At what age should sex education be taught?

[FoxEye]

@d_brennen Tripe, you say...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...erred-gender-identity-clinics-has-quadrupled/

The number of children being referred to gender identity clinics has quadrupled in the past five years, figures show.

Experts have warned that the huge spike is, in part, due to the promotion of transgender issues in schools which they say has encouraged to question their identity, and “sowed confusion” in their minds.

Figures from the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), which is the NHS's only facility for transgender children based at the Tavistock Centre in north London, show that 84 children aged between 3 and 7 were referred last year, compared to 20 in 2012/13.

I'll be here when you want to apologise.

The number of children referred to the service under the age of ten had also seen a four-fold increase, from 36 in 2012/13 to 165 last year.

Last year there were a total of 2,016 referrals for youngsters aged between three and 18, more than six times more than the 314 referrals five years previously.

Those of us who aren't burying our heads in the sand may be able to see a societal trend...

e: Have a Guardian link if that's more your cup of tea.

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ity-clinic-accused-fast-tracking-young-adults

The idea that you should "question your gender identity" is being heavily pushed in schools and that's widely reported.

 

[StriderX]

Or you know it could be that with increased awareness, that it's a case of finding the real baseline.

 

[XeNoN89]

Or you know it could be that with increased awareness, that it's a case of finding the real baseline.

It seems likely that gay kids are being told they are actually transgender because it's fashionable at the moment.

 

[Werewolf]

Or you know it could be that with increased awareness, that it's a case of finding the real baseline.

Yup.

It's like the number of homosexuals didn't suddenly increase a while back, it's just that people realised that they were attracted to the same sex and that it wasn't a crime (decriminalised in what, the 70t's?) or shameful (right into the 90's).

It's also worth noting that referrals to a specialist can basically just mean having a talk with someone who is qualified and understands the issues, and doing it younger can save a lot of distress and unhappiness and far less likely to do damage or cause issues than ignoring it or having them talk to someone who is utterly opposed to the idea under any circumstances and sees it as a sin.
I would rather children with questions see a specialist or feel they can talk about it, than bottling it up and getting bullied leading to suicide attempts.

 

[StriderX]

Hell even today you'll find people who don't jot down their sexual orientation in official documents for fear of eventual reprisals, and no doubt plenty of people in older age groups (assuming they haven't offed themselves) will continue to hide their real feelings til the grave.

The fact is some people are just not 100% feminine or 100% masculine, they'll fit on some double bell curve i'd assume and thus it should be welcomed that people are seeking a dialogue on it rather than ignoring it/grow resentment.

Far too many people hide it, turn it into some shameful act that i'd hazard is where a lot of violent/abusive situations come from with some men in particular, a lot of past sexual abuse could have been avoided if it wasn't looked at with derision.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Needs to be earlier than that. My niece hit puberty at 8, and I know I was masturbating at 9.

no chance. that is like primary 4.

should be around 12ish. first year of high school and continued for at least 2-3 years.

they also need to teach people finances. as in basic stuff like loans, credit cards, mortgages, savings, pensions, etc.

 

[StriderX]

no chance. that is like primary 4.

should be around 12ish. first year of high school and continued for at least 2-3 years.

they also need to teach people finances. as in basic stuff like loans, credit cards, mortgages, savings, pensions, etc.

Have you even read the thread? 12 is FAR too late to talk about different parental makeups.

 

[FoxEye]

Yup.

It's like the number of homosexuals didn't suddenly increase a while back, it's just that people realised that they were attracted to the same sex and that it wasn't a crime (decriminalised in what, the 70t's?) or shameful (right into the 90's).

It's also worth noting that referrals to a specialist can basically just mean having a talk with someone who is qualified and understands the issues, and doing it younger can save a lot of distress and unhappiness and far less likely to do damage or cause issues than ignoring it or having them talk to someone who is utterly opposed to the idea under any circumstances and sees it as a sin.
I would rather children with questions see a specialist or feel they can talk about it, than bottling it up and getting bullied leading to suicide attempts.

But how on this Earth can you suspect that a 4-10 year old could be "trans"?

And then there's the increasing use of puberty blockers to prevent "trans" kids from developing as their birth sex.

All very, very, deeply troubling.

It's another social experiment is what it is.

And of course this is bound to pick up some gay people and label them as trans, surely. The "markers" you might define for "trans" are very likely going to overlap with characteristics displayed by gay people.

So there's a very real danger that gay people are going to be corralled into gender reassignment.

There already are stories from people having undergone the procedure who, too late, realised they were instead gay.

With this increase in referrals to gender reassignment specialists, you can't possible argue that this isn't going to happen more often.

 

[Psycho Sonny]

Have you even read the thread? 12 is FAR too late to talk about different parental makeups.

i thought we were talking proper full on impregnation here.

if it's basic stuff like that then primary schools kids would be fine.

 

[Pudney]

i thought we were talking proper full on impregnation here.

if it's basic stuff like that then primary schools kids would be fine.

It also includes things to do with puberty, which absolutely should be primary school age.

 

[Orionaut]

At a basic biological level. As soon as they are interested. But keep it objective and factual.

The more bizarre and even downright creepy aspects of human sexuality really shouldn't be an issue until much later! Possibly even well post-puberty.

Of course, if I were them, I wouldn't have started from here. This whole issue has only arisen because of a politically motivated policy of "Normalizing" the LGBT agenda.

One doesn't just have to be a Muzzie to find this "Wierdo-grooming" of primary school children for the 21st century all rather disturbing. I dare say many (If not most) parents will do so as well, even if they are too intimidated by the left wing twitterarti to actually stand up and say so.

(I would be interested to know how a secret ballot on the re-introduction of Clause 28 would work out? I wouldn't necessarily expect an overwhelming majority in favour, but I would not be surprised if it came out as a pretty damn close run thing!)

 

[cheesyboy]

But keep it objective and factual.

Some people are gay: here's what that means
Some people are trans: here's what that means
If you are gay or trans, you're not alone.

Stuff like that?

 

[Pawnless Endgame]

In my school, we covered reproduction in science in the GCSE years (so 4th and 5th year), and we did sex ed in 6th form. It was only for a few 1-off hours outside of the A level timetable though. This was in the mid 90s in a small town / authority that has always been a safe Tory seat. I think sex ed and LGBT awareness should start in the 3rd year (so age 13 or 14).

As for gender identity, what's wrong with using "tom boy"? There were a few tom boys in my school, and a few guys who liked My Little Pony (not Friendship is Magic thanks God!!) So we have tom boys and girly girls. I'm not sure why this has to become political.

 

[Angilion]

Yup.

It's like the number of homosexuals didn't suddenly increase a while back, it's just that people realised that they were attracted to the same sex and that it wasn't a crime (decriminalised in what, the 70t's?) or shameful (right into the 90's).

It's also worth noting that referrals to a specialist can basically just mean having a talk with someone who is qualified and understands the issues, and doing it younger can save a lot of distress and unhappiness and far less likely to do damage or cause issues than ignoring it or having them talk to someone who is utterly opposed to the idea under any circumstances and sees it as a sin.
I would rather children with questions see a specialist or feel they can talk about it, than bottling it up and getting bullied leading to suicide attempts.

And that would be fine if sex and gender were treated as the very different things they are. But that's not what's happening. What's happening is the opposite - the driving ideology treats sex and gender as being identical. So people, especially children, who are even somewhat different from average for their sex in some ways are being conditioned to believe they are the other sex. It's an ideology of extreme gender conformity, not an ideology of gender freedom or an ideology that's actually about a person's sex at all.

Take me, for example. As a little boy, I sometimes dressed in my grandma's clothes and jewellery. I was playing dress-up, as little kids do. Sometimes I played dress-up as a pirate. Or whatever. Back then (sadly - society should be getting better, not worse) there was in at least some ways more gender freedom than there is now. Nobody treated it as important, because it wasn't. It was a little kid playing dress-up. What I dressed up as wasn't important. Thank goodness I was a little kid back then. Had I been that little boy now, I'd be running a high risk of being conditioned into thinking I was really a girl and possibly having life-changing medical procedures before I was old enough to give informed consent, which would probably mess me up good and proper. Or how about me right now? In different things I am in different places on a spectrum of gender - more masculine in some ways, more feminine in other ways. That's OK for me now - I'm old and stubborn and I don't give a damn about gender at all, let alone conforming to it, so I can tell anyone who tries to condition me that they're wrong and tell them why they're wrong and if necessary defend myself verbally or physically. But a 4 year old isn't in that position. They can't defend themselves effectively against it. EDIT: Come to think of it, I might not be in that position much longer as trans activists gain success in their authoritarianism and have any disobedience made illegal.

It's ok for a person to not wholly conform to every gendered thing in every way all the time. It does not mean they're the wrong sex. Sex and gender are completely different things.

Some people are gay: here's what that means
Some people are trans: here's what that means
If you are gay or trans, you're not alone.

Stuff like that?

That doesn't say anything because "what that means" is unspecified. That leaves it open to things such as, for example, telling girls who are interested in cars that they're boys. And yes, that is a real example of what is being taught as "Some people are trans: here's what that means". The core message of trans activism is twofold - firstly that sex and gender are exactly the same thing and that everyone must conform to the stated gender requirements and secondly that authoritarianism is a good thing (part and parcel of the idea that everyone must conform, must obey). The only partially new thing about trans activism is the idea that people can have one (and only one) chance to pick which set of gender requirements they will slavishly conform to, as long as they claim to be the sex attached to those gender requirements. Other than that, it's gender conformity to an extent that would have the most traditionalist upper class Victorians saying "that's a bit restrictive".

 

[FatRakoon]

I want to fully support anyone who feels different and is sexually confused as to what gender they are, I truly do, but this has been getting stupid for far too long.

Its time we started to slap some of these idiots in the face, becaue its ruining it for people who are genuinely struggling.

Whats this rubbish about 70+ different ganders? What a complete load of utter crud... There are 2 genders, MALE or FEMALE. There are indeed some specis such as Worms, that are A-Sexual, and in mammals, there are mutations such as Hermaphrodites, but this is NOT the norm, there are after all "Mutations".

There are people who are on the scale of whether they feel more comfortable being with another person, but this scale goes from MALE to FEMALE or somewhere along that line, there is no Moon Lunar A-Sexual Trans Female male intersexual Being or whatever other stupid sheeite they can come up with.

I mean, there are those who ientify as female during the week and male at weekends??? - come on! thats just making stuff up now, and as I said, its making genuine people, who have genuine issues, look like idiots and those people need to be supported, not those ***** who are just entitled morons.

I say this from the heart because I have a friend who was born male and now lives a full life as a female, and has gone through the entire process and yes, she now has a fairly decent female body, but has undergone a lot of horrible times... This is the stuff that those entitled plonkers dont have a clue about because for them, its clearly a choice, but for others, it is not.

 

[Angilion]

I want to fully support anyone who feels different and is sexually confused as to what gender they are, I truly do, but this has been getting stupid for far too long.

Its time we started to slap some of these idiots in the face, becaue its ruining it for people who are genuinely struggling.

Whats this rubbish about 70+ different ganders? What a complete load of utter crud... There are 2 genders, MALE or FEMALE. There are indeed some specis such as Worms, that are A-Sexual, and in mammals, there are mutations such as Hermaphrodites, but this is NOT the norm, there are after all "Mutations".

Male and female are sexes, not genders. Gender is stuff associated with sex, not sex. Very different things. There are two sexes. Gender is a multitude of spectrums and therefore not quantifiable as some number of integers. All this burble of specific genders, regardless of the number of them, is just pigeon-holing people. It's not accurate.

There are people who are on the scale of whether they feel more comfortable being with another person, but this scale goes from MALE to FEMALE or somewhere along that line, there is no Moon Lunar A-Sexual Trans Female male intersexual Being or whatever other stupid sheeite they can come up with.

That's sexual orientation, which is a different thing again.

I mean, there are those who ientify as female during the week and male at weekends??? - come on! thats just making stuff up now, and as I said, its making genuine people, who have genuine issues, look like idiots and those people need to be supported, not those ***** who are just entitled morons.

I say this from the heart because I have a friend who was born male and now lives a full life as a female, and has gone through the entire process and yes, she now has a fairly decent female body, but has undergone a lot of horrible times... This is the stuff that those entitled plonkers dont have a clue about because for them, its clearly a choice, but for others, it is not.

That bit I agree with. There's a vast difference between people who are actually transexual and people who are "trans" gender because, and I can't stress this enough, sex and gender are completely different things. Since gender is a multitude of tendencies that change over time, everyone changes gender anyway. Nobody is in exactly the same position on the masculine-feminine spectrum of every thing at every time in every way and even if they were they would still be "transgender" because the gendered trends themselves change. Random example - playing video games. That was gendered very masculine until not many years ago, now it's much less masculine. Or football, even more recently. The whole concept of changing gender in a simple, discrete group kind of way isn't an accurate description of reality. The idea that there are only two genders even less so. I don't care how masculine/feminine any person wants to be in any way at any time. Whatever suits them. But that's gender, not sex. I don't care if they want to LARP being a different sex or a different species or a wizard or a medieval knight or whatever. But that's not a real change. It's roleplaying. A real change requires, well, a real change.

 

[Fubsy]

Ill informed and mis-educated kids are at risk of being groomed/abused as well. If they don't understand what's happening to them when (and it happens all the time ffs) it does then how are they supposed to explain that something is wrong to someone who can make it stop?

It really does need to be an on-going process throughout their childhood with appropriate language and detail at the key moments in their development. From what I've read the education authorities have got it spot on atm.

 

[dowie]

So it turns out that the rabble of religious loons were basing a lot of their protest on fake news and only a few of them even had any connection to the school in the first place... the rest were just angry religious idiots:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-50557227

A High Court judge ruled in favour of an exclusion zone to remain around Anderton Park, in Birmingham, which has been targeted by protesters for months.
[...]
October's five-day hearing at the city's Priory Courts heard there were further "untrue" and "harmful" allegations made about the school on social media, and how a visiting imam had claimed to parents there were "paedophiles" inside the school.

Other false claims included that the school had a "paedophile agenda" and staff were "teaching children how to masturbate".

"None of this is true," Mr Justice Warby said as he handed down the ban at Birmingham Civil Justice Centre.

"None of the defendants have suggested it was true and the council has proved it is not true."

The lessons had been "misrepresented by parents", he said, adding the school does not promote homosexuality and seeks to weave the language of equality into everyday school life.

And it gets better:

The prior injunction named lead protester Shakeel Afsar, who does not have children at the school, his sister Rosina and Amir Ahmed, all of whom contested the need for a legal injunction.

Mr Justice Warby directed that the three named defendants should be liable to 80% of those costs, which the court heard have yet to be calculated.

The judge said the reason the award was not in full was because part of the council's claim - for an injunction on the making of abusive social media posts against teachers - had been unsuccessful.

Mr Afsar said he was "bitterly disappointed with the decision of the court".

He branded the court "one-sided", pointing out that the judge, the council's barrister and key witnesses had been "white", compared with the "diverse" protest supporters.

LOL those pesky white people with their facts and rule of law... and of course plenty of the protestors who didn't even have any connection with the school:

Only a handful of the people who regularly gathered outside the school were parents or had any direct connection with Anderton Park, but the demonstrators do reflect concern felt by some religious communities about equality teaching, and particularly lessons about same sex relationships.

 

[Jean-F]

Oh Christ, thank God all that is in the dim and distant past.
I have no idea of what my two sons were taught about sex at school, but I know that I didn’t have any “talk” with them about it.
I know this because they both, particularly the younger one, delight on occasion to say, “Yeah? What would you know or remember, you weren’t there, you left mum when we were both in primary school.”
They’re both in their fifties now, well adjusted, and both married to wonderful women, incidentally providing me with three terrific grandsons, and one gorgeous granddaughter.
I must have done something right, it was my birthday 26/11/19, and the elder one flew over from Germany last weekend, and the pair of them took me out for a few vodkas, and dinner at a swish restaurant, Jeez, I love those guys.

 

[Efour]

Hell even today you'll find people who don't jot down their sexual orientation in official documents for fear of eventual reprisals, and no doubt plenty of people in older age groups (assuming they haven't offed themselves) will continue to hide their real feelings til the grave.

The fact is some people are just not 100% feminine or 100% masculine, they'll fit on some double bell curve i'd assume and thus it should be welcomed that people are seeking a dialogue on it rather than ignoring it/grow resentment.

Far too many people hide it, turn it into some shameful act that i'd hazard is where a lot of violent/abusive situations come from with some men in particular, a lot of past sexual abuse could have been avoided if it wasn't looked at with derision.

I think you are stunning and brave to Share your childhood with us. It takes courage.