Friday, December 14, 2018

well, to an extent she's not wrong, but she's kind of setting up a strawman.

there's a lot of people that are questioning the science underlying the curriculum and/or rejecting the idea that science is important when discussing sex ed. the reality is that they're horribly ignorant and badly need to be educated on the topic, but the fact that they're able to sit there and spew their hate and ignorance with impunity is demonstrative of a failure in public education in the first place. so, we kind of have a catch-22, here.

it would probably be a good idea to have an independent body of scientific experts review the material and explain what is right and wrong about it. i understand that this has largely already been done, but it seems we need a kind of scopes trial around this, as the government seems to think that science is subject to political oversight (beyond the process of peer review). if the accusation is political bias, an independent scientific review should put that idea to rest - and if the government refuses to conduct one, or refuses to accept the results of one, reasonable observers should realize where the bias lies.

gender non-conformity is a part of natural variation for the simple reason that gender doesn't exist in the first place; it's not gender non-conformity that we teach, but gender itself that is taught. there's a spectrum, not a binary. and, it's a social construction. that's basic biology. but, these are the same types of people that reject evolution as a "liberal ideology", so there's always going to be a minimal success in getting through to them.

there's two categories here - people that refuse to listen to evidence, and people that haven't been convinced yet. we'll never get through to people that don't want to listen, but we need to recognize that we're failing to make the case for people that we haven't convinced, yet.

let them do an independent scientific review, and accept or deny the findings of it.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/trans-support-leader-ontario-debate-gender-identity-1.4910813