Toby responds to ‘catgate‘ in his Spectator column this week, saying the phenomenon of children identifying as animals or ‘furries’ is welcome for at least one reason – it proves the need for adults to remember that they’re supposed to educate children, not indulge their fantasies. Here’s an excerpt.
The Department for Education (DfE) is due to publish draft guidance next week advising schools how to deal with the explosion of children identifying as trans and, judging from a sneak preview in the Sun, it looks quite robust. Schools will be banned from helping children change gender without their parents’ consent, no one can be compelled to use a child’s preferred gender pronouns and, for reasons of fairness, trans-identifying pupils won’t be allowed to participate in competitive sport. But there will be nothing in the guidance about how schools should cope with ‘furries’ – children who identify as animals.
My first thought on hearing about this bizarre subculture was that the kids must be doing it to ridicule woke teachers. After all, if the ‘correct’ approach when faced with a child identifying as a member of the opposite sex is to endorse their self-diagnosis, then schools are bound to adopt the same ‘affirmative’ attitude when children identify as cats or dogs. That seems to be the trap the teacher in East Sussex has fallen into.
But was it all an elaborate hoax? A recent story in the Telegraph about ‘furries’ suggests not. It described a sixth former at a school in Wales who claims to identify as a cat. She – or, rather, ‘catself’, since that’s her preferred gender pronoun – answers every question posed to her in lessons by meowing and gets very uppity if a teacher asks her to reply in English. She sounds like another anti-woke prankster, but other examples indicate these children may be in earnest.
For instance, the Telegraph discovered a child in the south-west who insists her teachers treat her as if she’s a dinosaur and a pupil at a secondary school in England who identifies as a horse. Yet another claims to be a moon and cavorts about in a Harry Potter cloak putting curses on classmates. In every case, the schools dutifully ‘respect’ these identities rather than risk accusations of being ‘exclusionary’. As far as I can tell these girls are not budding Titania McGraths. They’ve genuinely gone mad.
As someone who disapproves of the way schools have embraced trans dogma and welcomes the new DfE guidance, I quite like this weird phenomenon. It may not be intended as satire, but it exposes the shortcomings of schools pandering to trans-identifying children nevertheless. In the past, when I’ve made the ‘where do you draw the line?’ argument to woke teachers, they dismiss the notion that any child might identify as an animal as a ‘red herring’. But it turns out, if you encourage kids to part company with biological reality, there’s nothing to stop them believing they’re cats or dinosaurs – or, indeed, red herrings. This will surely help advocates of a more sceptical approach to persuade schools that a policy of ‘inclusion’ in all circumstances may not be in children’s best interests.
Worth reading in full.
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Couldn’t believe that vid of the young policeman slapping cuffs on someone for ‘Causing Anxiety’, seriously.
Marvellous. So what’s he doing about the Pakistani grooming gangs which are still visibly operating across his Policing area?
It looks like SFA.
Offence is taken, not given.
Or, as my lovely great aunt used to tell me,
“Sticks and stones may break my bones… but names?! They will never hurt me!”
She was the school secretary for decades at a secondary modern in Barton-upon-Humber. Never had children, but made a big, positive impact on many in her time. She would doubtless have been sacked these days, for saying it how it is and delivering a bit “toughen up, buttercup!”
There is a certain police
forceservice in my region that won’t arrest drug dealers dealing openly on the street on a housing estate where the council places vulnerable ex-addicts. The reason given: We can’t crack down on this area because that would show favouritism to one area over others and we don’t have the resources to tackle them all.That service: Greater Manchester Police.
Mr Watson should be judged by his actions, not his words.
The country has ‘gone to the dogs’. Nothing in this country is working as it should. The police are a joke chasing ‘hurty feelings’ rather than real crime. The government is a joke, they ignore the concerns of the electorate and follow the Agenda of the unelected WEF and WHO, the Judiciary is a joke for ignoring real law breakers and hounding those who stand up for our rights, the Health Service is a joke I’ve been waiting for a hospital appointment for 4 months and all I am told is ‘we can tell you it wont be this month’!
“He said he hoped officers could be empowered to apply their own common sense.”
Officer’s being allowed to use their ‘common sense’ is exactly the problem in the first place.
Anyone who is put into the unique position of being legally allowed to police anyone else needs concrete rules that if they break or overstep, they get a strike. Three strikes and they lose their job and lose their right to reapply.
Sadly it is bigger than this though, as long as we have ‘hate crime’ legislation we are all living in clown world.
A group of police officers turning up at your doorstep would be a likely source of anxiety. Perhaps they should form a circle and hand-cuff each other.
Woke policing in Colchester, Essex.
https://t.me/BerkshireFreedom/2256
This trio arrested people for holding Russian flags
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I applaud the views expressed by this Chief Constable and hope other forces can apply the same approach as his in Manchester. But wait a minute shouldn’t this be directed by our Home secretary? Someone who has proven to be useles at everything supposedly under her control, but clearly not. A more extreme example of incompetence in post can rarely be found. One good thing about our new government in early September is that she should surely be kicked out of any government position and replaced by someone who can do the job.