Girl's School and Gender Pronouns

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a number of people on this thread confident that the changes being proposed by the students would never be implemented. I wish I were as confident. It is women and others not speaking up for logic and rationality in this space that has led us to where we are today.

I assume that everyone has seen the news about the recent U Penn student who competed with the mens swim team for several years, "transitioned", and is now competing against women and blowing them out of the literal water? So sad for young women who have trained their entire lives and now being handily beaten by a student with a male body. No one is standing up for these women - it is an abomination.

You know who should be standing up for these girls, and all girls everywhere caught up in institutions promoting this madness? Their mothers.

TRYING!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bete noir, not beet. My mistake.

I think my comment hews quite closely to the thread at hand; that connection speaks for itself. Far more than your response, either the beet or bete variety.

How does the issue of transgender women in competitive sports relate to the use of the word girl to describe a student at a single-sex school?

[Anonymous]

Trans >>>> LG in coolness.

[Anonymous]

Nothing, if the issue were about calling them girls or ladies or women, etc. But the issue is about whether using the term “girls” is not gender inclusive enough, presumably for those who may be at the school and identify as boys. The semantics of what to print in the handbook is of little import. But it is not a long road from that to the U Penn situation, due to the reverse situation, a boy who identifies as a girl and wants entry into a girls space. Words matter and how we think about girls (and boys, for that matter) matter. In short, slippery slope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are applying to Holton, take a serious look. Susanna Jones is leaving but not until 2023. It should be interesting who ends up with her job. They are afraid of the big bad wolf. You would not believe. Just peruse the instagram accounts of some of the students.

You're encouraging adults to browse the ig of teens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a number of people on this thread confident that the changes being proposed by the students would never be implemented. I wish I were as confident. It is women and others not speaking up for logic and rationality in this space that has led us to where we are today.

I assume that everyone has seen the news about the recent U Penn student who competed with the mens swim team for several years, "transitioned", and is now competing against women and blowing them out of the literal water? So sad for young women who have trained their entire lives and now being handily beaten by a student with a male body. No one is standing up for these women - it is an abomination.

You know who should be standing up for these girls, and all girls everywhere caught up in institutions promoting this madness? Their mothers.

TRYING!!!

Trying here too. Will actively and passively encourage my daughter to stay away from these cuckoo kids and similar cuckoo parents engaging in gender fluidity. It is truly the worst trend.

[Anonymous]

Parent of girl at all girls school (one of two cited). I am fairly liberal in some ways but don’t like extremism or wacky ideology on either side of spectrum. We sent our daughter to an all girls school so she would be less distracted by boys and hopefully grow to become a confident ethical leader.

I don’t get worked up about gender fluidity although I do agree overall with JK Rowling on the need to slow down and no irreversible treatments u til
Adulthood.

However, not being allowed to refer to girls at all girls schools seems extreme and counter productive to me. How are they going to argue for the science behind the value of sending girls to all girls schools if we are not allowed to refer to girls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Choose your battles wisely. What that school is NOT teaching.

Frankly, I think this is a hill worth dying on. If we can't refer to it as a "girl's school" enrolled with "girls," what the hell is the point?

+1

[Anonymous]

I hope admin pushed back in this at all schools for girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The funniest part about it is all of these girls who think they are railing against the “patriarchy” are trying to join it by identifying his male! They don’t even realize the absurdity of their own statements.

I think there is an element of "if you can't beat them, join them." By middle school, girls are smart enough to see the vast amount of misogyny in the world, and how their male classmates have a better life ahead of them just by virtue of being born with penises. I don't think they are trying to rail against the patriarchy. They are just looking at their options and in many cases being rational.

In your statement you said something that stood out even if I disagree with the overall premise of misogyny. The woke kids are responding to what they see around them, and they are seeing a tremendous amount of cultural power in being part of an identified "oppressed" group. For some reason for the last few years and especially the last two years, we've seen an extraordinary amount of attention given to all the various oppressed identities, and in the realm of sexuality this extends to transgenders and non-binary and gender fluid concepts. We've gotten to the point where there's even pecking orders among the oppressed labels and and more cultural power is given to people who can claim multiple labels, and whether a white transgender is higher up the oppressed pole than a black woman and so on.

The advantage of the vagueness and even dubiousness of gender identities allows it to be coopted by affluent white kids so they can start identifying themselves as part of the oppressed groups. They're responding to what they see as the forces with power they see so strongly around them, in the media and in cultural spheres. It's the polar opposite of the 1950s, a time when the cultural power was firmly rooted in the beau ideal of being blond wasps, whose authority were never challenged or judged or mocked in popular or political culture, to do so was a vulgar transgression, just like today it's seen terrible to challenge or question the whole range of oppressed labels. The kids are seeing who has the real power, which I suspect they define as people who cannot be questioned or challenged.

It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. Biology has a nasty habit of forcing the truth on you one way or another.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The funniest part about it is all of these girls who think they are railing against the “patriarchy” are trying to join it by identifying his male! They don’t even realize the absurdity of their own statements.

I think there is an element of "if you can't beat them, join them." By middle school, girls are smart enough to see the vast amount of misogyny in the world, and how their male classmates have a better life ahead of them just by virtue of being born with penises. I don't think they are trying to rail against the patriarchy. They are just looking at their options and in many cases being rational.

In your statement you said something that stood out even if I disagree with the overall premise of misogyny. The woke kids are responding to what they see around them, and they are seeing a tremendous amount of cultural power in being part of an identified "oppressed" group. For some reason for the last few years and especially the last two years, we've seen an extraordinary amount of attention given to all the various oppressed identities, and in the realm of sexuality this extends to transgenders and non-binary and gender fluid concepts. We've gotten to the point where there's even pecking orders among the oppressed labels and and more cultural power is given to people who can claim multiple labels, and whether a white transgender is higher up the oppressed pole than a black woman and so on.

The advantage of the vagueness and even dubiousness of gender identities allows it to be coopted by affluent white kids so they can start identifying themselves as part of the oppressed groups. They're responding to what they see as the forces with power they see so strongly around them, in the media and in cultural spheres. It's the polar opposite of the 1950s, a time when the cultural power was firmly rooted in the beau ideal of being blond wasps, whose authority were never challenged or judged or mocked in popular or political culture, to do so was a vulgar transgression, just like today it's seen terrible to challenge or question the whole range of oppressed labels. The kids are seeing who has the real power, which I suspect they define as people who cannot be questioned or challenged.

It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. Biology has a nasty habit of forcing the truth on you one way or another.

Really well said. Thank you for sharing this.

[Anonymous]

Well now we have LD and mentally disordered people taking a page from the LGBTQ activist manual so get ready for that wave of privilege and attention and quotas.
It’s just “thinking differently” so accommodate and comply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter who attends a very strong local private girls school (one that we have been very happy with) reports that girls in her student government, led by the adult Director of Student Life, are having conversations about how using the terms 'girls' when addressing the students there is 'exclusive' and not gender-identity inclusive. There are discussions about changing the handbook to restrict the use of 'girls,' as well as the Director of Student Life actively advocating to the girls actually taking down school-purchased signs on campus the denote that it is a girls school. While I am left-leaning and certainly think that people should be able to choose their own pronouns, this seems over the top. We chose a girls school precisely for it being one. And we have deeply appreciated the strengths that that her girls school education has provided to her. Has anyone else with a daughter in a girl's school heard about this?

Either Stone Ridge or Holton. Either way, it’s ridiculous.

It could be NCS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well now we have LD and mentally disordered people taking a page from the LGBTQ activist manual so get ready for that wave of privilege and attention and quotas.
It’s just “thinking differently” so accommodate and comply.

This is offensive, ignorant and unnecessary.

Students with learning differences have been learning to quietly advocate for their needs for many years well before this gender fluidity phenom. Teachers who are trained to engage different kinds of learners actually fare better with neuro typical students since the teaching empowers all students (understanding how they learn best, engaging as many senses as possible to learn material, and managing time and materials in most effective ways.

Also many students with learning differences have very high IQs and it is better for society to be able to utilize their many gifts (such as lateral thinking, big picture thinking, creative problem solving) rather than to stigmatize them and squander their gifts.

[Anonymous]

Wait, you’re going to put a dyslexic child in the same bucket as one wanting gender transition? Why exactly?