This is part one of a series of articles that exposes the ideology behind the New Zealand Mates & Dates programme. Our Guest writer reveals what they don’t want New Zealand parents or the general public to know.
*First published February 2019
Mates & Dates Part one:
Biology doesn’t matter – Gender is a continuum
An Introductory Overview to Mates & Dates
We’ve moved into a new era, an era that rejects scientific objectivity and values feelings above all else. Ominously this ideology has infiltrated our schools.
Mates & Dates is an ACC designed secondary school programme which claims to tackle sexual and dating violence with an emphasis on consent. It’s also been given an $18m funding boost to expand into high schools across the country this year.
The classes are taught by facilitators who are not affiliated with the school. This makes it very difficult to view the content directly. When parents do enquire about the content, they are sent ‘workbooks’, which have pictures but contain mostly blank spaces for writing answers.
Upon closer examination of the classroom content, which could only be obtained after a protracted Official Information Act request, a very different picture emerges.
There are three reasons why we should be concerned about this.
- Because of the claim that stereotypical male/female behaviour helps perpetuate violence.
- Because they are teaching that, because gender is a continuum, there are multiple genders.
- Because they are aiming to influence children’s natural behaviour: promoting a move away from “gender-stereotypical” behaviour and we can “help to shift” social norms.
Each of these concerns will be analysed in the next three articles in this exclusive series.
The continuum of gender is based on the idea that societal norms have forced males and females into two rigid boxes, and that biological sex has no influence on how people perceive themselves.
Behavioural norms are alleged to be learned behaviours rather than natural, biological behaviour. A term referred to as the Social Construct is claimed to be the source of this ‘learned behaviour’.
No longer does a person’s objective biological makeup define who they are. Instead, they claim that if you are biologically and anatomically female, you may not actually be a ‘girl’.
The principal concepts are
- If you feel like a girl, then you are one.
- Society can’t define who you are.
- Gender roles are merely assigned at birth based on genitalia.
- You don’t need a sex-change operation to be who you say you are.
These concepts are taught using incredibly manipulative exercises and conflation of terminology. A Mates & Dates facilitator has advised that resources such as the genderbread person, though not officially sanctioned by ACC, are being used.
The claim often argued by gender ideologues is that ‘nobody chooses their gender’, and yet here we see the exercise Acting out gender clearly saying sex and gender are distinct and we choose how to express our gender.
This acting out exercise is influencing kids to re-think their natural behaviours.
It’s an attempt at altering the child’s perception of their own gender, or at the very least to influence their gender expression.
How they sit, eat, stand and walk are all suddenly objects of conscious scrutiny – as if teenagers weren’t self-conscious enough already.
The M&D content ignores all biological reasons for stereotypical male and female behavioural differences because it is based entirely on a social-constructionist narrative.
Science and common sense tell us:
- Women walk with more hip sway than men because women have wider hips for childbearing.
- Men typically don’t sit with crossed legs, because they have testicles in the way, and it hurts. (NO, you have no idea ladies, it can really hurt)
- The world’s largest brain study has proven that women have a greater ability for empathy than men do. Behavioural differences also occur because of brain-sex differences, and pituitary gland developmental differences. Not to mention that men and women compete separately in Olympic sports due to men’s biological, testosterone-fueled advantage.
Nobody is saying it’s wrong for a man to sit with crossed legs or have a booty wobble when he walks. What we must recognise are the biological reasons for stereotypical male/female behaviour, and thus, it’s perfectly normal to expect men and women to behave in gendered ways.
Nobody should care who drives the car, washes the dishes or changes the nappy and most people are not against role flexibility, and challenging stereotypes. When we ignore biological differences however, we then naturally preclude actual scientific approaches. This will inhibit, not help, our understanding of societal problems such as violence.
A significant cause for concern lies in the continuum whereby, if a girl says she does like cars, has a masculine walk, enjoys playing rugby or anything typically attributed to boys, that then moves her down the femininity scale and closer to being a boy. Common sense and biological truth say she’s always a girl – who happens to like rugby.
The continuum of gender, and the concept that biology is not connected to who you really are, allow children the ability to self-identify.
The Mates & Dates Guide for facilitators references RainbowYouth, and children who express a desire to come out, or indicate to the facilitators they need support, are referred to RainbowYouth.
I’m Local is a free resource RainbowYouth has made available, which explains on one page the concept of gender identity and makes it clear a child can travel and some people move from one end to the other.
This new super-power of self-identification of gender is a particularly powerful tool for those few troubled kids who are prepared to do anything to stand out of the crowd and be different.
Australia already has Gender whisperers in schools identifying children who may potentially be trapped in the wrong body, even though the child may not even be distressed or notice that they act in a more effeminate or masculine way than the other boys and girls.
Advocates for these ideas often claim that they’re taught in order to ‘save lives’ of those who don’t fit the mould.
Mates & Dates teaches self-ID under the premise of the gender transformative approach for the purpose of reducing violence against women.
The open admission of Mates & Dates under the Gender transformative approach is that the goal is to shift social norms.
No one will argue that reducing violence is a bad thing. That’s a shift in social norms that everyone will agree is a good idea. Nobody bar a few fringe lunatics are claiming that violence and sexual harassment are acceptable.
The programme’s approach to achieving the goal of reducing violence, however, is to blur the lines between what it means to be male or female.
That is an approach we should all feel distinctly uncomfortable with.
Self-identification of gender is a dangerous pathway for a number of reasons:
- We will then need to allow men into women’s private spaces, simply because they say they are women.
New Zealand Parliament is about to debate the BDMRR (Births Deaths and Marriages & Relationships Registration Bill), which will allow self-identification of gender with little more than a rubber stamp from a Justice of the Peace.
Read the website SpeakUpforWomen for more information on the highly undemocratic process this bill has followed.
- Men will compete in women’s sport, and beat them. This is already happening in cycling, weightlifting, wrestling and MMA.
- We will all be legally coerced into using a myriad of made-up pronouns such as Xe, Eirs, & Vir. Canada, New York and California already have fines for misgendering someone.
- Teachers have been fired, visited by police and disciplined for not using a student’s preferred pronouns, and a teacher has been fired for refusing to watch a female, who identifies as male, take a shower in the boys’ locker room after she self-identified as a male.
To accept the idea that behavioural differences only exist because society has forced us to be that way is completely unscientific.
Biology or scientific objectivity doesn’t matter when it comes to teaching children. In the Mates & Dates programme feelings reign supreme.
Our children are being targeted with extreme ideas and a very specific end-goal.
The question is: What are you going to do about it?
Republished with the author’s permission