Children as young as 13 have been asked to pick their gender from a list of 25 options.
The 13 to 18-year-olds were given choices including “tri-gender†and “gender fluid†as well as the traditional “girl†and “boyâ€.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3420203/Are-gender-fluid-demi-girl-intersex.html (also reported elsewhere)
The choices
1. Girl
2. Boy
3. Tomboy
4. Female
5. Male
6. Young woman
7. Young man
8. Trans-girl – Someone who has or is currently transitioning from male to female.
9. Trans-boy – Someone who has or is currently transitioning from female to male.
10. Gender fluid – Those who have different gender identities at different times.
11. Agender – Those with no gender identity or a neutral identity.
12. Androgynous – Partly male and female. Not one specific sex.
13. Bi-gender – Those who experience two gender identities, either at the same time or swapping between the two. These can be male and female or other identities.
14. Non-binary – A blanket term to describe those who do not feel exclusively male or female.
15. Demi-boy – Someone whose identity is only partly male, regardless of their birth gender. They may or may not also identify as another gender.
16. Demi-girl – Someone whose identity is only partly female, regardless of their birth gender. They may or may not also identify as another gender.
17. Genderqueer – Those who don’t go along with traditional gender distinctions.
18. Gender nonconforming – Those who do not follow conventional ideas about how they should look or act based on their birth gender.
19. Tri-gender – Shifts between three genders, which could include male, female and genderless or another combination.
20. All genders – Someone who identifies as every possible gender option.
21. In the middle of boy and girl – An individual who identifies somewhere in between male and female.
22. Intersex – Someone with physical, genetic and hormonal features of a male and female.
23. Not sure
24. Rather not say
25. Others (please state)
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I like to think I'm in touch with my female side.
Except when we have had a row, and then thats the last thing on her mind.
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At company meetings, one of our reps used to come out with some of his 'granny's old sayings' - all of which had a grain of wisdom attached. One of the sayings, I recall, was "with choice, comes indecision".
I fear that we could end up with a generation of paranoid teenagers.
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>> I fear that we could end up with a generation of paranoid teenagers.
hasn't that always been the case?
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"hasn't that always been the case?"
Yes, of course - but this just gives them something else to be paranoid about.
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Why? What's new about any of it? I remember there being gender/sexuality confused people around my peer group in my teens. I'm sure some were paranoid, being devoid of any real information or reassurance that their particular leaning was perfectly normal and shouldn't disadvantage them.
All that's new these days is that we're all supposed to get Mailrage that obvious facets of the human condition are discussed more openly than they were in the 1950s.
Yawn.
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>> Yes, of course - but this just gives them something else to be paranoid about.
I doubt, for the vast majority, that the questionnaire will be first time the thought has crossed their minds.
EDIT: What alanovich said.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 4 Feb 16 at 13:50
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"I doubt, for the vast majority, that the questionnaire will be first time the thought has crossed their minds. "
I didn't know until I saw this, that there was 25 possibilities - and certainly not when I was 13.
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>> I didn't know until I saw this, that there was 25 possibilities - and certainly
>> not when I was 13.
Mercifully the world is less buttoned up then when you (or I) were 13.
Alanovich says he was aware of people in his teen cohort who struggled with gender issues. I'm at least ten years older and also remember one or two.
The 25 varieties in the questionnaire (nb it's not the final version) are meant capture variations, gradations and perceptions beyond the male/female/variations on trans used conventionally.
It was produced by adults working with teenagers and I suspect reflects lots of youth input.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 4 Feb 16 at 14:05
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>> "hasn't that always been the case?"
>>
>> Yes, of course - but this just gives them something else to be paranoid about.
If there wasn't anything, they would create it.
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To quote my late brother ... some people don't know if they are Arthur, Martha, or the man in the moon.
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>> To quote my late brother ... some people don't know if they are Arthur, Martha,
>> or the man in the moon.
>>
What about the woman in the moon?
SEXIST!
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Must be a Man - too much dust for there to be a Woman on the Moon!
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Would the little girl have sent her a hoover instead of a telescope?
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From "An Officer and a Gentleman". Tough Black Marine drill sgt. to a recruit - "You're from (name of state) - only steers & queers come from (name of state)."
Un-PC :-)
Last edited by: Roger. on Fri 5 Feb 16 at 10:21
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Okhlahoma? Then, later in the film, there's a new bunch of recruits who get the same speech - only it's a different state (Arizona?) and it's "strays and gays".
You're probably right though, we should be more un-PC and take our attitudes to gender and sexuality from US Marines Drill Sergeants.
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My gender...
1. bloke,
2, single, fancies women,
3, doesn't want to get married again,
4, always poor because of 2 and 3 above!
When I went to school, it was torture of anyone outside of the "norm".
It was an RC school and I remember one metal work teacher in particular who was evil beyond contempt.
He picked on clearly confused lads with a vengeance and refused to teach them, sending them to sit at the back of the class.
He would also hit kids with metal bars and throw lumps of metal at them for the slightest of reasons.
I think it is a good thing to talk about sexuality in the open in the hope that it saves some from bullying and helps others understand at an early enough time to stop them worrying unnecessarily.
Last edited by: zippy on Fri 5 Feb 16 at 13:21
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>> I think it is a good thing to talk about sexuality in the open in
>> the hope that it saves some from bullying and helps others understand at an early
>> enough time to stop them worrying unnecessarily.
Which is exactly what was intended with the stuff the Mail was getting all faux outraged about. The child commissioner should have had the wotnots to tell them to eff off.
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One of my oldest friends is gay. We've known each other from schooldays and although he didn't "come out" until about 10 years ago, those of us who have known him since his teenage years were in little doubt as to his sexual orientation but chose not to challenge him on it as he clearly wasn't ready ( or so we thought ) to discuss it.
When he did pluck up the courage to tell "the old crowd" no one expressed surprise and in many cases assured him that this wasn't particularly news to us.
What we had failed to recognise was that he'd wanted to say something for years but was afraid of losing old friends and we in turn didn't want to say anything in case we upset him.
The daft thing is, he is, and always was, just one of our crowd and who would still have been anyway had he or anyone else broached the subject and brought it out into the open years ago.
As for what "gender" he or any of us are, I'm not sure I'm able to think much beyond the standard physical clues to that question. My mate as far as I'm concerned is a bloke, just happens to be a gay bloke is all. Sometimes I fear we're encouraged to over-think things.
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I went to boarding school for the final 3/4 years of my education and never noted any gender disfunctions.
We did have a wimpish lad whose surname was Withers, so he was always known as "Googie".
Cruel boys (not I) often used to lead him round the dorm by his penis - I often wonder if I should have stood up for him, but mob behaviour makes it hard to go against the flow.
Morally weak, I know.
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The Jesuits who ran my last school were very down on homosexuality, which they feared would break out on a large scale if they didn't sit on the lid as it were. My roommate* and I used to wind them up by talking in high-pitched voices, and the disciplinarian who wielded the ferula - a very painful instrument - once burst into our room hoping to catch us at it.
Needless to say we weren't at it, or that way inclined at all. There was a younger boy at the school who was queer, and was given the nickname 'Monty' after Lord Montagu, then in the news for jumping on boy scouts. I don't think he was persecuted much, but he was unhappy there and I think his parents took him away in the end. Or perhaps he was expelled, can't really remember.
*The one-time roommate is a friend to this day, although alas now quite ill.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 5 Feb 16 at 16:25
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Too many choices, I'm confused now. There doesn't seem to be a Don't Know option.
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>> Too many choices, I'm confused now. There doesn't seem to be a Don't Know option.
23. Not sure.
Will that suffice?
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>> 23. Not sure.
>>
>> Will that suffice?
>>
No, that suggests undecided but pondering various options. A genuine Don't Know is verging on the Don't Care spectrum.
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"A genuine Don't Know is verging on the Don't Care spectrum."
That's 26
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On behalf of cats everywhere where does "neutered" fit in?
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"On behalf of cats everywhere where does "neutered" fit in?"
That's 27 ......
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I guess eunuchs can be included with the cats.
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I dont see an entry for Hermaphrodite
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Later in life I had a passing acquaintance with a coterie of rich and aristo gays who weren't at all nice. Snooty b****rs more or less covers it.
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Not sure what the has to do with their sexuality AC... quite a few rich people get there by not being very nice.
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Some of them start rich smokie. Of course there are many born-rich people who are charming, generous and kind.
I'm not a rabid male chauvinist but I have noticed sometimes a sort of gay exclusivity, a sort of in-snobbery. Defensive but quite aggressive too.
Interesting thread in an annoying sort of way, this one.
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Those of us educated by teachers who themselves predated 1955 - well, me, anyway - are surely resolute in their conviction that "gender" is a grammatical term.
Given it only started being used to mean "sex" and its derivatives in the mid eighties, that it took off a bit in certain circles entirely irrelevant to me in the nineties, and that I'm always a decade behind the curve on these things anyway, I wouldn't even have twigged what they meant at all until the mid 2000s, and that is far too recent for me to incorporate it into my thinking.
So "gender" is grammar to me, and I'm not opening my eyes until the 21st century is a lot older, or perhaps I am.
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>> So "gender" is grammar to me,
and to all of us who ourselves predate 1955... the relationship between gender and sex is interesting, because there are only two sexes but three grammatical genders, the third being neuter of course.
I throw that in out of pure faffing interest.
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What gender are you? - Zero
