Author Topic: Sweden has gender neutral schools.  (Read 23951 times)

oh sorry i misunderstood your post

i don't think equivocating the swedish "hen" and the english singular "they" is necessarily safe, i'm not swedish and i don't know a whole lot about the swedish language or culture but i feel like a lot of this stuff has been evaluating this school based entirely on american english-speaking perspectives (i.e. english-speaking in america). so for clarity i guess i'll say that i don't think this kind of thing would be a good idea in america right now, but i can't confidently say that for sweden, because i know at least that "hen" has been a concept that people over there have had a fair amount of time to get used to (iirc at least). that being said, singular "they" is something that's actually really common in casual english, but people still don't like it

the idea of removing gender pressures from toys and symbols is good though, and i think the kids and everyone who hasn't got a stick from the 1940s up their ass would probably be fine with it. i'm pretty sure my preschool was the same way. all the kids still know what their love is and they aren't going to suddenly lose or question their gender identity because their language doesn't force them to recognize it. the reason i can say this confidently is because there are plenty of people who speak languages with no grammatical gender and they still know what their identity is, and sometimes they even do a damn good job enforcing some harsh gender roles to boot. i wouldn't sweat this whole deal too much. worst-case scenario, you get some kids that weirdly call people by a less commonly used neutral pronoun, and if it doesn't stick once they get out, then they'll unlearn it after preschool.
« Last Edit: August 02, 2017, 05:56:37 AM by otto-san »

from a swedish friend:
han = he
honom = him
hon = she
henne = her
hen = they/xe
hen = them/xir

the people who speak against this seem to think that sweden is now only people going by these """new""" pronouns, when in reality most of the swedish people i know still go by the standard he/she

none of you understand

by calling the children hen they're trying to indoctrinate them as swedish hens
soon everyone will identify as a female egg laying chhcicken

Kids are too young and impressionable to fully wrap their minds around the whole transgender trend. Honestly, they should be making the decision when they become more knowledgeable and are able to make more responsible decisions (Let's say 18 is a good median target).

Kids are too young and impressionable to fully wrap their minds around the whole transgender trend. Honestly, they should be making the decision when they become more knowledgeable and are able to make more responsible decisions (Let's say 18 is a good median target).
This, kids don't even know what love is, let alone have to worry about this trend now.

Maybe it's a bit of a stretch but I feel like for some children the whole referring to them as "they" all the time will instill in them this completely unnecessary identity that they would never have come to on their own if they had been left in a regular environment. And what if a situation like that forgets that kid up, and they're going about their entire lives believing their trans when they just really liked to play mommy or be a fireman or whatever while they were in kindergarten?
Kids are too young and impressionable to fully wrap their minds around the whole transgender trend. Honestly, they should be making the decision when they become more knowledgeable and are able to make more responsible decisions (Let's say 18 is a good median target).
This, kids don't even know what love is, let alone have to worry about this trend now.
this had me thinking about me as a kid

when i was like, 7 or 8 (i was being homeschooled at the time so 3rd-4th grade) i went through this weird feminine phase where i, by myself, made the conscious decision of wanting to be more like a girl, or at least how i thought girls were (didnt know about transitional surgery so at the time i didnt think i could actually "switch"). all this really entailed was me keeping my room cleaner and playing with more girl themed toys. mostly baby dolls cause i was maternal af for some reason. to me that mean't i was a girl. i lived in an environment where it was obviously weird, but everyone just accepted it, let me do it, and would even buy things for me to basically let me live out how i wanted.

i dont distinctly remember my parents ever telling me "i can be what ever i want", or calling me any special pronoun other than what i was: a confused little boy. but i remember not feeling shunned or like i needed to hide these feelings i was very public about it with my family and my family was very public/supportive of me. probably a couple months of this happened and then one day i just stopped. i realized keeping my room straight was a forgetin hassle and that i didnt like doing it, i missed playing with lego and honestly the baby dolls were just kind of annoying. they wouldnt stop crying. i wasnt a good mother.

despite the fact i still have a very real feminine personality, im heteroloveual male AF. i know this for a fact and nothing can change that (cept a REALLY forgetin good hot guy). but it did take a small amount of experimenting in an open and accepting environment to figure that out and solidify that. i mean, could those feminine tendencies have manifested me into some trans queer pyro fox identifying pusi boi if my parents shunned me and didn't let me live out how i wanted to? i could certainly see that happening

i definitely dont know how i feel about diluting kids personalities with new age pronouns or letting them take hormonal pills. i know my parents would not have let me do something that drastic had i asked to do it, but i certainly think kids can thrive in an open environment where they're given the freedom to experiment to some extent with even gender and love because kids aren't stupid. i mean they are stupid, but not when it comes to what they want. i thought i wanted to live that way, but after living that way it helped me realize what i really wanted

to be a annoying messy girl loving boy
« Last Edit: August 02, 2017, 11:38:33 AM by mod-man »

Yes I'm literally in tears over my keanyboardurbwawer
made me laugh thank you, reddit gold to you epic sir

none of you understand

by calling the children hen they're trying to indoctrinate them as swedish hens
soon everyone will identify as a female egg laying chhcicken
it's all a capitalist conspiracy

Kids are too young and impressionable to fully wrap their minds around the whole transgender trend. Honestly, they should be making the decision when they become more knowledgeable and are able to make more responsible decisions (Let's say 18 is a good median target).
doesn't actually have anything to do with trans issues i don't think, all the kids still know what their assigned gender is (x), it's literally just to create a space where there's a vacuum of traditional gender roles to let kids develop independently of those expectations

doesn't actually have anything to do with trans issues i don't think, all the kids still know what their assigned gender is (x), it's literally just to create a space where there's a vacuum of traditional gender roles to let kids develop independently of those expectations

You can do that without calling them whatever version of "they" Swedes like to use

You can do that without calling them whatever version of "they" Swedes like to use
yeah, you can, tho it really doesn't make that much a difference. it's just language, the worst you're doing is teaching them to use an uncommon pronoun for a couple years. if people think it's weird after they get out, then oh well, experiment failed and they just learn to use common gendered pronouns. it's not going to drastically affect them one way or another, especially since it's only preschool. they aren't enforcing that their students be considered nonbinary, they're just referring to them by a new generic pronoun
« Last Edit: August 02, 2017, 03:15:55 PM by otto-san »

yeah, you can, tho it really doesn't make that much a difference. it's just language, the worst you're doing is teaching them to use an uncommon pronoun for a couple years. if people think it's weird after they get out, then oh well, experiment failed and they just learn to use common gendered pronouns. it's not going to drastically affect them one way or another, especially since it's only preschool

I guess. I just think it's a slippery slope. It's this relatively harmless thing for now, but that might change later, when it's too late to do anything about it.

doesn't actually have anything to do with trans issues i don't think, all the kids still know what their assigned gender is (x), it's literally just to create a space where there's a vacuum of traditional gender roles to let kids develop independently of those expectations

I was mostly stating in general for the people who legitimately think it's okay to pressure transgenderism onto children. I know what's up in the story, but I know of other places putting much heavier pressure on the subject.

Again stressing because Deus Ex is coming at this from the wrong way, the point of the school was to deliver gender neutral education, not to pressure kids into being gender neutral. There are some oddities in the journal but I dunno how much of it is lost in translation.

The whole idea I think is to reform how education is delivered to the kids to avoid instilling any sort of "Gendered stereotypes" on the kids, forcibly shaping their world view or whatever. I don't know how much this is actually an issue, but take that as you will.