Girl's School and Gender Pronouns

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here’s my take:

It will only happen if/when all-girls schools in the very VERY liberal parts of the country start dropping “girls”. Holton is not going to stick their neck out.

Does anyone have examples of top girls schools in San Fran, NYC, Boston etc doing this?

Are you simply saying we should do away with girls' schools? Should girls be allowed the option to choose a school for girls?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:many girls at Stone Ridge (where my daughter is enrolled) are demanding to be called he/him, they/them, and even it

That is utter bullshit. I don’t believe you. You are stirring the pot to make your point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are all making something out of nothing. So what some students are expressing they think it should change and their advisor agrees. That’s not how things change if it does not have wide support which it doesn’t. I don’t think it should change but I know it won’t and I certainly am not going to jump on the hate bandwagon and use this as a reason to be against the people that think it should change.

Take a lesson from your religious books and be nice. No need to attack these kids or anyone else. A few parents at these schools are very right wing and I think they should go elsewhere if th etc don’t like their schools because all they do is bash their daughters’ school. Their daughters are aware and it makes them sad!!

I'm reading posters as being against the idea of removing "girls" from a girls' schools, not against the people who no longer want it to be a girls' school.

[Anonymous]

I cannot believe what I am reading. The idea alone that an all-girls school cannot refer to its female student body by that word is utterly preposterous. Of course girls is not a pejorative term. SR instructs grades nursery through 12th. What do you think a 7 year old is? A woman?! We now know that a human brain is not even fully formed until a person’s mid-20s, so while a girl may become a woman by physical terms in her early teens, she will not yet be a woman by maturity-level terms until much later. This whole debate is a política exercise and a show of force by the powers at be that control academia, and you all know it. To support or defend the banning of the word makes you complicit in their crimes. To hear that some girls are demanding that they be referred to as “he” or “it” at an all girls school is tragic. These girls have fallen victim to the progressive lgbtq agenda and are being used by the lgbtq interests groups to advance their agenda. To all those supporting these issues and accepting these bogus and totally made-up claims of “sexual and gender fluidity” at at an all girls Catholic school should be ashamed of themselves. How dare you think you know what is best for another person’s family? How would you feel if someone entered your house and turned your child into a Trump-loving white supremicist? (Oh, I’m sorry, did that finally hit a chord?) Leave political indoctrination out of the classroom. It is completely and utterly immoral.

[Anonymous]

I agree with many of your points but disagree that it's some sort of top down liberal brainwashing. These conversations are starting with the students, and schools are struggling with how to be supportive communities while maintaining their identities as schools focused on the education of girls.

[Anonymous]

You could always withdraw if you don’t like it. Whining about it on social media is puerile and ineffective.

[Anonymous]

You should talk to the persons involved at the search for a new head of school at Holton. SJ seems very focused on social agenda vs educating women. If you feel strongly one way or another then contact the search committee and let your views be know. I don’t know whether most people lie one side or the other or if there is a 50/50 divide but quite a few people have left over the past few years due to these issues. You have a say. You might lose but better to try to influence and then leave vs posting here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe what I am reading. The idea alone that an all-girls school cannot refer to its female student body by that word is utterly preposterous. Of course girls is not a pejorative term. SR instructs grades nursery through 12th. What do you think a 7 year old is? A woman?! We now know that a human brain is not even fully formed until a person’s mid-20s, so while a girl may become a woman by physical terms in her early teens, she will not yet be a woman by maturity-level terms until much later. This whole debate is a política exercise and a show of force by the powers at be that control academia, and you all know it. To support or defend the banning of the word makes you complicit in their crimes. To hear that some girls are demanding that they be referred to as “he” or “it” at an all girls school is tragic. These girls have fallen victim to the progressive lgbtq agenda and are being used by the lgbtq interests groups to advance their agenda. To all those supporting these issues and accepting these bogus and totally made-up claims of “sexual and gender fluidity” at at an all girls Catholic school should be ashamed of themselves. How dare you think you know what is best for another person’s family? How would you feel if someone entered your house and turned your child into a Trump-loving white supremicist? (Oh, I’m sorry, did that finally hit a chord?) Leave political indoctrination out of the classroom. It is completely and utterly immoral.

Who said they can’t? Where exactly did SR or Holton or any other school actually say this? I doubt it is true. So what of some think it should be this way or that way. It doesn’t mean it is school policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is the latest fad. Girls suddenly think it’s cool to be male or non-binary. I’m actually hoping the all-girls schools take a hard stand against this nonsense. It’s disrespectful to the people who have legitimate gender differences. I need two hands to count the number of my DD’s friends who are sucked in by this (including mine). There is zero chance this is due to a medical issue affecting sex and gender dysmorphia.

Not just cool: it makes them better-special-different. They join the noble, moral, oppressed tribe, fighting the righteous crusade against patriarchy, racism, sexism, colonialism, capitalism, etc etc etc.

Society celebrates and rewards them. There's no easier way to jump from suspect UMC white bougie to "team goodness"...

[Anonymous]

For the moment it’s still National Cathedral School for Girls.

Dr. Scully inherited a process set in motion by outgoing head of DEI Rachel Flores who departed to become head of upper school at Spence. Flores is also a Principal Consultant for the Glasgow Group. Rodney Glasgow (Gilman /Harvard grad) is head of SSF which he describes as a plantation because they pay his salary, provide housing, and give him an allowance for food.

Flores, despite, being head of DEI was the only individual name checked on Black@NCS.

Schools are now making policy based on mostly anonymous online posts which is the exact opposite of the way policy is supposed to be developed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the latest fad. Girls suddenly think it’s cool to be male or non-binary. I’m actually hoping the all-girls schools take a hard stand against this nonsense. It’s disrespectful to the people who have legitimate gender differences. I need two hands to count the number of my DD’s friends who are sucked in by this (including mine). There is zero chance this is due to a medical issue affecting sex and gender dysmorphia.

Not just cool: it makes them better-special-different. They join the noble, moral, oppressed tribe, fighting the righteous crusade against patriarchy, racism, sexism, colonialism, capitalism, etc etc etc.

Society celebrates and rewards them. There's no easier way to jump from suspect UMC white bougie to "team goodness"...

This 100%

[Anonymous]

Y’all realize this might be entirely made up, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Y’all realize this might be entirely made up, right?

Sadly, it isn’t. I’m not the OP but this is going on in my DD’s school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is the latest fad. Girls suddenly think it’s cool to be male or non-binary. I’m actually hoping the all-girls schools take a hard stand against this nonsense. It’s disrespectful to the people who have legitimate gender differences. I need two hands to count the number of my DD’s friends who are sucked in by this (including mine). There is zero chance this is due to a medical issue affecting sex and gender dysmorphia.

Not just cool: it makes them better-special-different. They join the noble, moral, oppressed tribe, fighting the righteous crusade against patriarchy, racism, sexism, colonialism, capitalism, etc etc etc.

Society celebrates and rewards them. There's no easier way to jump from suspect UMC white bougie to "team goodness"...

Does it?

Do you think that if we show these children this thread they will feel celebrated and rewarded?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not suggesting that there are zero rewards. But also, there is a lot of what's in this thread, which is.... decidedly un-celebratory.

Still, if what you say is true, wouldn't that be interesting? That young females are attempting leverage the power of gender identity to oppose patriachy, racism, sexisim, colonialism, and capitalism?

Interesting.

[Anonymous]

A few nuggets:

- The comment about learning disabilities might have been obnoxious, but there is actually something to this: Gender variance is higher among people with ASD and ADHD (google to find the studies, I'm too lazy sorry.) It makes sense, of course: If gender is a social construction, and people with Autism may find social communication challenging or do it different. Meanwhile, people with ADHD tend to "think outside the box." So people whose neurology diverges from the norm are increasingly constructing gender in divergent ways.

- This is a mass rebellion. Our girls are in open revolt, like it or not.

Am I the only one who read Judith Butler in college in the 90s? Butler figured gender as "performative." Nowadays, people say "performative" when they mean "mere performance, not real." But Butler meant it in the linguistic sense. An example of performative speech is "I now pronounce you man and wife." The pronouncement has the effect of shaping reality. Gender -- that is, the way in which we culturally communicate about biological sex -- functions the same way, Butler argued: Gender is real to the extent that it is performed -- and only to the extent that it is performed.

Whatever. The point is, the girls are basically screaming at us that they will not be compelled to perform "girlness" for us anymore. They are refusing, they are rebelling. Why? They don't even know themselves. But it feels viscerally wrong to them. That strikes me as deeply significant and worth paying attention to, without pre-judgement.

- That said, just because they zig doesn't mean we zag. I don't conflate listening to them with letting them call the shots. We can be loving and supportive and also conservative and careful. For example, my support for my child's gender creativity and exploration extends only to explorations that are noninvasive and nonmedical -- and that are about what THEY will do and not do (and not, for example, some sort of laundry list of demands for what others should do, say, perform.)

- I described this thread to my nonbinary 13-year-old. They said, "Well, if you don't like being called a girl and don't identify as one... then maybe a girl's school might not be the best place for you?" lol. Good point, weirdo!

Anyway. I am a public school parent and just happened across this thread, but I agree with those who say this is not going away overnight. If I were a Holton parent, I would suggest trying to judo this instead of fighting it head on. Be smart, compassionate, wise. And trust your children: They might be ridiculous but they are earnest. Their intuitions are correct. They're just getting the details wrong.