Mick Hartley

Another depressing tale on the spread of trans dogma, from the Times:

A girl who argued that biological sex is real after a talk about transphobia felt forced to leave her school after pupils hounded her for challenging the views of a visiting speaker.

She was treated like a heretic for questioning a politician’s assertions about sex, a teacher at the school said. The female member of the House of Lords visited the private girls’ school, a Stonewall diversity champion, to talk about transphobia in parliament.

The girl told The Times: “The language she was using was implying critical theory took precedence over biological reality in defining women.” She added: “When I questioned that, she said it wasn’t an issue of semantics. She said trans people don’t have basic human rights in this country. Afterwards I spoke to her and said I’m sorry if I came across as rude.”

The pair parted amicably, the girl said. But on returning to the sixth form she was surrounded by up to 60 girls who shouted, screamed, swore and spat at her. She escaped and said she collapsed, unable to breathe properly.

Teachers were initially supportive but withdrew their backing after the other sixth formers accused the girl of transphobia. The teenager returned to school a few times but was told she would have to work in the library if she said anything provocative in lessons, and faced bullying and accusations of transphobia from pupils throughout the school. She also spent breaktimes and lunchtimes in the library. The girl left in December and is studying at home.

A teacher at the school said: “We know how these views are being silenced in the adult world through high-profile legal cases and the bullying and defamation of celebrities such as JK Rowling. This is also happening in schools.”

Writing for the website Transgender Trend, he said: “There was a time when the school invited in Christian and other religious speakers to address moral and ethical issues and to provide food for thought and contemplation. It was usually the practice to follow these up with Q&A sessions during which the students could share their own feelings and opinions on the issues, and even disagree if they wanted to.”

It was the similarity of transgender ideology to religious fundamentalism “alerted me to the danger of what has been going on in our schools over the last few years”, the teacher added.

He said a group of sixth-formers arrived in an “animated state” after the speaker’s visit, with a “significant group of girls verbally ‘laying into’ one particular 18-year-old who had had the audacity to question the position”.

The teacher added: “It was probably somewhat naive of her not to realise that this is indeed ‘an ideology’ and one with which you’re simply not allowed to disagree.” The 18-year-old girl ended up denounced by other pupils in the school. The teacher said: “It is quite chilling to witness first hand how this ideology operates and grows.”

Naive of her? She's a young girl at school, still finding her way, still learning. Shouldn't her teachers be, you know, doing their job and protecting her? Supporting her? Making a safe space for her and her questioning of a dogmatic ideology, instead of taking the easy cowards way out and supporting all the bullies? 

Here's the teacher's article at Transgender Trend:

It is quite chilling to witness first hand how this ideology (and by ideology I mean ‘collectivised false or inauthentic selfhood’) operates and grows. It should be obvious that the underlying message ‘Take the knee to us or else be crucified’ has nothing whatsoever to do with care and compassion. Narcissistic rage is the antithesis of righteous anger in that it is vengeful and vindictive, and (in its purest form) always seeks to annihilate and never forgives. What happened in the 6th form centre, known these days as a ‘woke pile on’ is an example of where narcissistic rage masquerades as righteous anger in the form of ‘gleeful outrage’. Here, otherwise perfectly nice and agreeable individuals collude and congregate to show that they are on the moral high ground and ‘on the right side of history’. Also any waverers will be getting the clearest message of what will happen to ‘them’ if they don’t conform….

When I enquired a couple of weeks back as to how our young student was doing these days (having not seen her around the place since the incident and also having a strong sense that I was committing some kind of crime by asking the question), I was asked firstly ‘why I wanted to know’. I was informed that she was; ‘no longer on the system’ – that ‘the matter had been dealt with’ and that ‘we’re not talking about it’. This to be fair may be simply because sensitive matters these days are always handled on a ‘need to know’ basis. As I wasn’t involved with her in any formal capacity I simply ‘didn’t need to know’. On the other hand, anyone with an insight into the way that ‘mystification’ operates in institutional bureaucracies with their ‘communicating through the proper channels’ and ‘not opening unnecessary cans of worms’ etc, will be able to intuit a whiff of pathology in such language and positioning. I wasn’t happy with ‘we’re not talking about it’ and have discussed it with several 6th and 5th form pupils (on an individual basis.) All admitted that they couldn’t really see what was wrong in what the girl had said on that day….

It was on contacting her recently through her mother that she said to me: “It’s so heart-rending to hear from someone who can be, as an outsider, aware of the injustice and plain absurdity of the situation. I spent so long convincing myself that I was in the wrong because I don’t even want to countenance the hatred people must feel towards me if that wasn’t the case – or how they can sit so smugly with themselves when my whole life was turned upside down.”

Her mother said: “We were always sad to think that after all these years in the school, she left and nobody even batted an eyelid. We’re still picking up the pieces.”