The terrible coyness of trans ideology

In which I discuss how gender ideology wants us to believe our bodies are dirty again and NZ's Ministry of Education passes that forward.

Creating a language

I have a belief in the power of naming things accurately. Holding things to the light, or under the microscope, or in those important conversations that go deep into the night. I always want to ask, what is this? Or what exactly is going on here? What is it being called? Who is calling it that? What is it really? Because naming is the first step to understanding.

Feminist women have always known that. They fought for a language about their bodies and physical experiences that was not rooted in shame or disgust or polite avoidance. They fought for, wrote and published books and information that helped develop a language for kids, young women and older women to make sense of their femaleness, and for everyone to have access to frank and full facts. Information that explicitly named the parts of female and male anatomy, what was where, what it was for. Books that talked openly and pragmatically about menarche, menstruation and menopause. That told you the facts of orgasm, conception, contraception; birth and sex and the relationships between them. Because they knew that information was power. And that with information, women have better, more enjoyable sex, more rape gets reported, there are fewer unwanted pregnancies, and women are able to make considered choices about their health and their lives. In 1970, the Boston Women’s Health Collective published the landmark book that would become Our Bodies, Ourselves, the authors knew unequivocally, that to be woman was simply to live in a woman's body.

Destroying the language

But now the hard-won language of our bodies and our sex is being muddied once more. The facts of life, our physical reality, make gender ideologists froth with moral outrage. The truth of our bodies, their functions and our desires deemed once more offensive. We can’t say anymore, the rather simple truth of the matter, that there is a male and a female sex, that there are very few exceptions, and these exceptions prove rather than disprove the rule.

Some people, of course, experience a deep and distressing disconnect between the body they want and the body they have. Some of these people don't want to throw a bright light on the things they would rather be ambiguous. And gender ideologists, on these grounds, would have us all live with murky ambiguity. Frank talk has become, to their ears, hate speech.

Andrew Sullivan’s recent article looks at all this, and how bodies are the new bad. He looks at how trans ideology, shaping a new brand of sex education, has magicked away physical aspects of our sex altogether. Rather than maintaining a distinction between bodies (sex) and feelings (gender), the terms boy and girl are rendered as entirely to do with feelings. In doing so, our bodies become irrelevant. And Sullivan argues the exultant physicality of same-sex attraction (and I'd argue equally other-sex attraction) is diminished.

Sullivan looks at picture books that are designed to teach kids the new paradigm. What appears to be a boy teddy bear announces he has always actually been a girl teddy and wants his bow tie to be replaced by a bow. (Hey Ted, just wear the bow kid, you’re good, you’ll rock it).

The sad state of what NZ teachers are being told to teach

Here in New Zealand, the ambiguity is official and government endorsed. The Ministry of Education’s (MoE) guidance to teaching relationships and sexuality to years 1-8 (5-12 year olds) is a nervous wreck of a thing. It’s unable to say anything coherent about sex or gender and instructs teachers to carry this forward and bewilder children.

One would hope it would guide teachers to present to kids the glorious, interesting facts of life in a straightforward, unfussy manner so that our children are equipped with useful knowledge about their bodies and how humans reproduce. That good teaching would help them understand that there is nothing shameful about their bodies, that no one should be interfering with them, and that when they’re adults they might enjoy sex.

Not so. For the life of it, the guidance can not bring itself to admit to the established fact that there are two sexes. That evolution and human existence are in fact because of two sexes and the sexual parts that each have. It does not say anywhere that teachers should tell children that girls have vulvas and vaginas and boys have penises. That come puberty girls will grow breasts and menstruate and boys’ voices will break and their balls will grow. That most women are able to get pregnant should they choose to, and no man ever can.

And while it trumpets round the word gender, it does not say anywhere that, for all the difference, there are a million different ways girls and boys can be, and all are fine and all correct. Nowhere does it say boys can wear dresses and bows, love ballet and be 100% bonafide boys. That authentic girls can love bowties and blowing things up. That our preferences aren't our sex.

Instead we have nonsensical messages that conflate gender, sex and sexuality, suggest that sex is not a real thing but a construct, suggest there are multiple sexes and ignores the reality of females and males. Some choice examples:

Schools need to include content on the diversity of sex characteristics, sexuality, and gender identities

…ākonga will critically examine the social, economic, political, and cultural influences that shape the ways in which people learn about relationships and express their gender and sexuality.

In science, ākonga can consider how biological sex has been constructed and measured over time and what this means in relation to people who have variations in sex characteristics.

Why I say coy; Why I say terrible

I say coy because gender ideology, illustrated by MoE, does not condone plain language about what is and is not. It seeks, instead, to obscure the base reality of our existence, our bodies, our genitalia, our breasts, the sexual engines that drive our species. Our physical bodies have become distasteful again. Agents of sin, this time, for carrying with them, the stark reality of biology. Bodies are off limits, not suitable for polite company or young ears.

I say terrible because coyness heralds shame. There are shops, after all, busy selling undies for young boys to tuck away and hide their penis, and binders for teen girls to pretend they aren’t growing breasts (both come with health risks).

I say terrible because for some kids, the only chance to get clear sensible information, might be at school. But if teachers follow the curriculum of constructs and theories, those kids will be trained to ignore or suppress their own observations about the world. Observations, because kids can easily understand that almost everyone they meet is one sex or the other, are gaslighted and shamed.

And I say terrible because a few of these kids might be in unsafe situations to do with their bodies. There may be no one talking to them about any of it, and now, no one will give them the simple hard words they need to explain it.

Gender ideology throws shadows just where kids deserve the plainest light. And in the darkness fear and uncertainty thrive.

---