r/unitedkingdom • u/PinkNews Verified Media Outlet • 5d ago

Keir Starmer says he doesn’t want schools teaching young people about transgender identities ...

https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/06/25/keir-starmer-trans-education-general-election-2024/
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u/jmdg007 Liverpool 5d ago

Surely people realise Trans people aren't going to just go away by not mentioning them in school? I went to a Catholic school about 10 years ago where they never got mentioned once by teachers yet I know at least 2 people from my year who are Trans now.

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u/TropicalGoth77 5d ago

The counter argument would be that its (at least partially) a social contagion type thing in which teenagers / young people going through the mental challenges of puberty are seeing transitioning as an answer to confusion and discomfort about changes in their body. Thus not mentioning it would reduce the amount of young people seeing that as the appropriate response to these feelings.

Whether you agree or not with this idea is up to debate but thats the counter point.

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u/360Saturn 5d ago

Not to call you out specifically but the very concept of a 'social contagion' sounds like something the kind of person that believed Satanists were recruiting in schools or 5G was kind controlling people through brainwaves would come up with.

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u/AlDente 5d ago

Except fashion, language, dialect, sub cultures, and much more already work in this way. We are a deeply social species.

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u/lem0nhe4d 5d ago

And tons of homophobes claimed being gay was a social contagion and we ended up with section 28 which didn't reduce the amount of gay people it just made gay kids miserable.

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u/AlDente 5d ago

It’s a good point. And I’m not claiming that all trans people are trans because of social influences. I am interested why there seem to be so many more trans teenagers now, compared with any point in history. And I agree with the person who commented above that gender dysmorphia seems to arise at a time when young people are questioning their changing bodies in a culture with extremely high levels of unrealistic visual role models. All of which is unprecedented.

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u/lem0nhe4d 5d ago

There is also an exponential rise in the number of non straight teenagers and young adults.

Every generation has had incredibly unrealistic role models displayed to them and it didn't make them trans because you can't make people trans.

Hell despite unrealistic body images still being a thing we also have much more body positivity imagery that didn't used to exist and many more celebrities and icons who don't fit those unrealistic standards.

It's also gender dysphoria not dysmorphia. Those are two drastically different things and not in any way comparable or related.

More trans people are coming out because acceptance of trans people was rising. Trans youth finally have trans role models to look up to. They finally see depictions of trans people who live happy lives and being accepted and it gives them the confidence to come out.

Compare that to 20 years ago where nearly all depictions of trans people was as people to be laughed, or feared.

Now I know a load of gender critical people would love to go back to a time were they didn't have to deal with trans people because we were all in the closet but that is not going to happen again no matter how many wild conspiracy theories they come up with. Especially not when they want everyone to just believe trans people are some disease that can be spread to children. Queer people have been though that before and we are ready.

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u/AlDente 5d ago

You’re right, I meant dysphoria. Though I’m not sure the two are as unrelated as you believe.

No other generation has had anywhere near the amount of unrealistic role models that today’s young people experience. And the ease of access to sub cultures and social signals is unprecedented. Social media and smartphones are still very new. We are still seeing the first generation growing up with this. The number of images that a young person sees each day is literally hundreds of times more (and higher for many) than a young person would see 30-50 years ago. And go back another couple of generations and it was almost zero. All of this is very new.

I have zero problem with someone identifying as a gender or dressing whatever way they want. I am just interested in what’s going on, because something new is definitely going on, and science is the best method we have for uncovering the truth.

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u/lem0nhe4d 5d ago

Simple explanation.

Dysmorphia is looking in the mirror and seeing something that isn't true. Think an anorexic who thinks they look fat. They have an untrue image of their body.

Dysphoria is looking in the mirror and seeing your body exactly as it is and knowing their is something wrong about it. Trans people who still have dysphoria don't see something that's not their they see their body exactly the same as everyone else.

That's why unlike anorexia which doesn't go away no matter how slinky a person makes themselves dysphoria does go away by transitioning.

Today's generation has a lot more role models that is definitely true but they also have a much more diverse range of role models of all different body types.

In the early 2000s you basically only had the what society imagined as perfect people plastered on ads, music videos and in movies and tv. Now days there are ton of different people in those positions who people can look up to.

You are suggesting children are being infected with some mind disease that makes them trans. You are doing this without a shred of scientific evidence to support that assumption. Without any scientific evidence we are seeing calls to implement a trans specific section 28. Section 28 was brought in with exactly the same justification and it's consequences were devastating especially for queer youth.

Why support a nearly identical policy being brought in with the exact same amount of evidence this time? And considering the level of evidence is the same as what we had when section 28 was brought in would you defended those that implemented it at the time?

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u/AlDente 4d ago

I’m aware of the difference, I made an error by mentioning the wrong term.

Your last two paras make some huge assumptions about what I believe, and are not borne out by anything I’ve written here. So all that speculation and accusation about policies is yours alone.

The interesting part of the trans debate that is almost always missing is another assumption: trans teens are report experiencing a dissonance between their perception of their own gender identity, versus their perception of their body. My question is how does a teenager have a good idea what gender is at such a young age?

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u/lem0nhe4d 4d ago

Do you think it's hard to have a good idea of your gender? As a teenager did you wake up confused about your gender on a daily basis? Speak to trans people who knew they were trans as teenagers we all knew who we were from quiet a young age?

If trans teens were often wrong about their gender identies we would expect to see lots of them desist throughout the years. The Cass report found that a minimum of 98% did not before turning 18.

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u/_uckt_ 5d ago

Being trans isn't a bad outcome.

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u/AlDente 5d ago

No one said it was.

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u/_uckt_ 5d ago

It being a 'fad' or 'social contagion' is based on the idea that being trans is wrong and we should try to prevent it.

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u/AlDente 4d ago

There are many things that are socially spread. Language, fashion, behaviours, cultural norms. I agree that “contagion” does have a negative connotation and it wasn’t my choice of phrase. I’m merely interested in the social component. If you’re a Kayan Lahwi woman) living in Myanmar, then you’ve grown up with social norms so strong that you will almost definitely feel it’s right and good to wear ever more brass rings around your neck so that it crushes your rib cage, giving the impression that their neck is long. Until recently, if you’d asked any of them, they’d have said it was their choice (and many still do). Social influence is immensely strong in humans.

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u/_uckt_ 4d ago

If social influence makes someone trans, it's not a bad outcome.

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u/AlDente 4d ago

You seem to be repeating yourself. I already replied to that.