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How do you ensure that a piece of information is simultaneously public and secret? I have no idea, but I hope that someone can explain a reliable strategy because this story makes no sense in its absence.
EDIT: link to the policy in question.
TL;DR: The government of Saskatchewan just enacted a new policy that affects "preferred names" and pronouns for younger students (along with some other changes, which I'll skip over). It requires that teachers obtain parental consent before using new names/pronouns for students under 16 years old. The criticism is focused on two claims: First, being "out" is important. Second, it can be unsafe if a parent learns that their child is transgender.
The first claim has already been argued to death, and there's nothing new in this story.
The second claim is just bizarre in this context. What do they expect would happen in the absence of the new policy? Everybody starts using the child's new names/pronouns in everything from casual conversations to official reports...and the parents don't notice for >2 years?
If I knew that a child had information that could be dangerous if it got into the wrong hands, I wouldn't encourage them to spread it far and wide. In fact, I'd direct them to a professional that would help them to develop a strategy that minimized the damage from its release, or else cope with maintaining the burden of secrecy.
But maybe I'm missing something, so I'll repeat my question: how do you ensure that a piece of information is simultaneously public and secret?
The unsafe part makes little sense to me, because the argument is that the parents are inclined to be abusive, so if the child comes out as transgender this would trigger abuse. But then what about the rest of the time? Is the child not at risk of abuse for other reasons (parents are neglectful, parents put too much pressure on to achieve academic or sporting success, parents are emotionally cruel)?
It only makes sense in the context of "the parents are fine except that they will be upset to learn this and will deny that the child is transgender and will use the deadname and try and force the child to conform to natal gender", and that "not affirming that Johnny is now Susie" is abuse of a serious kind.
Then you're asking the child and everybody else to hide this for however many years (from the age of 12 to 18 until Susie is legally an adult? that will never have any slip-up about it or it won't come out some other way) and I don't think that's workable.
It's difficult because yeah, probably are some genuinely transgender kids out there and yeah, parents who would lose it and try and force the kid to be Johnny not Susie, so you have to do what is in the best interests of the child. But on the other hand - the school committing to lie to the parents that 'Johnny' is doing okay in 'his' maths class, while at school they refer to Susie as 'she' and 'her' and help her change into her girl clothes and use the girls' bathroom - like I said, some kid is going to mention this to their parents and then the cat is out of the bag and now the parents can't trust a word from the school ever again because what else were they doing? Were they going to hook Susie up with a doctor to prescribe puberty blockers without parental knowledge or consent? What?
There is the obligation on teachers to be mandatory reporters if they suspect child abuse; I don't think you can manage to have "I think the parents would be abusive so we'll keep it all hush-hush but we won't report to the authorities as we are supposed to do, either" as a workable solution.
Yeah, this dichotomy makes no sense. If teachers genuinely suspect that a parent is abusive, whatever info used to establish this suspicion (hunger, neglect, sexual abuse, etc etc) should be of much higher urgency than the kid's preferred pronouns.
The only explanation that makes sense to me here is that the education institutions are aware that the 'trans kids' issue is an unpopular political hot potato and know that parents are most prone to have the knowledge, motivation, and legal authority to intervene in their kid's lives. And so the school's solution is to keep the parents in the dark in order to avoid any potential interference or vexing questions.
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I strenuously deny this assertion. There are gender non-conforming children, gay children, those who struggle to develop a gendered identity in a social world, and ultimately those who struggle with body or gender dysphoria but there is no evidence that there are 'trans-children'.
The blind acceptance of this frame by both sides is something we need to challenge if we want medical professionals to start caring about child-safeguarding.
The idea of a trans child was unknown 20 years ago when trans(sexual) identification was the domain of adult males with autogynephilia
Who is providing the language and ideas for these children to use?
I'm confused by this. Would you mind elaborating a bit?
Are you saying trans adults exist? If so, when does the transition from non-trans child to trans adult occur?
Even if you argue that being transexual is a mental illness - why would only adults have this illness?
You can argue that the trans status only materialises when puberty finishes and the feelings of dysphoria haven't desisted -- since the majority of children expressing that they feel dysphoria successfully desist by going through puberty, only those who endure can be said to be truly transgender, and this cannot happen before adulthood.
Again, why use the term 'truly transgender', and not trans identified due to body dysphoria, or autogynephilic if they fulfil that criteria. They can be known as trans people but why the metaphysical backstory of 'truly trans'?
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Yes, happy to. I think 'trans' is an umbrella term that covers a lot of interrelated issues, so I also don't believe in the 'trans' adult as a distinct thing either. I think the best frame is that of a culture bound syndrome (Helen Joyce's position), as I've outlined previously.
https://www.themotte.org/post/587/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/120789?context=8#context
To inquires into trans means we need to differentiate the different component parts - applying a label trans child/trans adult is already question begging. It locks us into a particular metaphysical frame where it's very easy to assume, 'people are born like that'.
I don't preclude biological or genetic aspects or some mechanism like hormones in natal development on the brain for some portion of trans identification, but even then I don't jump to 'trans person' as a response but 'person who may find difficulties with the assumed gender roles and presentation that is normative for their sex', ie gender dysphoria and gender non-conforming. Mental illness is a broad, unhelpful term but there a host of psychological conditions that could impact someones social identity formation and self-concept that don't have any need for the creation of a 'trans person'. OCD, autism, body dysmorphia.
For children the assumption (by adults on the child's behalf) is even more egregious. Part of gender is obviously socially constructed and we learn in development language, customs around gender. To answer my earlier question, this means it is adults supplying the children with concepts and language to talk about gender. The current iteration of ideas in my view is clearly a social contagion drawing from all sorts of problematic and contingent elements such as queer theory and an ideological fervour from progressives.
While children learn early about sex categories our awareness of our sexed nature's and social identity doesn't really take off until early adolescence and in particular puberty. Society, through child development, is shaping ideas around gender expression and what it is to be a self. Why are we shaping it in such a way that we are allowing some children to take drugs with serious side-effects and surgeries as well as foregoing puberty without a strong evidence base, is shocking. For many children we are foreclosing the rite of passage to adulthood, surely limiting their integration as a social being.
It's because of activists, and a big blob of people that aren't treating this as a public health issue, so are complicit in unethical medical harms.
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I think they would see it as either that, or avoiding providing ammunition to already abusive parents. But from that point of view they might as well keep grades secret because abusive parents can be triggered by those too.
I think that mode lines up more with the common cultural meme which is to basically assume abuse until proven otherwise along certain power differentials. The "raised by narcissists" worldview that looks at this on the parent-child angle hasn't really gone mainstream but I think is guiding a lot of the left-wing agenda around kids under the surface.
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I mean, yes, children are at risk of those things all the time, and that's why we have an entire government agency (child protective services) dedicated to finding those cases and protecting kids from them, as well as training and vigilance from all other government agents and many types of professionals that interact with kids.
It is 100% true that we as a society know that some parents are abusive to their kids and those kids sometimes need unusual interventions to protect them form their parents. Not revealing gender exploration when a kid says they don't think they would be safe if the parents knew is an example of that type of action, though not one that currently goes through the normal CPS pipeline.
If your question is 'isn't being dangerous for a trans kid highly correlated with being dangerous for any other kid', then I would think the answer is just no? It's generally an ideological commitment rather than a personality trait that would generalize to all those other cases.
I mean the current situation is just 'this isn't something I'm required to report on, any more than I'm required to report if I see two teens kissing each other or reading the communist manifesto or anything else that some parents might object to'. There's no conspiracy to conceal information, there's just no duty to report on any of this stuff generally.
The law is intended to change that.
The law does no such thing. What this law actually does, and in fact the only thing it changes, is prevent either student or teacher from unilaterally invoking/imposing transgender status.
The major implications of this change will be:
Suggested transitions aren't unilaterally the domain of the school. A progressive early elementary school teacher or guidance counselor is not allowed to just up and change little Timmy's name or gender because he keeps playing female roles when it's center time, and if she keeps doing it it's punishable. They're still allowed to suggest it to the parents, or even confidentially to the student, but they can't start doing it until they get parental sign-off.
Transitions aren't unilaterally the domain of the student. A student who just wants to use the girls' bathroom or to get some of that sweet, sweet social clout (instant attention, just add water) is no longer allowed to do that without parental consent. This doesn't stop students with progressive parents who would rubber-stamp any request (good faith or otherwise), and the policy makes this explicitly clear- but it does provide a higher activation energy for non-progressive parents who would (probably rightfully) tell their kid "no, because you're attention-whoring, and that's not fair to others". Again, the school isn't allowed to just decide the parents are wrong, do it anyway, and start punishing other students who refuse to tell/accept the lie (which, from the the non-progressive perspective, it is). Parents of students that get punished in this way now have official recourse.
Students may still request the use of preferred identification from their peer groups or special accommodation from teachers (for general discomfort with dressing rooms). This is, in essence, a nickname; the name peers use for a student and the name teachers use for a student need not be the same thing. Students may request individual teachers not disclose this nickname or accommodation, and teachers may or may not honor that request.
Parents who refuse to use the student's preferred identification at home are a bit less in conflict with the State. The fact that this form and process even exists in the first place signals the SK government's position is "refusal to give consent is not child abuse"- while this might still contradict with other official Provincial policies on the matter, it locks down this front at the very least.
The compromise made was:
Progressive parents get some of what they want- if they think their kid is trans at 6 the district will still honor and enforce it (and must punish other students who fail to use the student's preferred identification)- but they (and progressive students) lose when it comes to the power grab that is "students of non-progressive parents should be allowed to exercise the social power we believe claiming to be trans deserves and everyone else can suck it".
Progressive teachers get some of what they want- they can still suggest the student talk to a guidance counselor as desired and they're not mandated to say anything about GNC behavior at school at all- but they lose when it comes to the power grab that is "we know your kid better than you do, so we'll do what we/your kid wants, and if you try to resist we'll take them out of your house at gunpoint like we did to those backwards Indian savages".
Non-progressive parents get some of what they want- they don't have to worry the school is transitioning their kid behind their back- but they still lose when it comes to the power to stop progressive faculty from ever talking about a speculative diagnosis of transgenderism, discussing what the other students call their kid, or forcing other students to call their kid by their preferred identification (the "neutral" in "neutral vs. conservative").
Non-progressive teachers get some of what they want- unless a students' parents are on board they're actually mandated to refuse the student's request (which, naturally, they'll have no problem doing)- but they lose and still have to [enforce the] lie should the parents agree the lie be treated as if it were true.
Non-progressive students suffer the same loss, but may refuse similarly refuse their peers' request for them to lie and the school can't punish them for it (because, naturally, that's the name the teachers [have to] call them).
Trans students, be they in good faith or bad, get some of what they want- there are no constraints on their individual social power to get other students to treat them certain ways and there's no mandate for sympathetic teachers to mention anything about unusual gender behavior at school- but they lose by being completely and utterly unable to wield the powers of transgenderism if their parents and/or teachers aren't on board with it and they don't get power over their peers for the crime of not agreeing with the progressive program.
Or... maybe I'm not reading the same pages? I'd really like to know what the law you're reading says, because as far as I can tell this law doesn't do even half of what you claim it does.
I was reading the top-level comment in this thread, which did not have a link to the actual policy at the time I responded to it. My responses so far have only been related to how OP described the situation.
If I have time after work, I'll look at the actual policy and see if that changes any of my positions. Until then, consider my position to be in response to the hypothetical scenario suggested in the original post, which may or may not actually exist.
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I had to get my parents' permission to watch a couple of movies, go on any field trip, or add/drop classes. In addition, they were informed about any disciplinary actions, some course content, and general impressions of my time at school.
Even if that wasn't true wherever you grew up, teachers having a duty to inform parents about the goings on in the classroom is nothing new here.
There's a line in the West Wing, talking about the State of teh Union address by the president:
Sure, part of the job of being a teacher is to give parents information about how their kids are doing in school and what's happening there, and there are specific pieces of information that they're required to disclose.
That doesn't actually mean they are required to disclose everything that happens, or that they have zero discretion in what to talk about.
Those are in fact two hugely different things.
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