A teacher, once trans-identified himself, talks about gender in schools, teachers as saviors, and how parents can navigate around differing belief systems.
This is excellent! Thanks so much to both of you. I actually feel more calm and can see a path forward. The middle, as usual, is the path.
I will say that the anger parents have is understandable. It is untenable when parents feel powerless and unheard about the health of their own kids. We need room to talk and discuss and I hope the shaming and cancellation ends soon.
In the meantime, his best advice: talk with your own kids by taking the part of the grown up. Resist the idea that your young person is teaching you about some fundamental new foundation to biology. Don’t allow your child to tell you, the adult, that humans have misunderstood gender all this time. That is not what a good parent does. A good parent calmly tells the child how you see the issue and how to help friends who are struggling. Your child will eventually hear this and will have a confidence to fall back on when they diverge from their peers. That is your most important role as a loving parent.
Agree with you. There are so many great insights in this discussion. I've read it, and now I've listened to it...and I'm probably going to listen to it again twice more. I love the style of this critique. It's so rare to hear this subject talked about critically *without* some doom and gloom in the mix? And I say that as someone who feels very doomy and gloomy about this subject, and who finds it hard not to bang that drum myself. This conversation gives me a lot of faith that we can talk about these things publicly and productively, and offers *so many* tips on how to approach the matter in the real world.
A lot to understand in here and a lot of really great explanations about how to reach many teachers!
"A lot of them seem to think it's this kind of silly thing that kids mess around with, and then if they ever get far enough to do real medical transition, well, by then the doctors will have figured out that it's necessary and then it's fine, right."
And the suicide myth.
There is the fact that lots of parents never hear about when gender is introduced, or how, in schools, so that part is difficult for parents to implement, but the rest seems doable?!!
This was a very interesting discussion. I do want to emphasize Lisa's point, though, about how it's extra important that teachers do get another perspective, the one that says that gender dysphoria can be overcome or managed through psychotherapy and (let's be honest) maturity, and that kids should be allowed to play with their presentation without being labelled. I still don't know how to get this information through to teachers effectively, and it seems like the interviewee also has a hard time getting his fellow teachers to listen. Is it really up to us, parents, to try to gently shift the narrative? I feel like that's an insurmountable obstacle, especially as teachers' colleges pump out more and more indoctrinated graduates who truly believe that all people have a gender identity and that challenging this view is "literal violence".
I agree though it is so hard to gently shift the narrative with a teacher if you, as a parent, have been blind sided with a trans declaration from your child. You learn you can't ever use your child's name again or they will likely kill themselves and that the school is now safe and your home is not. You know everyone at the school believes this. It's a hard pill to swallow gently and this is where I disagree strongly with this nice young teacher. I don't know how this can be changed. I want to scream for the teachers and schools to get back in their lanes. They are not the parent. And the psychotherapy that this teacher thinks is out there is actually not out there- or nearly impossible to find.
This has some really important stuff about what it's like, socially, for teenage girls who aren't feminine, which may be contributing to the huge upsurge in girls/young women deciding they are guys or "nonbinary". (I have a 16-year-old daughter who isn't "feminine" in her tastes or habits, who now says she is non-binary and "maybe a guy") I had difficulty reading the interview, though, with all the hundreds of "y'know"s in it. Not because talking like that offends me in any way -- but because it made it impossible to follow the train of thought of the speaker. I think this interview is too important to impede in that way, so I'd actually recommend you edit them out. They are more or less like saying "um" and therefore not content (and if need be the interviewee can be asked for permission to omit pause-fillers like um, uh, y'know, etc.)
As a retired Early Childhood Specialist, with Kindergarten, Pre-K, first grade and Early Grade Science on my resume, I am relieved to hear that Lisa Selin Davis is countering this narrative at home. It speaks volumes that those conversations come with a warning to children that they'll possibly experience social consequences if they bring up this logical and reasoned home structure up at school. Responsible parents like Lisa deserve praise and reassurance that home traditions will be respected. I'll contrast the current woo curricula with the advice mental health professionals gave me as the trans widow, mother of sons whose father "transitioned" when they were 5 & 8 in 1996. I was told to assure my sons this was very rare, is not going to happen to them and our best path is to be strong and sensitive. This was very hard on all of us. I'd been through 3 years of hell prior, almost all of which was a secret. My older son expressed suicidal ideation in a much more convincing way than his father had manipulated me with. After 25 years of teaching, and 30 years of dealing with this as an attack on my very motherhood, I have much stronger opinions than the new teacher in the interview. I encountered 4 young students who engaged in cross-sex ideation during my quarter century in education. They all desisted. As reality-based doctors like Dr. Stephen B. Levine (Informed Consent Reconsidered) found out when a "transsexual" of 30 years detransitioned, it is not a stable diagnosis.
Here's my brief message to AFT leader Randi Weingarten:
Thank you so much for this, Lisa--gives a ground level window in, and lots of interesting, useful observations--some, like the observation that these days, it’s non-conforming girls who may have a harder time being accepted, was a complete revelation. On the heels of reading this, I happened on what turned out to be an excellent--and also entertaining--discussion on how diversity in the workplace has gone wrong and how it might be fixed. One point, as an example, was the speaker noting that diversity is about difference, yet in recent times the concept has transmogrified to become a set of rules for conformity. Anyway, if of interest to anyone, here’s a link: https://youtu.be/q37k4VTwHLk
This is excellent! Thanks so much to both of you. I actually feel more calm and can see a path forward. The middle, as usual, is the path.
I will say that the anger parents have is understandable. It is untenable when parents feel powerless and unheard about the health of their own kids. We need room to talk and discuss and I hope the shaming and cancellation ends soon.
In the meantime, his best advice: talk with your own kids by taking the part of the grown up. Resist the idea that your young person is teaching you about some fundamental new foundation to biology. Don’t allow your child to tell you, the adult, that humans have misunderstood gender all this time. That is not what a good parent does. A good parent calmly tells the child how you see the issue and how to help friends who are struggling. Your child will eventually hear this and will have a confidence to fall back on when they diverge from their peers. That is your most important role as a loving parent.
Agree with you. There are so many great insights in this discussion. I've read it, and now I've listened to it...and I'm probably going to listen to it again twice more. I love the style of this critique. It's so rare to hear this subject talked about critically *without* some doom and gloom in the mix? And I say that as someone who feels very doomy and gloomy about this subject, and who finds it hard not to bang that drum myself. This conversation gives me a lot of faith that we can talk about these things publicly and productively, and offers *so many* tips on how to approach the matter in the real world.
Wow this was interesting, thank you!
A lot to understand in here and a lot of really great explanations about how to reach many teachers!
"A lot of them seem to think it's this kind of silly thing that kids mess around with, and then if they ever get far enough to do real medical transition, well, by then the doctors will have figured out that it's necessary and then it's fine, right."
And the suicide myth.
There is the fact that lots of parents never hear about when gender is introduced, or how, in schools, so that part is difficult for parents to implement, but the rest seems doable?!!
This was a very interesting discussion. I do want to emphasize Lisa's point, though, about how it's extra important that teachers do get another perspective, the one that says that gender dysphoria can be overcome or managed through psychotherapy and (let's be honest) maturity, and that kids should be allowed to play with their presentation without being labelled. I still don't know how to get this information through to teachers effectively, and it seems like the interviewee also has a hard time getting his fellow teachers to listen. Is it really up to us, parents, to try to gently shift the narrative? I feel like that's an insurmountable obstacle, especially as teachers' colleges pump out more and more indoctrinated graduates who truly believe that all people have a gender identity and that challenging this view is "literal violence".
I agree though it is so hard to gently shift the narrative with a teacher if you, as a parent, have been blind sided with a trans declaration from your child. You learn you can't ever use your child's name again or they will likely kill themselves and that the school is now safe and your home is not. You know everyone at the school believes this. It's a hard pill to swallow gently and this is where I disagree strongly with this nice young teacher. I don't know how this can be changed. I want to scream for the teachers and schools to get back in their lanes. They are not the parent. And the psychotherapy that this teacher thinks is out there is actually not out there- or nearly impossible to find.
This has some really important stuff about what it's like, socially, for teenage girls who aren't feminine, which may be contributing to the huge upsurge in girls/young women deciding they are guys or "nonbinary". (I have a 16-year-old daughter who isn't "feminine" in her tastes or habits, who now says she is non-binary and "maybe a guy") I had difficulty reading the interview, though, with all the hundreds of "y'know"s in it. Not because talking like that offends me in any way -- but because it made it impossible to follow the train of thought of the speaker. I think this interview is too important to impede in that way, so I'd actually recommend you edit them out. They are more or less like saying "um" and therefore not content (and if need be the interviewee can be asked for permission to omit pause-fillers like um, uh, y'know, etc.)
Done. Thanks, should have done that before I published.
So good Lisa. Such a great perspective..
What a great interview and what a great teacher.
As a retired Early Childhood Specialist, with Kindergarten, Pre-K, first grade and Early Grade Science on my resume, I am relieved to hear that Lisa Selin Davis is countering this narrative at home. It speaks volumes that those conversations come with a warning to children that they'll possibly experience social consequences if they bring up this logical and reasoned home structure up at school. Responsible parents like Lisa deserve praise and reassurance that home traditions will be respected. I'll contrast the current woo curricula with the advice mental health professionals gave me as the trans widow, mother of sons whose father "transitioned" when they were 5 & 8 in 1996. I was told to assure my sons this was very rare, is not going to happen to them and our best path is to be strong and sensitive. This was very hard on all of us. I'd been through 3 years of hell prior, almost all of which was a secret. My older son expressed suicidal ideation in a much more convincing way than his father had manipulated me with. After 25 years of teaching, and 30 years of dealing with this as an attack on my very motherhood, I have much stronger opinions than the new teacher in the interview. I encountered 4 young students who engaged in cross-sex ideation during my quarter century in education. They all desisted. As reality-based doctors like Dr. Stephen B. Levine (Informed Consent Reconsidered) found out when a "transsexual" of 30 years detransitioned, it is not a stable diagnosis.
Here's my brief message to AFT leader Randi Weingarten:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVp2BszabSk&t=47s
Thank you so much for this, Lisa--gives a ground level window in, and lots of interesting, useful observations--some, like the observation that these days, it’s non-conforming girls who may have a harder time being accepted, was a complete revelation. On the heels of reading this, I happened on what turned out to be an excellent--and also entertaining--discussion on how diversity in the workplace has gone wrong and how it might be fixed. One point, as an example, was the speaker noting that diversity is about difference, yet in recent times the concept has transmogrified to become a set of rules for conformity. Anyway, if of interest to anyone, here’s a link: https://youtu.be/q37k4VTwHLk