GC Review: Saturday, October 15, 2022
In our weekly GC Review, we return to important articles from the war to date. You might have already seen some of them, but we think they all warrant revisiting.
This day in Herstory: Julia Mary Yeomans FRS FInstP, born October 15, 1954, is a British theoretical physicist active in the fields of soft condensed matter and biological physics. She has served as Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford since 2002. (more)
The parental revolt against woke indoctrination
Mums and dads are rising up against the politicisation of education.
From Spiked (UK)
By Brendan O’Neill
April 26, 2022
There is something very wrong in our schools. Each new day brings reports of some ideological madness being foisted on children. In the past week alone we’ve heard about Welsh plans to teach kids as young as three about sexual attraction and gender identity. We’ve heard that the education department in the Northern Territory in Australia is wondering out loud if schools should drop apparently oppressive phrases like ‘boys and girls’ in order not to offend kids who may be ‘questioning their gender identity’. We’ve heard about a school in South Carolina that planned to separate kids by race so that they could be counselled by an external speaker on ‘how to cope with being a student in a predominantly white school’. Oh good, racial segregation is back.
Across the Anglosphere, schools have become hotbeds of woke indoctrination. It’s no longer just ‘the three Rs’ kids are exposed to – that is, reading, writing and ’rithmetic – but the entire alphabet soup of identity politics, gender ideology and neo-racial thinking. There’s the school in Denver that wants to teach kindergarteners and first graders – five- and six-year-olds – about race and sex. … continue reading
Social Transition: A Terrible Idea
From The 21st Century Salon (USA)
By The 21st Century Salonnière
February 3, 2022
Parents tend to go along with the prevailing customs of their time and place. The social pressure to conform is enormous, whether or not we experience it as social pressure, exactly. If parents don’t conform in certain ways, we’re considered outliers, weirdos, or worst of all, bad parents. …
The point is: It’s not the case that every change in parenting trends is an advancement or improvement on what earlier generations did. Sometimes what we do is better than in the past, and sometimes what we do is worse. Parents make a lot of choices on autopilot, depending on what “everyone else is doing.”
Social transition is a great example of a modern-day parental choice made on autopilot. And it’s a terrible idea. … read full article
Are Teachers Obliged to Tell Parents Their Child Might Be Trans? Courts May Soon Decide
From Education Week (USA)
By Stephen Sawchuk
April 28, 2022
Are school officials obligated to inform parents if students confide that they’re struggling with how they feel about their gender? What about if they want to use a different name or gender pronoun? Or if they simply show signs of gender-nonconforming behavior?
The answer to those sensitive questions is now being weighed as part of a handful of state or federal court cases—in what promises to further inflame legal and legislative battles that are raging across the nation about transgender rights.
In each of the lawsuits, the parents allege that school officials followed formal or informal policies, guidelines, or “gender support” plans that permit students to choose new names or pronouns, or adopt a different gender identity without their parents’ consent. In some cases, schools have actively deceived parents or refused to abide by their wishes, they claim. … continue reading
Ed. Note: This comment and the two following articles are from the Feb. 8 edition of GC News. Differences of opinion within this loose coalition continue to threaten the cohesion of our message of opposition to gender identity ideology. I found it interesting to revisit these opposing perspectives from several months ago.
GC News Editor’s comment on the next two excerpts
I don’t often comment on the articles we link to at GC News, but the following two warrant a brief note.
I’m presenting them in the order in which they were published this morning. The first is from Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT), on Substack. The second is a response to it from Jennifer Bilek, in her 11th Hour Blog.
They present opposing views, although both are strong advocates of GC positions. I do not side with either view. I find both arguments compelling and strongly encourage all GC News readers to read both articles fully. Both make important points and I suspect there will be a wide range of opinions in response. Please feel free to use the Comments section for today’s post to share your thoughts.
This disagreement, and others like it, will almost certainly continue to arise among those who share opposition to gender ideology. We are a diverse coalition and differ widely on many basic perspectives. At the same time, we share a common cause: fighting the many pernicious effects of the rampant and rapidly proliferating gender delusions. In my opinion, the most important aspect of the debate is that disagreements often occur among people who are equally committed to finding the best way forward.
Sometimes, reasonable discussion can find a shared understanding. But often the only resolution is to agree to disagree. In those cases, each of us is challenged to find our own pathway to respecting those who think differently. Failing that, we risk being reduced to the pitiable intellectual and moral failings of the transgender activists.
It's about winning.
From Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT)
Feb 8, 2022
Last week the comments on our post, “It’s Strategy, People!!!” got out of control, with vitriol, personal attacks, misrepresentations and finger pointing—people on “our side” even stooped to sending trolls to our site. It was like nothing we’ve ever dealt with on our Substack—sad to witness, as well as extremely upsetting to many parents and horribly counterproductive to the cause. …
Some of our readers seem to think that the parents of PITT have an obligation to be ideological purists or to support all interest groups in the gender wars. Some commenters seem to think that PITT stories, authors, and moderators are required to remain entirely neutral and open to all critiques and opinions. What in the world gave you these ideas? We have no such obligations. Clearly we have opinions and an agenda—to save our kids. There’s nothing sneaky going on here; just read our “about” page. PITT parents are not neutral bystanders having an intellectual debate. We are pushing back against gender ideology with an urgency that reflects the danger it poses to our children. … read full article
Has “ROGD Parent” Become an Identity?
From The 11th Hour Blog
By Jennifer Bilek
Feb 8, 2022
The stories of parents caught between the techno-medical complex and their kids sucked into the gender cult have contorted my heart into positions I didn’t know it could stretch, so much have I felt for them. But listening to Youtuber, Karen Davis’s critiques of the parent advocacy group, GenSpect recently, and the vitriol she is receiving from parents, I started to notice these organizations are now becoming a hindrance to real political action that might change the landscape for parents and for women whose rights to even name themselves are being rapidly stripped away.
This past week, a mother from another organization of parents, which is umbrellaed under the GenSpect parent group, wrote a piece entitled It's Strategy People!!, in support of GenSpect. The group is called Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) and is housed on the Substack blogging platform. The piece was a caged memo to feminist activists who have recently been pushing a harder front line that does not capitulate to gender ideology, and specifically putting Karen Davis, critiquing GenSpect and those aligning with her on notice: Parents would not tolerate dissent from their narrative and the organizations buffering them from the public.
ROGD, an acronym that stands for Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, coined by Lisa Littman, a physician, and scientist, describes an explosive social phenomenon of children presenting with body dysphoria related to their sex. In the past several years many organizations to help parents navigate their children’s ROGD have emerged in various countries. … read full article
Washington State Tells Teachers To Hide Student Gender Transitions From Parents
One teacher broke down as she described the policy.
From The Daily Wire (USA)
By Mairead Elordi
Feb 24, 2022
A policy in Washington state requires teachers to conceal students’ gender transitions from their parents unless the student gives the green light for their parents to know.
The effects of the policy on children are starting to show, but teachers essentially have their hands tied, according to a teacher in Washington state who spoke with The Daily Wire and requested anonymity out of fear of being fired.
The policy comes down from the state’s Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the main agency overseeing public education in Washington state.
In a section called “Communicating with Families” in OSPI’s “Gender-Inclusive Schools” guidelines, the agency warns that, “sometimes, transgender students may not want their families to know that they are transgender or that they use a different name, pronouns, and gender designation at school.” … read full article
Schools & Children: Caught in the Transgender Industry's Web
From Advocates Protecting Children (USA)
Feb 14, 2022
As transgender activists like Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, GLSEN, Gender Spectrum, and others push more and more radical sexualization indoctrination on younger and younger children, it’s imperative that parents and other decision-makers about children’s education understand what is happening to their children at school.
Schools are ground-zero for the explosive phenomenon of transgender identification among children, and are central to a deeply enmeshed and interconnected network referred to as the transgender industry. What may have begun via universities’ gender studies programs[ii], and academia’s theoretical philosophizing about whether sex is real or a social construct, has now taken root in the public school, from pre-kindergarten through high school graduation. The transgender industry is preying upon children out of unfettered greed, and for political gain. Let’s take a look at how this industry has woven its web around our children at school. … read full article
No, your six-year-old is not ‘transphobic’
Of course young children are confused by transgenderism.
From Spiked (UK)
By Jo Bartosch
Feb 15, 2022
When a boy turned up to school one day wearing a dress, Sally and Nigel Rowe’s six-year-old son was confused. He and fellow pupils were told that their classmate’s change of clothes meant that ‘he’ was now a ‘she’. The Rowes, a Christian couple from the Isle of Wight, raised the matter with the school’s headteacher and were informed that their son’s ‘inability to believe a transgender person is actually a “real” female or male’ would be deemed ‘transphobic’.
The Church of England school was following guidance that was recognised at the time as best practice by the Department for Education. Seven years later and following a protracted dispute, the Rowes are now taking the Department for Education to judicial review.
In the years since the couple first questioned the policy of their son’s school, transgenderism has filled the column inches of every newspaper. There are two bitterly opposed camps in the debate, which can be crudely termed ‘biology believers’ and ‘ideology adherents’. … read full article
Radical Gender Lessons for Young Children
Evanston–Skokie’s school district adopts a curriculum that teaches pre-K through third-grade students to “break the binary” of gender.
From City Journal (USA)
By Christopher F. Rufo
April 21, 2022
Evanston–Skokie School District 65 has adopted a radical gender curriculum that teaches pre-kindergarten through third-grade students to celebrate the transgender flag, break the “gender binary” established by white “colonizers,” and experiment with neo-pronouns such as “ze,” “zir,” and “tree.”
I have obtained the full curriculum documents, which are part of the Chicago-area district’s “LGBTQ+ Equity Week,” which administrators adopted last year. The curriculum begins in pre-kindergarten, with a series of lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity. … continue reading
Bilek is wrong, and the PITT parent is right.
Bilek is, sadly, adopting a standard strategy of the Left, that of the purity test: you cannot be with us if you do not agree in every particular.
As always, this is a recipe for failure.
We need everyone who is even slightly gender critical to raise their voices. If they do not speak the full truth as we understand it, that's OK: partial truth is better than silence.
After a lifetime (I'm 67) as a Democrat activist, I am now working hard to elect Republicans who will support laws against the multilation and sterilization of children. I don't care about what other policies those Republcians may or may not support. This is my single issue, and I will accept any and all allies.