Act I - Scene I - Stonewall suggest two year olds can be trans - hilarity ensuesโฆ
The gender wars really do happen all at once sometimes. Remember this?
I wrote about it here, calling for homosexuals to distance ourselves from the mad king Stonewall has now become.
As you can see this tweet can be deconstructed into the following propositions:
(1) There is some research underpinning the main clause of the first sentence (which Stonewall refuses to cite or name)
(2) Said research apparently seriously says toddlers who are unlikely to be potty trained are nonetheless trans
(3) Nurseries are essentially failing such children by not recognising that some two-year-olds are trans
(4) That failure consists of the nurseries teaching that sex is as per birth.
(5) Some drivel about inclusion and affirming and a sad-looking conscripted rainbow
Act II- Scene I - Stonewall desperately try to lie about the tweet in question - hilarity ensues
Stonewall have now โclarifiedโ with a statement so comically dishonest it makes Prince Andrewโs โIโm unable to sweatโ excuse look a genius work of plausibility.
Letโs look at it:
Letโs examine how many falsehoods are present:
Paragraph 1
(1) โOn Friday we put out a tweet that was unclearโ (Falsehood #1) - it was perfectly clear and can be parsed as an extreme and eccentric statement that two-year-olds can have trans identities as set out above
(2) โRelating to gender stereotypes and nursery age childrenโ (Falsehood #2) - The tweet nowhere mentions gender stereotypes relating to nursery age children, it is about โresearchโ that toddlers can be trans
(3) โLeading some supporters to ask us what we meantโ (Falsehood #3) - Nowhere on social media can I see a supporter saying โIโm confused as to what this tweet means because I find it unclearโ. What I can see is the vast majority of the general public asking if Stonewall are mad and a number of gender borg desperately trying to defend the indefensible.
Paragraph 2
(4) โWe were commenting on an article written by a parent reflecting on how their child was being cared for at a nurseryโ (Falsehood #4) - It was not the question of โcareโ that was in issue, it was the curriculum and specifically whether a nursery was correctly teaching and recognising that toddlers can (apparently) be trans.
(5) โThe parent was worried that their child was being pressured in to fit with stereotypes about boys and girlsโ (Borderline falsehood) - The idea that any teacher is in fact pressuring this child cannot easily be reconciled with the following from the original article (emphasis added): โWhile my daughterโs identity is still in its early formative stages, itโs hard to know if I should act against the school or teachers, because I canโt fully know what happened in the first place.โ In fairness you could say the parent is nonetheless worried, but for a national charity to suggest this is a sound basis for a tweet saying something quite different about the teaching of two-year-olds is quite something.
(6) โWhile we donโt actively work on nursery educationโ (Borderline falsehood where the qualifier โactivelyโ is doing a lot of work) - The original tweet shows that Stonewall campaign on what should and should not be in the nursery curriculum suggesting that they possess research which would support their goal of two year olds being told they have the wrong body.
(7) โwe believe that young children should be able to play, explore and learn about who they are, and the world around them, without having adultsโ ideas imposed upon themโ (Absolute howling utter falsehood #5) - There is no better example of children having adultโs ideas imposed upon them than telling two year old they have the wrong bodies. This is an outrageous and audacious piece of double speak and flat out deception which cannot be reconciled with the first tweet.
Paragraph 3
(8) โWe support existing provisions to ensure primary and secondary school pupils learn about LGBTQ+ identities in an age-appropriate and timely manner. Schools in England, Scotland and Wales are all required to provide LGBTQ+ inclusive approach to relationships and sex education. This is vital for making sure that todayโs children do not grow up living with the stigma of being LGBTQ+โ (Borderline falsehood by irrelevance - telling two year old they have the wrong bodies is not age appropriate and in any event this statement now glides onto primary and secondary school provision - this is a distraction technique because the original tweet was about nurseries).
Paragraph 4
(9) โFor primary school aged children, this might mean, for example, learning that some children have two mummies, some have two daddies. It might mean not forcing children to conform to stereotypes, and it might mean challenging bullying that relates to perceived difference.โ (More bait and switch dishonesty here with a continued qualification regarding primary schools, complete falsehood (so #6) regarding gender ideology here which is built on gender stereotypes as it regards playing with toys typical of the opposite sex as a diagnostic criteria for life long medicalisation.)
So, that makes 6 outright falsehoods, three borderline ones, two irrelevant paragraphs which are a dishonest example of bait and switch. At no point does this clarification (i) identify the research the tweet spoke about (2) make the case that toddlers should be told they have the wrong body or (3) speak about why reflecting that in the curriculum is appropriate.
If yesterday was the day Stonewall should have sacked their social media borg, today is the day to do the same for the crisis management team.
Bravo Dennis. Such utter harmful tripe is not hard to deconstruct but you have done it with aplomb and elegance. I have been gender non-conforming my whole life - it has been central to my feminism as I loathed being defined by awful stereotypes which stopped me doing some things I wanted to while forcing me to conform to others. To see girls like I was now told they are actually boys and send them on the route to medicalisation is rage inducing. To see it also used to stigmatise gay men and lesbains as bigoted gential fetishists is sickening. So much harm coming from an organisation I used to respect and support. I honestly think that if Stonewall hadn't have added those extra letters then this ideology would have remained on the fringe. They gave it credibility where it deserved censure. Gotta keep those $$$/ยฃยฃยฃ/โฌโฌโฌ etc. coming in though.
I love to see idiocy dissected thoroughly and efficiently with a scalpel of reason. And this is a great example.
Thank you Dennis K!