This morning, Transgender Trend tweeted that children should be entitled to know the sex of children in their school. Safe Schools Alliance followed it up with a statement that everybody should be entitled to know the sex of their teachers too. This was followed by an absolute howl of people saying “why are you obsessed with people’s genitals,” and accusations of mandatory genital inspections, grooming and “red flags.” I found this response initially baffling, and then quite revealing in a superficial way, and then, in another way too. So I’m writing about it.
To my simple mind, the intention of the tweet seemed obvious and uncontroversial - and straightforwardly descriptive of what was a universal, or almost universal practice in schools, even ten years ago. Even in cases where a child is allowed to “socially transition,” and the school maintains a polite fiction as to their biological sex, this should not extend so far that it infringes on the dignity, privacy and safety of other children. For example, a boy may be allowed to wear the girl’s uniform, but should not be allowed to change with the girls.
My sons’ schools have come up with what I believe to be a reasonable (although stinky) solution to the getting changed issue, which skirts around a good chunk of this problem. In primary school, they have jettisoned the uncomfortable formal attire, and have the kids wear a “PE top” and joggers every day - girls and boys alike. This means that they can do their “golden mile” every morning, and do their PE and after school clubs without ever having to change. At secondary school, they wear their formal uniforms unless they have PE, in which case they go in wearing joggers and do PE in the same uniform as the one they spend their day in. I don’t envy the nostrils of the teachers of whole classrooms of sweaty teenagers in the afternoons after PE, but it is a solution of sorts.
Changing is a practical problem. It is only part of why it’s important that children are not lied to about the biological sex of their peers. The main one is safeguarding. Contrary to popular opinion, safeguarding is always about risk management. There is no absolute safety for children. You could put them in a completely sterile, cotton wool bubble for their whole lives, and never have them meet anybody, and they would be safe from car wrecks and paedophiles, but they would face other risks instead. This is an extreme example, but on a more realistic level, risk management happens all the time around children. In homes, in schools, in family court.
Some risks pose obvious and absolute solutions. Nobody convicted of an offence against children should be given unsupervised access to them, for example. But most risks are not this clear cut. For example, you have a teenager who wants to walk to school on their own. Their school is across town. You have always dropped them off, but they want more independence. It isn’t clear what the “right” answer is; the answer can only be found by weighing a number of factors in that individual situation. Likewise, the decision to give a child a mobile phone, to let them “play out,” or to go on certain trips, or to let certain family members look after a child. Always, risks to be managed. Always, with the child’s best long term interest in mind.
In schools, the needs of a child who may suffer from distress about their biological sex, and may find it uncomfortable to have this widely known, must be balanced against the needs of all other children they come into contact with. If, for example, teenage girls are lied to about the biological sex of a teenage boy, if they believe the lie, then they will not take the kind of actions that teenage girls everywhere take to keep themselves safe from teenage boys. If teachers are not made aware, the situation will arise where teenage boys are sharing dorms on school trips with teenage girls, with all the obvious consequences. This is not scaremongering - this has already happened. It is incompatible with even the most basic of safeguarding. This is clearly the target of the tweet from Transgender Trend.
But the replies to the tweet are a universal cry of “this is GROOMING!” “Genital inspections in schools!” “Why are you obsessed with genitals.” “GCs are paedos!” I squinted my eyes as much as I could to try to see what they were driving at. My initial response was “this doesn’t make sense, so it must be projection.” I think some of it is clearly projection - a quick squint at the time line of some of them makes it obvious, never mind the fact that the original tweet did not mention genitals, but many of the replies did. In fact, dismissing all of the replies as projection is tempting. But I think there’s a deeper point to get at - one which is quite revealing of the whole world view of the other side, and the fact that they are operating on a truly revisionist view of how society has always operated.
Twenty years ago, we knew what men and women were, and boys and girls. There were transitioners. People mostly looked askance at them, a few argued for acceptance and accommodation, me included, but nobody really believed that they could change sex. Children did not transition. Gender nonconformity was generally frowned on in my Northern town, despite the flamboyancy of pop and fashion, but us non-conforming types found our own way. I cut my hair off with the kitchen scissors, for example, and wore shorts under my skirt. I put on the stupid dress, but I ripped it climbing trees. The idea that somebody would lie to their peers about their biological sex, and expect the authorities or anybody else to take them seriously, would have been laughed at.
This was not about genitals. This was about biological sex. Institutions were structured around it. Provisions for women and girls were made around it. Girls and boys were kept apart in certain situations because of what we know about it. People were not “obsessed with genitals,” until attempts were made to pretend that biological sexed differences do not exist and do not matter.
The order goes like this:
Women are oppressed on the basis of our biological sex and argued, successfully, for initially suffrage and then a raft of other rights and protections not previously accorded to our sex.
Society is structured around the fact that there are important differences between men and women, and certain situations in which women need special provisions, our own spaces and sports, protections from certain types of men and so on.
A small group of people decides that men can be women and women can be men, effectively saying that the differences between men and women do not exist and do not matter.
Some people object to this and insist that knowing the differences between men and women is universal in human society, and upholding the protections in place for women and girls is vital.
The small group argues that the objectors are “obsessed with genitals.”
It’s upside down. Nobody was obsessed with genitals, until a small group started demanding access to female spaces and sports, and we had to say “no” and attempt to keep them out.
And whilst we are at it, when we are going about the business of safeguarding, then yes, genitals matter. A teenage girl who begins to identify as trans and wants to sleep in the boys dorm on a school trip is, prima facie, not a risk, she is at risk. A teenage boy who begins to identify as trans and wants to sleep in the girls dorm on a school trip is, prima facie, not at risk, he is a risk. It’s not sexist to say so. It’s just factual. Genitals matter, biological sex matters, and if you want to do safeguarding properly, you can’t pretend that they don’t exist.
And so we are back to grooming. The argument of the detractors, to steel man it, is that if you think that the biological sex of children exists, and it matters, and that children should not be lied to about it, then you are obsessed with genitals. This is the same form as the DARVO language used by abusers and paedophile enablers all the time. It goes like this.
“What is wrong with you, raising what you call my behaviour! I was only tickling the child. I was only playing a game. You’re a pervert, you’re obsessed with sex if you want to stop this silly, innocent fun. Let kids be kids.”
Likewise:
“If you think that biological sex exists and that safeguarding on the basis of it is vital, and that lying about it undermines safeguarding, then you are obsessed with genitals, you want genital inspections in schools, and you’re a pervert. Let kids be kids.”
Knowing the biological sex of those you are trying to safeguard is absolutely fundamental to safeguarding and risk management. Children of different biological sexes pose different kinds of risk to each other and are at different kinds of risk. These risks have to be managed. If you cannot see this, and think that pointing it out makes somebody “obsessed with genitals,” then you should step aside and let those of us who are capable of risk management do our work. Or else just go the whole hog and say that the minute a boy says “I’m trans” he should get a free pass to the girls’ locker room.
And, whilst I'm at it, the whole "you may not check my child's genitals how very dare you" crowd are being utterly disingenuous. Nobody wants to check children's genitals. But some people do want to lie to adults and children about biological sex, and use "you pervert" against anybody who wants to stop them.
Excellent analysis!! Spot on!
I miss you from twitter (I am suspended) and hope you & Lauren are well!