//Gordon is a Chinese doctor in Sydney//

Why is a doctor hearing confessions, Josephus?

Give it up, dude. You've been rumbled. Trying to dig your way out of a hole is not going to help.

Identity has nothing to do with sex.
We are divine - our true identity is God.
Identifying ourselves with other things, especially with our bodies and their features, is a disease and the source of pains.
We all suffer from this disease to some degree: schools should teach us how to gradually shake these false identifications off and become well.
Misleading children by teaching them to identify with the features of the world and of their bodies is a crime.

SM,

"Everyone has their own gender identity in relation to masculinity and femininity. Some identify with both, and some don't identify with either; it's up to the individual to describe what gender identity fits them best."

What's your problem?

Do you think the things you posted are likely to bring down civilisation as we know it?

A little respect is what's being called for, is what I see.

Back in the dark ages when I was at school, we had quite rigid ideas of gender roles. I was small and wirey and good at sport. I played "girl's games" (softball and netball) but I loved most to play kick to kick footy with the boys during recess - in summer I played cricket at lunch time with the boys...had quite a handy off-spin, actually.

We were not allowed to play cricket with the boys - and I often spent half of lunch break playing cricket with the boys - and the other half on rubbish pick-up duty because I got caught playing cricket with the boys.

I was a tom boy.

I used to surf with boys, out there on the waves while the girls were preening themselves on the beach waiting for the boys to come in.

I suppose my gender identity was neutral in those days - even though I'm a heterosexual and have never felt otherwise.

I suppose that may also be a pointer to why I debate reasonably well on a forum like this mainly inhabited by males - I don't possess a rigidly gender-based idea of the things I should be discussing or the way I discuss them - that is not a bad thing.

Why do you think someone is an extremist because they promote a more respectful and inclusive way of looking at gender identity?

Poirot:

So is gender identity really just a question of the things you do? If you do more female things than male things does that make your gender female? What is the point of describing the things you do if they are irrelevant to the gender with which you identify and the gender you identify is totally up to you? No one can tell you if you are male or female.

If you do only female things you can still identify as male if you want to and no one can tell you otherwise. Your gender is not defined by what you do or the way you behave. In fact it is not defined by anything. It actually does not matter what gender you are except to you. We are all gender neutral so why does anyone want to change their gender? What difference does it make? We are all free to do whatever we like so we can freely choose to do all female things and identify as male. No one can take away your freedom to ‘identify’ so what is the fuss all about and why would you need others to identify you and acknowledge your gender as one or the other since it does not really matter. No one can either affirm your identity nor deny it since it is simply something that exists inside your head as a thought and no one can make you change your own thoughts.

phanto,

Your point is?

My point is that you can do and think and identify how you want - Safe Schools is about recognising that and promoting respect and tolerance on that basis.

As opposed to intolerance and abuse.

Good on you, Poirot. I used to get infatuated with the most tomboyish girls in school, one in particular whose house I used to ride past night after night. And I'm sure there were many like me who got a kick out of female assertiveness.

But isn't this more a matter of equal rights for both boys and girls to play whatever the hell sports they like ? I would certainly support that - in fact, I'm appalled at how little women's sports gets funded and shown on TV.

But I'm not sure what it has to do with gender identification. If we were talking about fashion parades and make-up and wigs, etc., and the outer features of what it may be to BE male or female, farting around about gender worries might be relevant. But boys and girls DOING what they like may be a different issue.

As it happens, I support Roz Ward in her right to express her dopey Gramscian views - get them out there where they can be criticised up hill and down dale. In fact, one supports the other: her right to speak her mind, AND the right of others to rip the living sh!t out of what she says. As with you or me, our rights to express ourselves are matched by others' rights to critically examine what we say or write. It's a kitchen out there, Poirot :)

Strangely, I find myself in agreement with that bloke from the IPA in today's Australian in his support of her right to express herself without penalty: as he writers, she shouldn't have been sacked just for her comments about the flag.

I look forward to the day, perhaps in the very distant future, when no kids get bullied on any grounds at all: height, fatness, ethnicity, religion, gender, hair colour, handedness, class background, and yes, proclivity to dress up. Fluidity ? I'm not sure what that even means in any of these cases. Fluid ethnicity ? Fluid hair colour ? Fluid class background ? Yeah, right.

[TBC]