This entry is fairly short this week, because there is only so much you can say about an organisation that sends correspondence home to parents with children who will be commencing school in the following new school year, asking them to establish with their offspring which gender said offspring identify with.
No, I’m not joking. These kiddies are four years old. Certainly, most of us have a good idea by age four to know what gender we actually are but how many have really given much thought to which gender they most “identify with” at that age? Not too many is my guess. Would they even understand the question at that age? Possibly not, and I can’t help wondering how many decided they identified more with something other than “boy” or “girl”? Like a puppy, or a fave fictional character? I remember Daughter identifying as Rapunzel because she had long hair and then deciding down the track that she identified more with Peter Pan, hence a penchant for green clothing and sleeping on her stomach so as not to impede the growth of the wings she just knew were going to sprout on one of those nights.
Thing is, she eventually grew out of both identities as she settled into school and this is what I believe will happen with the four year olds being asked to identify with a specific gender. They will also grow out of it, but the unfortunate thing is they will be carrying a label from a discussion they were forced into when they were four and had no idea what they were really being asked.
Which will mean what? Well, for starters it may cause the powers that be to suspect someone of pressuring the child who later tries to explain that they actually do identify most with the gender they actually are and no, not the opposite one that they indicated back when they were four and unable to really comprehend what they were being asked at the time. Then fingers will point at the parents probably and once that happens, all kinds of smelly stuff gets flung around and it ends up being just one huge stuff-up that should never have happened in the first place.
And all because some dipstick decided that asking little four year olds whether they felt more like their own gender or the opposite one was a good idea.
Seriously??!!!