Britain allows boys to wear skirts as part of new gender-neutral school uniform

[Ventos Mustel]

In favour? No, less opposed? Yes. Bullying is a real concern that cannot be igbored no matter how much you want to deny it's existance.

Then let's debate this point, instead of your decoy of concern over bullying. Why not?

[RubiconDecision]

Now see, this wouldn't do. I don't want to be put in a box and forced to wear the same skirt as everyone else. I'm a Winter not an Autumn. If the color tones don't match my skin, then the skirt will just ruin my day, and I won't be able to focus on the lesson.

[Greyblades]

Then let's debate this point, instead of your decoy of concern over bullying. Why not?

How about no.

This "decoy" as you call it has the entirety of the pro-skirt people on this thread rendered utterly impotent, resorting to attacks on character over misinerpritation instead of reasoning.

With your opposition reduced to posturing only a fool opens up more avenues of attack when he has such a winner on the front line, if you cannot get around it, that is your problem, not mine.

[Gallus]

It's funny, no one is complaining about girls wearing trousers but when boys are allowed to wear skirts people lose their minds. If a dude wants a skirt let him have a skirt, I don't see what the fuss is about.

[♘Top Hat Zebra]

How about no.

This "decoy" as you call it has the entirety of the pro-skirt people on this thread rendered utterly impotent, resorting to attacks on character over misinerpritation instead of reasoning.

With your opposition reduced to posturing only a fool opens up more avenues of attack when he has such a winner on the front line, if you cannot get around it, that is your problem, not mine.

Once again, completely ignoring my questions.

How is allowing boys to wear skirts any different than allowing them to do any other "feminine" things, like reading romance novels, or painting pictures of pretty, pink flowers?

[Markas]

It's funny, no one is complaining about girls wearing trousers but when boys are allowed to wear skirts people lose their minds. If a dude wants a skirt let him have a skirt, I don't see what the fuss is about.

Indeed. Every school I've worked in has had girls wearing trousers as part of the uniform if they so choose but apparently wearing a skirt as a man in the British Isles is some attack on masculinity... somehow.

I see this as an attack on boys and masculinity. Over 30 years males have been put down, emasculated, demeaned and demonised by a feminised society in Education that simply hates anything male. It`s misandry.

I am disgusted by this and will fight it every which way I can.

This world is going to hell in a handbasket in so many ways. At this rate there will be no more `men` able to protect and maintain civilisation in the West.

Get out of here you cowardly Scots, and take your dress-wearing, impressive military tradition, bagpipe-using sissyness with you! I bet you couldn't even protect your womenfolk from the predations of those trouser-wearing Englishmen!

[RubiconDecision]

There's a great book called the Forever War. A guy ends up living an extensive lifetime as a soldier, and over many many years, things change that are cultural affectations, like guys being far more homosexual, or even wearing makeup, and this poor anachronist is trying to cope with that kind of change over vast amounts of time.

I find both sides ridiculous here, for young children are in flux and highly suseptible to suggestion. Thus a well meaning parent/educator could actually misread and support gender identity issues in bizarre ways and actually greatly influence a child to be something that is not actually what they want. Nor is it necessarily good for them. In fact Johns Hopkins stopped doing gender reassignment because there was nothing to prove that cosmetically altering an individual actually changed their mental state, and exacerbated their confusion.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mch...ion-1402615120

We at Johns Hopkins University—which in the 1960s was the first American medical center to venture into "sex-reassignment surgery"—launched a study in the 1970s comparing the outcomes of transgendered people who had the surgery with the outcomes of those who did not. Most of the surgically treated patients described themselves as "satisfied" by the results, but their subsequent psycho-social adjustments were no better than those who didn't have the surgery. And so at Hopkins we stopped doing sex-reassignment surgery, since producing a "satisfied" but still troubled patient seemed an inadequate reason for surgically amputating normal organs.

It now appears that our long-ago decision was a wise one. A 2011 study at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden produced the most illuminating results yet regarding the transgendered, evidence that should give advocates pause. The long-term study—up to 30 years—followed 324 people who had sex-reassignment surgery. The study revealed that beginning about 10 years after having the surgery, the transgendered began to experience increasing mental difficulties. Most shockingly, their suicide mortality rose almost 20-fold above the comparable nontransgender population. This disturbing result has as yet no explanation but probably reflects the growing sense of isolation reported by the aging transgendered after surgery. The high suicide rate certainly challenges the surgery prescription.

There are subgroups of the transgendered, and for none does "reassignment" seem apt. One group includes male prisoners like Pvt. Bradley Manning, the convicted national-security leaker who now wishes to be called Chelsea. Facing long sentences and the rigors of a men's prison, they have an obvious motive for wanting to change their sex and hence their prison. Given that they committed their crimes as males, they should be punished as such; after serving their time, they will be free to reconsider their gender.

Another subgroup consists of young men and women susceptible to suggestion from "everything is normal" sex education, amplified by Internet chat groups. These are the transgender subjects most like anorexia nervosa patients: They become persuaded that seeking a drastic physical change will banish their psycho-social problems. "Diversity" counselors in their schools, rather like cult leaders, may encourage these young people to distance themselves from their families and offer advice on rebutting arguments against having transgender surgery. Treatments here must begin with removing the young person from the suggestive environment and offering a counter-message in family therapy.

Then there is the subgroup of very young, often prepubescent children who notice distinct sex roles in the culture and, exploring how they fit in, begin imitating the opposite sex. Misguided doctors at medical centers including Boston's Children's Hospital have begun trying to treat this behavior by administering puberty-delaying hormones to render later sex-change surgeries less onerous—even though the drugs stunt the children's growth and risk causing sterility. Given that close to 80% of such children would abandon their confusion and grow naturally into adult life if untreated, these medical interventions come close to child abuse. A better way to help these children: with devoted parenting.

At the heart of the problem is confusion over the nature of the transgendered. "Sex change" is biologically impossible. People who undergo sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental disorder.

On the other hand, who gives a crap if an older post-puberty kid decides to wear a skirt. Who cares? Teens do outrageous things, and partially that's a symptom of the formation of the insulation around their nervous system. Did you know that? Risky behaviour has a biological basis as they are growing and make really crazy decisions, not only to test the boundaries of acceptance, but also because of brain formation.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publi...on/index.shtml

Find a middle ground, but please don't befuddle kids even more than the typical process.

Young girls will hold hands and kiss, not because of gender issues, nor sexuality, but because of innocence. To presume then that they're really boys mentally stuck in a girl's body is hogwash. Yes, some might become lesbian. Some might have gender confusion. Some might simply enjoy the physicial touch of their peers, in the same way that Sudanese Dinka boys will all hold hands as they walk about town. It has no bearing on homosexuality nor a desire to be a girl.

There is a very high chance, based upon that 30 year study, that educators, parents, and physicians meddling in the typical development of a child to reassign gender may harm them psychologically in the long run, for they have humongous adaptations to make, and then may never feel accepted. So they become very suicidal.

There is no fix for this.

[Mangalore]

I'd push for more acceptance for men wearing skirts because in hot summer days it's plainly comfortable to feel a cooling breeze.

I wouldn't really shove transgenderism or anything else into this issue. It's just that for some reason we decided certain types of clothing are for men and others are for women and given history that's essentially random aka based on time and culture. As such I find that issue really more about us questioning why the heck that clothing should be important.

It's a bit like blue for boys, pink for girls kind of thing. A few centuries ago blue was for girls because blue was the color for Virgin Mary, pink was for boys as it combined youthful innocence with the manly color red. At some point some marketing s in the past century flipped it and now you get color blind when waltzing through a girl's toy section!

[RubiconDecision]

Kinda part of my point, right? See the Hakama:

It's a skirt even worn today in Aikido over the other part of the uniform. Getting bent out of shape about such silly things is ridiculous. But, I stand by the fact that some misguided folks are egging on transgenderism to the point where it's not some rare occurance, but an embraced cuckoo idea.

Perhaps a handful of people genuinely do need some life altering surgery, but not all of these confused folks taking hormone replacement. And that begins with crazy things like dressing up boys as girls.

Teens will push the envelope for wide reasons. I've known lots of young teen boys who wore makeup, even at church camp, just because they wanted to. Ok, big deal. Others were girls who had beautiful flowing hair, cut it all off to spite their parents, then wrapped up their breasts as if they no longer were girls. Neither became homosexual, but were demonstrating that this was their body, and they'll be damned to allow what little freedom they had to be taken from them. It's not that rare.

Those kids didn't do gender reassignment. Some got married and today act no different than anyone else. They were saying, "Screw you if you don't like it. I'll do what I want."

[Mangalore]

Kinda part of my point, right? See the Hakama:
It's a skirt even worn today in Aikido over the other part of the uniform. Getting bent out of shape about such silly things is ridiculous. But, I stand by the fact that some misguided folks are egging on transgenderism to the point where it's not some rare occurance, but an embraced cuckoo idea.

Perhaps a handful of people genuinely do need some life altering surgery, but not all of these confused folks taking hormone replacement. And that begins with crazy things like dressing up boys as girls.

...

Not sure why this is supposedly an issue here and I would question that it is a modern thing. Showing that Japanese picture, Japan had a very established tradition of effeminate male concubines/prostitutes and other cultures similarily usually at least for men accepted this at least as fringe behavior. It's essentially the same thing as today minus the attempt of understanding the science and the fact modern medicine can go much further in body modification... although we liked to castrate boys just so they could sing in choirs just a century ago so there's that.

[RubiconDecision]

...and Johns Hopkins, the preminent medical research and provider in America says that our goofy ideas on gender identity are FLAWED. Just because some goofy people in history did things doesn't mean that they were correct to do so! Sheesh.

The skirt is just a cultural affectation. Someday it will be something else that will identify masculinity and feminity. We have lots of clothing that does that, enhances the masculine or the feminine but it's really impressed upon ideas by fashion with no basis in Reason.

The samurai all wore hakama and were idealized as very masculine. Some participated in homosexual behaviour just as is prevalent through the history of Humanity. They are not mutually exclusive ideas. That can be being efeminate, but not necessarily.

Yet anyone looking today at a hakama wearing Japanese "sees" an efeminiate person. It's perception, not Reason.

It's why I don't care about that issue. But having worked in youth ministry, I know all too well that a person needs a license to drive a car, but not to be a parent. Parents do stupid things to experiment on their children. Educators are worse.

[Greyblades]

How is allowing boys to wear skirts any different than allowing them to do any other "feminine" things, like reading romance novels, or painting pictures of pretty, pink flowers?

It's not, letting them wear skirts in the social tiger-pit we call school, in the most delicate time of thier personal development, on the other hand is asking for trauma that a school is incapable of preventing outside of a banning skirts.

This is the third time I have explained this: it is not the issue of the clothes so much as it is the location and age bracket in which this is being allowed.

[Comrade_Rory]

It's not, letting them wear skirts in the social tiger-pit we call school, in the most delicate time of thier personal development, on the other hand is asking for trauma that a school is incapable of preventing outside of a banning skirts.

This is the third time I have explained this: it is not the issue of the clothes so much as it is the location and age bracket in which this is being allowed.

Your argument that you don't want young boys to wear skirts IF THEY WANT TO because they may get bullied, which may cause them emotional damage comes off as completely false and merely an excuse to back up your intolerance of any one "different" when it could be just as damaging, if not more damaging, if a child is essentially told "Don't do what makes you happy or comfortable because people who mean nothing to you in the long run might not like it".

[Cyclops]

It's funny, no one is complaining about girls wearing trousers ....

Oh but they did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_trousers

As with women wearing trousers there will be vapours and tears from the usual moral panickers about this issue, then when the world doesn't end they'll fixate their anxiety on some other irrational fear. "THEY'RE MAKING DONUTS WITHOUT HOLES IN THEM THINK OF THE CHILDREN!"

[RubiconDecision]

He's right. They sure did. Heck, even today there are some churches that insist upon parents ensuring that their girls not wear trousers. It's dumb, really dumb. What can you do?

The natural state for kids is to believe in God, for they see the wonder in Nature, and then they become dissuaded from God because they see the stupid narrowmindednes of the parents and others. It's so frustrating in youth ministry. I wonder how much hair I've yanked out of my head.

[Greyblades]

Your argument that you don't want young boys to wear skirts IF THEY WANT TO because they may get bullied, which may cause them emotional damage comes off as completely false and merely an excuse to back up your intolerance of any one "different" when it could be just as damaging, if not more damaging, if a child is essentially told "Don't do what makes you happy or comfortable because people who mean nothing to you in the long run might not like it".

You seem in absolute denial over the nature of teenagers or the effects of bullying. There is no maybe about it; bullying will happen over this and, like all the bullying of the last 150 years over such divergeant behavior, there will be consequences that will damage those children's psyches for a significant portion of thier lives and in the worst cases end their lives right there.

Thier fleeting comfort in the 7 hours of the school day not worth that pain. Plug your ears, sing "If they want to, if they want to" if you want to, but a school compromising the welfare of students for the sake of whim is a dangerous distortion of priority.

[TheRomanRuler]

Well, Scottish kilts and tartans could by modern standards be called skirts or dresses. So i don`t mind, but i certainly am not interested in wearing skirt or dress. Trench coat on other hand, certainly would wear it.

[Markas]

You seem in absolute denial over the nature of teenagers or the effects of bullying. There is no maybe about it; bullying will happen over this and, like all the bullying of the last 150 years over such divergeant behavior, there will be consequences that will damage those children's psyches for a significant portion of thier lives and in the worst cases end their lives right there.

So just deny them the right entirely. What a nasty piece of sophistry. Perhaps we should keep sexuality secret from them as well, god knows they might demonstrate *shock* divergent behavior.

Thier fleeting comfort in the 7 hours of the school day not worth that pain. Plug your ears, sing "If they want to, if they want to" if you want to, but a school compromising the welfare of students for the sake of whim is a dangerous distortion of priority.

And who are you to judge that? Are you entering some diving state of empathy that you know how every pupil in every school will react? You say bullying will happen. It will, as it always does when the norm changes. That is not, and never has been, a reason to restrict a child's freedom to wear what they are most comfortable with. As someone that works with children, I know they are not the same as I was as a teenager twenty years ago. We discuss sexuality (and, indeed, many have come out as gay or lesbian), and the resounding lack of hostility given by their peers is astounding even to me. Intolerance is learned, and thankfully most of them have not been taught it. Banning what a child wears because of mutable modern conceptions of what genders should wear what does not address the very real and harmful effects of repression on the child's psyche. That will be just, if not more, damaging than the bullying that you seem to think every child in every school will face. The difference will be it'll be others guilty because of their attitude, the same with any bullying case, not the one exercising their right given by the school.

May as well ban kids not having the latest trainers, being quiet or too studious. Bullying will always happen in any case.

[Napoleonic Bonapartism]

People with glasses are called "four-eyes", therefore we should ban glasses? Ah, but glasses are essential, but skirts aren't. But what about the type of glasses, what if they were pink? That would lead to bullying. And the pink is non-essential. Therefore pink glasses should be banned for boys. For the greater good (the greater good!). Talk about a slippery slope. At what point is the line drawn as to what the school may not regulate for the greater good (the greater good!) of the pupils?

[Greyblades]

Not all divergeances from the norm results in the same kind of bullying, letting boys wear skirts will attract the kind that puts kids in therapy or worse.

Crossdressing isnt a sacred right, dress codes denying male dresses are widespread in British society and adhierance to them is usually non negociable and refusal is often grounds for removal, the fragility of adolescants make it all the more important to preserve that policy in schools until the rest of society aligns.