Gracious
Jesus!!! how should a child take the fact that his or her father is a woman who
was once a man and remain psychologically stable . This sex change must be questioned.
It is sad that we have come with a so called scientific culture which medicalises all things i.e. a school shooter has autism, a
bomber has psychosis, a rapists has neurosis etc This
culture of rejecting and ridiculing God to the extent of arguing that he put a
woman in a man’s body is going to lead to a number of psychotic children. We
should be ready for more school shootings in future where the culprits are
children. We should be ready for more child criminals in future.
Nathan Upton, pictured at his 2009 wedding to wife Ruth, says the decision had not been easy
Daily Mail urged to fire Richard Littlejohn after death of Lucy Meadows
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/mar/22/richard-littlejohn-transgender
Let me begin this posting by urging that people do not rush to judgment. I say that because the unfolding of this story is likely to be stimulate prejudice on either side. My aim here is simply to set out the facts.It concerns a woman's death in circumstances that are not yet definitively clear and a controversial column in the Daily Mail.
In late December last year, the Accrington Observer reported that a male primary school teacher would be returning after the Christmas break as a woman.
The story said that the head teacher of a Church of England school, St Mary Magdalen's, had notified parents that Nathan Upton would be known in future as Miss Lucy Meadows.
A day later, the Daily Mail's Richard Littlejohn wrote a column headlined "He's not only in the wrong body… he's in the wrong job" in which he asked whether anyone had thought of "the devastating effect" on the pupils of the teacher's change in gender.
He wrote: "Why should they be forced to deal with the news that a male teacher they have always known as Mr Upton will henceforth be a woman called Miss Meadows?" He continued:
"The school shouldn't be allowed to elevate its 'commitment to diversity and equality' above its duty of care to its pupils and their parents.
It should be protecting pupils from some of the more, er, challenging realities of adult life, not forcing them down their throats.
These are primary school children, for heaven's sake. Most them still believe in Father Christmas. Let them enjoy their childhood. They will lose their innocence soon enough."
Littlejohn, who made it clear he sympathised with people who required sex-change operations, concluded:
"Nathan Upton is entitled to his gender reassignment surgery, but he isn't entitled to project his personal problems on to impressionable young children.
By insisting on returning to St Mary Magdalen's, he is putting his own selfish needs ahead of the well-being of the children he has taught for the past few years.
Daily mail columnist Richard Littlejohn
It would have been easy for him to disappear quietly at Christmas, have the operation and then return to work as 'Miss Meadows' at another school on the other side of town in September. No-one would have been any the wiser.
But if he cares so little for the sensibilities of the children he is paid to teach, he's not only trapped in the wrong body, he's in the wrong job."
That column has now been taken down from the Mail site following the news that Lucy Meadows was found dead at a house in Accrington on Tuesday.
The Sky News report quotes a Lancashire police spokeswoman as saying that there were no suspicious circumstances. This is usually taken to mean that it is a case of suicide, though it is possibly not the case.
Now an online petition has been launched calling on the Mail to fire Littlejohn and demanding a formal apology for the stress and pain caused to Lucy Meadows by the columnist, the paper and its readership.
The petition organiser states: "No one deserves to have their lives turned upside down for their gender identity being thrown into the national spotlight.
"The reason the parents who had a problem went to the Daily mail is that their was no way to get her fired under equal opportunity law. So they tried to give the school bad press by saying how terrible it is that she is allowed to live her life freely."
As I write, the petition has attracted almost 3,000 signatures.
But, sticking to the facts, it is important to note that there is no clear link – indeed any link – between what Littlejohn wrote and the death of Lucy Meadows.
Hundreds gather outside Daily Mail offices for Lucy Meadows vigil
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/mar/25/lucy-meadows-daily-mail-vigil
Members of transgender community and others stand in
freezing cold to remember teacher who killed herself
Up to 300 members of the transgender community and
supporters gathered outside the Daily Mail headquarters this
evening to hold a vigil in memory of Lucy Meadows, the primary school teacher
who was found dead last Tuesday after her gender transition was made public by
the media.The candlelit vigil was organised at a grassroots level and even the Facebook event organisers did not know where the idea for it originated. Demonstrators of all walks of life attended the event, carrying candles and placards with messages such as "I am not afraid".
A group of demonstrators started chanting "Shame on you" to occupants of the Daily Mail's Northcliffe House, in Kensington – but they were swiftly quietened by activists who wanted the vigil to be peaceful.
Transgender activist Natacha Kennedy, an ex-primary school teacher who quit her job in 2007 because she thought it would be too risky to come out as a member of the transgender community, said the event was completely spontaneous.
"Normally someone like me does the organising. It just seems to have sprung up by people I don't know and not regular trans activists. I'm quite amazed by the response of a lot of people who are not transgender," she said.
Kennedy believes the Daily Mail's coverage of Meadows must have contributed to her death. "Primary school teaching is the most stressful job," she said. "The sort of pressure Lucy would have been under would have been enormous."
Children at C of E school St Mary Magdalen's in Accrington, Lancashire, were informed in December that their teacher, Nathan Upton, would transition to live as a woman over the Christmas break and return as Lucy Meadows. Local and later national press picked up the story, and Richard Littlejohn's comment in the Daily Mail, 'He's not only in the wrong body … he's in the wrong job', has received much criticism.
Meadows contacted the PCC in January to complain about the way she had been treated in the press. Her death on Tuesday is not being treated as suspicious, and it is believed she committed suicide.
Jane Fae, a campaigning journalist, said the issue was not about apportioning blame for Meadows' death, but about how she was treated in life and after her death – when some tabloids "were still writing about her as a man".
Helen Belcher, director of TransMedia Watch, an organisation that monitors representation of transgender people in the media, said that press coverage had been more virulent since Leveson released his report. "It feels to me like they're sticking two fingers up at Leveson."
Some demonstrators had travelled from across the country to attend. Kai Weston, 23, last year's transgender representative for Birmingham University's LGBT society, said he believed the turnout at the vigil showed that the transgender community was getting better at empowering itself, and that more people felt comfortable speaking out against abuses against their freedoms.
David Mudkipz, 32, who works in PR, was keen to assert as a straight white male from Surrey that the many of the non-transgender community were fully behind the campaign against the Daily Mail's treatment of minority groups. The tabloids are "isolating so many people that are very vulnerable", he said.
Graham Jones, Labour MP for Hyndburn, also came to offer his support. "I think it's fantastic that so many people have turned out for my constituent, from all walks of life. It just goes to show that people are willing to stand up to the oppression of the press – and on a freezing cold London night."
Jones said he believed that "Leveson failed to tackle the issue of freedom for the reader – freedom to read balanced articles. I'm not sure he fully understood what he was doing. He added that local papers also needed to take their share of the blame.
From Sir to Miss: UK male teacher Nathan Upton, 32, to have sex change
http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news28669.html
Updated: 20 Dec 2012
It was not your average Christmas
newsletter for a Church of England primary school.
Marked ‘staff changes’, it began conventionally enough, informing parents that Mrs Metcalfe was leaving for a new teaching position in Spain.
It explained that ‘Miss Wharmby will be teaching Year 1 full-time’ and that ‘Mrs Kelly will be reducing her hours’.
But the sixth paragraph came as a bit of a shock.
'Mr Upton has recently made a significant change in his life and will be transitioning to live as a woman,’ it read.
'After the Christmas break, she will return to work as Miss Meadows.’
It then said the school was ‘proud of our commitment to equality and diversity among our staff and children’.
Yesterday parents at St Mary Magdalen’s Primary School in Accrington, Lancashire, were coming to terms with the fact the popular Year 6 teacher previously known as Nathan Upton – a father-of-one who until recently was married – is now Lucy Meadows.
They told how pupils had been informed that the 32-year-old felt he had been ‘born with a girl’s brain in a boy’s body’.
However some complained that their children were too young to understand how ‘Sir’ could become 'Miss’ almost overnight and were confused and upset.
Mr Upton married Ruth Smith in 2009 and the couple had a son, now aged three.
He joined the school around the same time and, according to parents, began growing his cropped hair and dying it purple, painting his nails pink and wearing sparkly headbands.
A crayon drawing of Mr Upton by a pupil posted on the school’s website shows him with hair swept back over his shoulders.
'At first we thought he was just borrowing his wife’s headbands to hold his hair back,’ said one parent.
'I saw what I thought was Mr Upton dressed as a woman in town one weekend, but I decided I’d imagined it.’
Mr Upton is understood to be in the early stages of ‘gender reassignment’, living as a woman before deciding to proceed with a full sex change.
The school’s 169 pupils were informed class-by-class on Monday, and at the same time the newsletter was hand-delivered to parents.
In a statement, Mr Upton said: ‘This has been a long and difficult journey for me, and it was certainly not an easy decision to make.’
Thanking the school for its support, he added: ‘I’d now ask for my privacy to be respected so that I can continue with my job, which I’m committed to and which I enjoy very much.’
Headmistress Karen Hardman said: ‘We understand that an issue such as this is bound to arouse interest for a short while.
However, this is a personal matter for our staff member, who has our full support, and we are all working together to ensure it has the least impact on the smooth running of our school.’
Mr Upton’s wife – who served as a governor at St Mary Magdalen’s – has left their terraced home close to the school.
But her parents, Geoff and Hazel Smith, said that while his decision to live as a woman had come as a huge shock, they were standing by him.
'We love him and her very much,’ said Mr Smith, 71. ‘We will support him no matter what.’
A ten-year-old pupil said: ‘He spoke to us and said he’s going to be changing into a woman and wearing women’s clothes after Christmas.
'We were all a bit shocked.’
Wayne Cowie, whose ten-year-old son has been taught by Mr Upton for three years, said his children were worried and confused.
'My middle boy thinks that he might wake up with a girl’s brain because he was told that Mr Upton, as he got older, got a girl’s brains,’ the 35-year-old decorator said.
'He’s a great teacher, but my kids are too young to be told about the birds and the bees like this.’
Mr Cowie said his son had been told he would be punished if he continued to refer to the teacher as 'Mr Upton’ next term.
Another parent said: ‘This is totally inappropriate.
'Any teacher who is going to change gender should also change schools.’
A school spokesman said pupils wouldn’t be punished for referring to the teacher as Mr Upton, but added they would be ‘expected to behave properly around her’.
SOURCE: Daily Mail
http://action.sumofus.org/a/daily-mail-littlejohn-lucy-meadows/?sub=fb
This week, after being mocked in the press with an attack piece by the Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn, schoolteacher Lucy Meadows was found dead.
Lucy was raised male, but recently underwent a transition to live as female -- which for Littlejohn was reason enough to attack her in his column. Leading with the mocking headline "He's not only in the wrong body... he's in the wrong job", Littlejohn belittled and harassed Meadows, referring to her decision as her “personal problems” and playing on the outdated scare tactic that LGBT people are a threat to children.
The vile article capped off a witch-hunt targeting Meadows. Newspapers offered to pay parents for a picture of her, and she complained of having to leave home by the back door and arrive early to school to avoid the packs of journalists.
Sign our petition to the Daily Mail: sack Richard Littlejohn, issue an apology, and institute an editorial review to ensure that this never happens again.
Richard Littlejohn has a long history of using his perch at the the Daily Mail to mock and harass others, from laughing at cerebral palsy to snide insinuation that ethnic minorities got their jobs through discrimination to incessant attacks on the LGBT community, Littlejohn has been a disgrace.
Throughout the article, Littlejohn repeatedly referred to Lucy as “he”, and claimed that getting gender reassignment surgery showed that she didn't care for the children she taught.
Littlejohn claimed that children don’t have the capacity to handle a gender transition -- but kids are smart and don’t carry the bias that adults have absorbed over the years. Just take the experience our campaign manager Kaytee's partner Max had when he came out to his little cousin as a transgender man. The cousin said “Oh, that makes sense. I always thought you were a boy. Now can we go play Legos?” Gender transition is only an issue for kids when the adults in their lives -- many egged on by these sorts of offensive opinion pieces -- make it out to be a problem.
The Daily Mail may thrive on controversy to sell its tabloid papers, but even it knows it went too far this time. In the wake of backlash, the Daily Mail removed the article from its website, but the damage had already been done.
Everyone has the right to say what they think, but mainstream publications like the Daily Mail shouldn't support and promote this sort of hate. The Daily Mail needs to ensure that this never happens again -- by not only yanking Littlejohn’s column and apologizing for the paper’s decision to run the hateful opinion piece, but also instituting an editorial review policy that prevents discriminatory writing from ending up in its paper again.
Tell the Daily Mail that newspaper columns cannot be used for bullying and hate, and that Richard Littlejohn has no place in the papers.
