The Gender Unicorn

[230TE]

Thanks to having a couple of American conservatives as FB friends, my day has been brightened by reading about this:



Apparently this is the latest thing in the culture wars, being used as a teaching aid in schools in North Carolina (and presumably elsewhere very soon) to help the young people explore their gender fluidity. I'm not sure why it has a boiled sweet glued to its crotch. My immediate reaction is to think that anyone taking an interest in the sexual orientation of schoolchildren should probably be on the Sex Offenders Register, but possibly I'm just an old reactionary dinosaur. I can't help thinking that being a teenager is confusing enough without being given nightmares about purple unicorns. (I assume this is aimed at teenagers, not primary school kids. But the "unicorn" does look a bit like the kind of thing you would use to teach a five year old to say no to strangers, especially ones holding sweets in dubious places.)

[GroundEffect]

There is some validity to this effort as I when I were a lad - being bisexual - I found it very, very difficult. Someone who is straight cannot possibly imagine the pain and complete head-fkery that comes with being 'different' in this way. I was on the verge of suicide for a very long time because of this. Real, mental, torment.

So I think whilst a lot of this is far too militant, it does ring true with me that the support needs to be there for the kids that are struggling that it doesn't matter who you are or who you like. If you consider as well that if you add up all that fall under the banner of 'queer', you've got over 10% of the population. That's a big chunk. And they need help.

[grumbledoak]

It won't be enough.

I mean literally. There aren't enough classifications for them all to be different.

[AJS-]

That's bizarre.

Where does the unicorn come into it?

[alock]

GroundEffect said:

Someone who is straight cannot possibly imagine the pain and complete head-fkery that comes with being 'different' in this way.

Lots of people are different to 'normal' in one way or another. Claiming this type of 'different' is somehow worse for children than other types of 'different' will cause as many problems as it attempts to solve. Every child has their own demons to fight. Having special teaching to highlight one group will only marginalize them in the long run.

[230TE]

GroundEffect said:

There is some validity to this effort as I when I were a lad - being bisexual - I found it very, very difficult. Someone who is straight cannot possibly imagine the pain and complete head-fkery that comes with being 'different' in this way. I was on the verge of suicide for a very long time because of this. Real, mental, torment.

So I think whilst a lot of this is far too militant, it does ring true with me that the support needs to be there for the kids that are struggling that it doesn't matter who you are or who you like. If you consider as well that if you add up all that fall under the banner of 'queer', you've got over 10% of the population. That's a big chunk. And they need help.

Point taken, I was more fascinated by the total naffness of the purple unicorn than anything else. When I was at school I had a friend who was gay and didn't try to hide it. He got a really hard time although he was the most decent, warm-hearted person you could meet. But I'm not sure a gender unicorn would have helped him. He changed schools at 16 and I lost touch with him: I hope his life turned out OK. I'm not sure where I stand on this whole idea of promoting gender fluidity. As you say, some of it seems militant, aggressive and designed more to annoy conservatives than actually help people. There aren't many fixed points left in society now, and it looks like gender could be the next one to go.

[GroundEffect]

alock said:

GroundEffect said:

Someone who is straight cannot possibly imagine the pain and complete head-fkery that comes with being 'different' in this way.

Lots of people are different to 'normal' in one way or another. Claiming this type of 'different' is somehow worse for children than other types of 'different' will cause as many problems as it attempts to solve. Every child has their own demons to fight. Having special teaching to highlight one group will only marginalize them in the long run.

Sure, I cannot claim to own being different but it's all down to how it is implemented. As I said, a lot of this is far too militant (a natural human reaction I guess) but if the above was to be used in Sex Ed or something like that, I think it's a good thing.

[Ultuous]

230TE said:

I'm not sure why it has a boiled sweet glued to its crotch

At first glance I was more confused/ concerned as to why a hippopotamus would have a dildo stuck to it's head!

[FlyingMeeces]

I'd known something was terribly wrong since infant school but didn't have the words for what until my early 20s. It's not a healthy way to grow up. Was seriously and persistently suicidal by 13. Realised I was a guy at maybe 22, wasn't in a position to do much about it until a year ago - I've just turned 31. I cannot overstate how many utter fking nightmares - including the need for surgery now - would have been avoided if I'd had the language to express it to someone pre puberty.

By comparison being 'other than straight' is trivial (it isn't trivial at all) but - the vast majority of children know the terminology to describe the basics of who and what they are by the end of early childhood. Most children assume they are, and are assumed to be, straight, and most of the time that's accurate, but it's not healthy for those who fall outside that bracket - I cannot imagine that it does not somewhat increase the vulnerability to manipulation and abuse when they are a little older, too.

NB because I've been a PHer for long enough - if I minded talking about this I wouldn't be posting, go ahead and ask st if you wanna, but whether or not trans or non-trans boys, girls, men and women *know* that they are male or female is not something I'm gonna be debating.

[Randy Winkman]

alock said:

GroundEffect said:

Someone who is straight cannot possibly imagine the pain and complete head-fkery that comes with being 'different' in this way.

Lots of people are different to 'normal' in one way or another. Claiming this type of 'different' is somehow worse for children than other types of 'different' will cause as many problems as it attempts to solve. Every child has their own demons to fight. Having special teaching to highlight one group will only marginalize them in the long run.

Good point. But it sounds a bit like saying "Because we cant help everyone, we shouldn't help anyone."

[voyds9]

Some times as a straight white male I feel like an endangered species

Then I remember my white privilege.

[Derek Smith]

FlyingMeeces said:

I'd known something was terribly wrong since infant school but didn't have the words for what until my early 20s. It's not a healthy way to grow up. Was seriously and persistently suicidal by 13. Realised I was a guy at maybe 22, wasn't in a position to do much about it until a year ago - I've just turned 31. I cannot overstate how many utter fking nightmares - including the need for surgery now - would have been avoided if I'd had the language to express it to someone pre puberty.

By comparison being 'other than straight' is trivial (it isn't trivial at all) but - the vast majority of children know the terminology to describe the basics of who and what they are by the end of early childhood. Most children assume they are, and are assumed to be, straight, and most of the time that's accurate, but it's not healthy for those who fall outside that bracket - I cannot imagine that it does not somewhat increase the vulnerability to manipulation and abuse when they are a little older, too.

NB because I've been a PHer for long enough - if I minded talking about this I wouldn't be posting, go ahead and ask st if you wanna, but whether or not trans or non-trans boys, girls, men and women *know* that they are male or female is not something I'm gonna be debating.

Oddly enough, I've been writing a couple of articles on gender questions when signing up online. What I'm suggesting is that they, my readers and the ones who sign off the web of email posts, should move away from the normal fudge of binary question and then 'Other'. What prompted the subject was a well-known company's sign-up form for email marketing. There was this 'Other' box just waiting to be ticked by those excluded from the norm. I actually wrote off to them to criticise it but it seems they don't see me as worthy of a reply. Shame, I would have used it in the articles.

It has brought such things to my attention and if you walk into well-known stores, you see binary divisions all over.

It is unconscious I assume - indeed hope - but I'm not sure that excludes it from censure.

[CaptainSlow]

voyds9 said:

Some times as a straight white male I feel like an endangered species

Then I remember my white privilege.

Shut up and pay your taxes, that's quite enough from you.

[jdw100]

I have to say the more we can do to make people aware of differences is great.

I have a good mate, my age, who can tell some horrible stories about realising he was gay at the age of 12 (so that's in 1978) and the confusion and st he went through.

Contrast that to a close family member, now 25, who had a much better time of it at school; some reasonable education at his school, never got bullied - no major issues.

Now my nieces -just into their teens - clearly think there are no issues with any sort of sexuality or lack thereof. I think that's a much better way for everybody.

Some people I've met have known they are 'different' from a very early age, so to say we shouldn't be teaching quite young kids that not everybody wants to love/marry someone of the opposite sex: they would disagree and wish people had done so years ago.

Another aquaintance is a gay guy who also cross dresses - he's loved woman's clothes since he was 5/6 but had to keep it a secret. Now he does as he pleases, mainly as he's a big fk off Glaswegian bloke but had a terrible childhood because he thought and was taught to be different like he is was wrong and horrible....says the shame of it made him contemplate suicide at a young age.

How much better if kids had had a few lessons to say some people like to do X,y,z instead of a,b,c...there will, statistically, be many kids that benefit.

All this 'they're not teaching my child this nonsense' from certain parents makes me wonder whether they stop to consider if it's actually their 5/7/8 year old that might have a better childhood because of raising a bit of awareness in the classroom that not everybody is the same.....

[king arthur]

Nice to see some enlightened responses to this thread, the only question in my mind is why a purple unicorn?

[brenflys777]

I'm not convinced this is the best illustration that could be made but it's a start and useful to someone like myself who was educated on the basis that there were men or women, men or women who'd had treatment to look like the opposite, and straight or gay sexual attraction. I've yet to be convinced otherwise.

I now have kids and I don't want them to suffer because I can't explain to them which phrases or terminology is acceptable in broader society. It's a minefield because the rules aren't agreed but transgression is not forgiven, its similar in a way to describing someone's colour - a colleague of mine in the Police wanted to be described as Afro-Carribean not black because he found it an odious term, but he was a member of the black police officers association, it was easily catered for by asking someone what their preferred term of description was, but I'd be concerned at the moment that even asking a question might offend someone about gender assumption because the terminology is not universally agreed.

[FlyingMeeces]

king arthur said:

Nice to see some enlightened responses to this thread, the only question in my mind is why a purple unicorn?

Purple is something of a midpoint between red/blue so perhaps some significance there but unicorn, absolutely no fking idea.

[hidetheelephants]

FlyingMeeces said:

king arthur said:

Nice to see some enlightened responses to this thread, the only question in my mind is why a purple unicorn?

Purple is something of a midpoint between red/blue so perhaps some significance there but unicorn, absolutely no fking idea.

Purple is the colour the MoD use for joint- or tri-service documents, although I'm not convinced that light blue, navy blue and green mix to make purple.

[Wobbegong]

king arthur said:

Nice to see some enlightened responses to this thread, the only question in my mind is why a purple unicorn?

Inspired by this perhaps?

[aw51 121565]

Well, at least the Gender Unicorn makes a (less detailed) change to the Genderbread Person used in the UK...

Teachers are not happy teaching this stuff (actually, they deride it), as it makes "other" kids more prone to bullying (an unintended consequence) in their experience. And schools are getting pulled in Ofsted inspections if they don't cover all aspects of this issue. And this is in primary school, not secondary.

But the cherry-picked comments by the kids being taught this say it is really interesting and helpful.

Note to any Education Minister, present or future: listen to the staff at the chalk face, take on board their comments, act on those comments and stop micromanaging as the teachers actually know far more about the job than you ever will.