my relationship with the rest of society. For children and adolescents also grappling with the prospect of puberty and all that it brings, it must be monumental. Repeatedly, Braverman indicated the need for schools to take medical advice, and certainly not to act purely on the word of a child:
And to those schools who have facilitated a child’s transition without informing their parents, there was a warning:
Indeed, trans children are children and they deserve the same rights as other children. That means they should be treated with compassion, not set apart as special. They are children — some in psychological distress, others possibly not — but they are not the opposite sex.
Vitally, Braverman offered support for children (and maybe adults) who do not buy into the fantasy that people can change sex:
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SubscribeBravo for Braverman
Though Guido has pointed out that Hampshire County Council, which issues LGBT guidance to schools that advises that the ‘ideal practice’ is to have unisex toilets, covers Braverman’s constituency too.
https://order-order.com/2022/08/10/suellas-own-tory-controlled-council-says-unisex-school-toilets-are-ideal-situation/
As one of her constituents, I have written to Braverman asking that she address the issue of our local county council issuing unlawful guidance, as per her speech.
Yes, children are most certainly used as pawns in parents’/teachers’ political causes.
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/nbc-out-proud/meet-11-year-old-kai-shappley-southern-activist-america-rcna28546
In my mind a trans-child is created in much the same way as a vegan dog.
Brilliant post! Literally laughing out loud.
Excellent and sensible intervention by Braveman and well done to Debbie Hayton for highlighting it.
Another piece of good news reported by the Times (London) today is that a 1000-strong class action has been taken out against GIDS, the gender clinic run by the Tavistock that’s been closed down following the Cass Report.
Good news for the victims of this ideology to help cover the lifetime costs of any transition they were persuaded to undertake if their claims prevail, but bad news for the public who have never approved this ideology but will have to contribute to the costs of putting things right. Too often zealots pursue their agenda within official bodies and when things go wrong and damages have to be paid it is us who pick up the bill and not the zealots.
So.Are the parents who asked the Tavistock to intervene now suing them for doing what they asked for?
The Tavistock didn’t do what they asked for. They asked for treatment for their kids’ gender dysphoria, not for puberty-blocking drugs and castration.
I believe it’s the children – now adults – who are suing. About time too, as they have in effect been subjected to an experiment.
I sometimes wonder if a case can be made out for criminal negligence or criminal reckless endangerment for these cases instead of just civil negligence. Many of these physicians knew this was a terrible thing to do that would likely cause harm to these children.
They should be treated as sadistic paedophile sex offenders.
If, as is now widely presumed, Liz Truss becomes PM in September, she has such a great opportunity to appoint the right people – such as Badenoch and Braverman – to senior cabinet positions where they can make a difference. This opportunity may not come along again if she doesn’t get this right; and she and her team then have less than two years to make a start which has enough impact to convince people who wish to reverse the current trends in the culture wars to vote accordingly. All of this, of course, against a very difficult short term economic outlook.
It’s a toss up which of those two would make the best Home Secretary. I’d go for Braverman with her legal background, but making Badenoch deputy PM with a special remit to take up the cultural cudgel (perhaps as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster?) would send out the right signals. Liz has to be very brave, and not see them as rivals but as people with a genuine commitment to changing the narrative and the framework in which our society can move forward.
Could not agree more
‘No child should be made to fear punishment or disadvantage for questioning what they are being taught.’
I fully support Braverman. Can we also hope that any child who dares question the ‘Climate Crisis’ orthodoxy which is widely promoted in schools despite the lack of evidence will not be punished or disadvantaged?
Why?
Just asking.
Just shut up.
Hm. Many schools are religious. My church primary school certainly taught Christianity as fact. I doubt if it could be taught any other way to young children – one doesn’t understand agnosticism at that age.Priest were brought in to instruct us and the day began and ended with prayer, which for kids can hardly be anything more than asking favours on God.
I don’t think this did any harm. I’m sure it didn’t make us all zealots as adults! But my point is, if one contentious matter is an optional belief, surely all must be so how is it possible to teach anything?
Finally! It wasn’t long ago that the NSPCC published an article about the vulnerability of trans children. One of the cases cited was a child whose home life had become intolerable after they (at the encouragement of their schools LGBQT club) had outed themselves as trans to the parents who were not (as it turned out) supportive in the affirmative sense. The article was more negative towards the parent but I felt that it was the schools actions that were wholly irresponsible. The child’s self harm increased, their absconding risk increased and the likelihood of them ending up in care over this increased dramatically. These children are not pawns in a political game of chess. They’re human beings.
Common sense says that if children are going to be attacked for being different (and at seventy I see no difference from when I was a kid) then humility and modesty work best to stop backlashes, by staying in the background to do your own thing in privacy. Throwing it in people’s faces always leads to conflict, no matter what the issue. Personally I don’t want to live in a battleground and school was bad enough, let alone home life under such circumstances. Bravo for her and JK Rowling saying enough of this idiocy is enough. Woke? No, for God’s sake wake up and look at the truth, rather than getting misled by idealistic claptrap. This treatment and these operations don’t turn you into real men or women, able to reproduce (not that this matters in the least, if you don’t want children) but once done are hard to reverse and leave you with a lifetime of bodged bodies by others you foolishly trust in your naivety (what can you know of anything, lacking experience of the real word and consequences; it took me half my life to realise what a mess I had made of the other half). Identify as male or female and not born that way? I identify with millionaires but that is obviously a fantasy that anyone can see the truth of, who knows me.
I find it quite disturbing that some schools would knowingly and willingly help to “transition” a youngster without the knowledge of the parents. How far down must we fall before we wake up from this nightmare?
There are two versions of ‘conversion therapy’:
1 When people who say they are gay are persuaded that they are not
2 When a child thinks they may be the wrong gender and the school/parents/medics encourage them in that belief.
Succinct and exact.
Your administration is finally warning schools that transitioning children can lead to civil liability.
While our administration (in America) is warning schools that not transitioning children (with or without parental consent) will result in them losing their federal education funding.
Maybe King George wasn’t so bad after all. 🙂
Oh great! schools have to take medical advice before transitioning a child. This is the same useless approach that the Court of Appeal showed in Keira’s case when they said we could trust the doctors to assess whether a child had sufficient understanding to transition.
Don’t these people know that a great number of so-called doctors, or givers of medical advice, probably the majority, are committed, indeed enslaved, to Stonewall and its disgusting policies?
And what about the MoU, Debbie, which you have recently rightly castigated?
Thank You for your courage and compassion, sister. People like you are leading the way for those of us who deeply love a trans person, and who love them for who they TRULY are, not for what Queer Theorists insist they are.
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edits not allowed?
Says the self-admitted fetishist male school teacher who “transitioned” and expects his students to participate in his paraphilia. Does he think these kids will be comfortable speaking up in the current atmosphere? Does he tell his students he is still a man but calls himself a trans woman because wearing his fetishized version of what he’s decided is female arouses him? Or just assume he can do as he pleases and be protected via “human rights” regardless of whether students/parents are uncomfortable? Thanking an active autogynephilic school teacher, husband and father of three who claims to be a “transwoman” for being a “voice of reason” in the fight to protect kids from gender ideology is like welcoming an active Klan member to explain how white supremacists have got it wrong. If this man had any interest in helping kids he would present himself as the man he is and stay away from vulnerable people especially kids. The sooner we don’t have to stoop to fawning gratitude to chancers like hayton for merely stating the obvious, the sooner we will stop the harm of this insidious “rights” movement.
-5 HOW are we going to fight this thing if we treat the embodiment of the problem as if they are offering anything that isnt self interest. this movement is doomed to fail if it can’t recognise a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Let’s hope Debbie doesn’t challenge in court your assertion that she “expects his students to participate in his paraphilia”.