Calls For The Sacking Of Richard Littlejohn.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/mar/22/richard-littlejohn-transgender

Regardless of what some may think of the Daily Mail or their columnist Richard Littlejohn, should he be forced to resign over this matter?

[jake-the-peg]

Would you have been uncomfortable with them teaching children?

Do you think children would have noticed that they'd once been a man?

[LazyGun]

@ Sqad

I was joking, Sqad :)

""As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

[LazyGun]

who are you directing your questions at, Jake?

[237SJ]

Kid`s aren`t stupid. There`s only got to be a whiff of rumour about someone and it will go around like wildfire. Kids can be quite cruel.

[237SJ]

That was to jake-the-peg, sorry

[jake-the-peg]

Depends what sort of experience you think is relevant

I think I knew this person well enough to have been comfortable with them teaching my kids.

This Littlejohn piece seems to play on popular prejudices of transsexuals as some sort of wierd devients that it's in the public interest for us to keep children away from

Like some sort of refugee from Rocky Horror

My experience doesn't match that - I'd like to know if yours does

[anotheoldgit]

LazyGun

/// Even Sqad thinks your post an example of Godwins Law AoG :) ///

And that is supposed to make me frightened? Oh come off it LazyGun you are becoming to sound rather juvenile now.

[LazyGun]

No not frightened AoG. It was a joke.

I flatter myself I look young for my age - thanks for noticing. And maybe my arguments could be considered juvenile, but yours would fit quite happily into the infantile category, if that is the case...

[emmie]

no

[jake-the-peg]

Anyone who's known a transsexual

- yes kids can be cruel - that's why it needed to be kept quiet

- Not as cruel as Mail Journalists though

- Actually as I sit here and think more about this and this person I knew - the more angry I get with Littlejohn's piece

[237SJ]

jake-the-peg, my closest experience (apart from meeting customers over the years) is a girl at work. She`s a six foot, blond stunning girl who gets a lot of attention from men. She`s quite happy to talk all about her transgender and it`s quite fascinating. Years ago (before my time) there was a man at work who had the op and became a woman. He wasn`t allowed to come back as a girl in the same job and was sidelined to elsewhere in the company. Times have changed, it seems.

[anotheoldgit]

jake-the-peg

/// Do you think children would have noticed that they'd once been a man? ///

Yes if before end of term 'Sir' suddenly became 'Miss' at the beginning of the next term.

[emmie]

a chap i worked with decided it was time for a change, and came back to work after a while and some work as a Ms. The change for him wasn't good, he still looked like a chap, and unfortunately the men in the company found it quite a difficult thing to deal with, the women slightly less so. I liked him, but it doesn't always work out, we don't all fit into the same mould, nor i suspect would the children at the school have understood really, and as we know can be quite cruel. I doubt if Littlejohn had anything to do with this, and one can only wait to see if there was a suicide note to explain the reasons. It's a pretty sad case which ever way you look at it.

[anotheoldgit]

/// The school shouldn’t be allowed to elevate its ‘commitment to diversity and equality’ above its duty of care to its pupils and their parents. ///

This statement from the Little John article outlines the dangers of the PC way of educating these days, and the reason for my Hitler and brainwashing comment.

The commitment of schools to get over their 'modern thinking' indoctrination of our young is something that we should all be wary of.

Take the modern liberated views on sex education, much good that has done, since we have the highest number of under aged pregnancies in Europe.

[anotheoldgit]

LazyGun

/// And maybe my arguments could be considered juvenile, but yours would fit quite happily into the infantile category, if that is the case...///

Oh dear, oh dear, back to your juvenile playground ways again, what's next will you be fetching your dad, to sort me out?

[Ann]

In 80s I worked as a receptionist. We were called to a staff meeting one day to be told there was a visitor coming in to go on a course and that the man was "living for a year as a woman" before surgery, as I believe that was the usual thing to do. We were told to act normally and to treat "her" with respect, which I would have done anyway as with all visitors. Unfortunately when she arrived I felt nothing but sadness for this person resembling Dick Emery arrive, she was teetering on high heels she couldn't walk in, had bright red smudged lipstick, stubble, deep voice and a headscarf. I would have loved to have given her some fashion/beauty tips to avoid ridicule, which I am sure she must have encountered in her daily life. Many of the office staff laughed but I kept my composure, in fact I felt very very sorry for her as all she cut was a tragic figure. It was the first time any of us had seen a trans-gender person so everyone was bound to be curious. I have never forgotten this experience.

[LazyGun]

@AoG It was you that first brought the playground references into the argument AoG.Probably for much the same reason you always try and play the victim card and whine that everyone is ganging up on you.

"This statement from the Little John article outlines the dangers of the PC way of educating these days, and the reason for my Hitler and brainwashing comment. "
No it doesn't, and you have still to explain the harms to the children that "this PC teaching is subjecting them too"

Invoking the spectre of Hitler in a thread about the suicide of a transgender teacher is just risible.

Why are you linking sex education to the rates of teenage pregnancy? Where does it state that the purpose of sex education is to stop sex?

[anotheoldgit]

LazyGun

/// Why are you linking sex education to the rates of teenage pregnancy? Where does it state that the purpose of sex education is to stop sex? ///

No one said it did, that is simply ridicules to try and make out it does.

We had no such explicit sex education in my day, We treated girls with respect and the girls respected their bodies.

In fact those sort of ideas didn't enter our heads at the early age they do today, we had little contact with the opposite sex, since we were segregated at school, and when one did start showing an interest, it was limited to holding hands, and one was lucky if one got that far early in the partnership.

I think that way was more preferable to the gross amount of under aged sex and teenage pregnancies that we see today.

[emmie]

not sure i totally agree with you on this one, lots of underage pregnancies, but the big difference is the method of termination. Now at least one doesn't have to go to a back street abortionist.

[sandyRoe]

Was there really less sex outside marriage then compared to now? There used to be Dr Bernardos Homes the length and breadth of the land filled with illigitimate children who had been abandoned by their families.