My wife feels pretty strongly about discouraging my daughter from opposite gender stuff - why is a school trying to overrule her?

Because she's wrong.

And this is a much less helpful response.

Either we learn as children to be accepting of others different from us, or, the unending cycle of media diner visits to "understand" the red-faced fella in the #### your Feelings T-shirt will never stop.

The goalposts moved so gradually from “we’re not teaching gender ID in primary school” to “we are teaching it, but our values are right, yours are wrong and if you disagree you’re George Wallace and #### you” that I didn’t even notice!

As I and others have noted, you haven't actually shown any instances of schools teaching gender ID, so... this is not quite accurate. And regardless, it's always been about the values being right or wrong, which you yourself touch on here:

My wife feels pretty strongly about discouraging my daughter from opposite gender stuff - why is a school trying to overrule her?

This is your wife (and your?) value judgement. You want your daughter to learn what is "girl stuff", so that she can avoid "boy stuff".

And "girl stuff" has changed over time. A century ago, math and science were "boy stuff". Ditto law and medicine. Are you and your wife upset that her school is teaching her any of those things?

My wife feels pretty strongly about discouraging my daughter from opposite gender stuff - why is a school trying to overrule her?

What if my wife feels differently? Serious question, does this law allow for you to pull your child out of certain instruction and allow others to partake, or does it just defer to the side that doesn't want any and prohibit it for all?

Schools should be neutral on social / cultural stuff where there is not broad agreement. Everyone wants their kid to learn to share or to be polite. About half the country doesn’t agree that girls should be encouraged to wear pants and play with bulldozers. The schools shouldn’t be a venue for one side of a polarized issue to impose its view on the other. I don’t care if they offer bulldozers to the girls or allow girls to wear pants and army boots - whatever, it’s a free country, do what you want. What I object to is the school telling my kid that this is a categorically good thing and that anyone who disagrees is wrong.

This is particularly true, of course, at public schools, which are a shared resource funded by republicans and democrats alike. Do whatever the #### you want at a private school, though I probably wouldn’t choose to send my kids to an outlandishly political private school on either side.

About half the country doesn’t agree that girls should be encouraged to wear pants

This is far more of a reach than the comment likening your stance on "girl stuff" to desegregation. I've been Googling for ten minutes and can't find anyone who's even asking this question as a poll or survey(*). Nowhere near half the country thinks women shouldn't wear pants.

(*) If anyone does have some data on this, please do share. The closest I've come is finding some conservative Christian blogs that have posts about the issue, and most of them take the stance that acceptable wardrobe changes over time and it's completely fine for women to wear pants these days.

What I object to is the school telling my kid that this is a categorically good thing and that anyone who disagrees is wrong.

That is NOT what those videos said. They said it's ok if you do want to play with a firetruck or wear a pink coat. That is not 'encouraging' kids, it's teaching acceptance.

About half the country doesn’t agree that girls should be encouraged to wear pants and play with bulldozers.

Are you using the pants-wearing thing as a generic example or do you really think half the country does not think women should wear pants?

Sharing is a bunch of bull, too. And helping others. And what's all this crap I've been hearing about tolerance?

About half the country doesn’t agree that girls should be encouraged to wear pants and play with bulldozers.

That's not what's happening, though. These curricula are teaching to accept the girls who want to wear pants and play with bulldozers, or that it's ok if you're a girl and that's what you'd like to do. That's different from teachers (or classroom videos) telling girls they SHOULD do those things. The latter is encouragement. The former is tolerance.

If, at home, you want to teach your daughter that wearing dresses and playing with dolls are traditionally girly things to do, go right ahead. But if in the process you're teaching her that girls who don't ascribe to those values are somehow less or unacceptable, that's a problem, even if you're not doing it purposefully. And that problem is what schools are trying to avoid because it leads to bullying or ostracization. In that way, it's school business.

Some people can see the hand in front of their face. Others...

112. Misirlou cut his hair and moved to Rome Posted: March 06, 2023 at 10:17 AM (#6119617)
And then there's the JE technique of bringing up obscure factoids that only the most inside of insiders know and care about, but nobody knows WTF he's talking about and thus they can't effectively be refuted. They may be 100% BS. They may have a nugget of truth but are grossly exaggerated, they may be 100% true but irrelevant to the argument. Nobody knows.

If JE were half the insider he wants everyone to think he is then he would never have posted a comment here and instead would have been doing actual work. He's about as much an insider as a stadium beer vendor is to a team's front office.

By insider, I meant someone who lives and breathes that inside baseball stuff. Plenty of outsiders follow that stuff obsessively.

206: About half the country doesn’t agree that girls should be encouraged to wear pants and play with bulldozers. I don’t care if they offer bulldozers to the girls or allow girls to wear pants and army boots - What I object to is the school telling my kid that this is a categorically good thing and that anyone who disagrees is wrong.

You object to schools telling students that being sexist is wrong?

You object to schools telling students that being sexist is wrong?

Maybe not in those exact words.

This is far more of a reach than the comment likening your stance on "girl stuff" to desegregation.

Eh, I took it to the extreme, to cut out the middling arguments. Kinda like Godwinning it without mentioning you-know-who.

And, to be fair, he said "pants and Army boots", as a package. I don't think he actually meant "slacks".

edit oh wait, I re-read and he didn't add "Army boots" until the second time he mentioned pants. Maybe he meant to include "Army boots" the first time. Smitty, can I get a ruling?

My godmother wore Army boots. The Army seemed to think that was a good thing :)

Although we lost the only war that she served in. I don't know where I'm going with this. Maybe "It's Complicated."

#s 212 & 13, I don’t recall anyone here self-appointing himself a DC insider, but you guys certainly wouldn’t know one if you saw one. Being gainfully employed in law, lobbying & public relations is far more than you substance-free guys bring to the table.

I know dishonest dancing monkeys when I see them.

Re 218 Sure, some of us get paid to lie. . .

About DeSantis and baseball: Ron DeSantis grew up in Dunedin, Fla. When he was 12 years old, his team went to the Little League World Series. While working his way through Yale, he was also captain of the Yale Baseball Team.
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2001/03/30/baseballs-desantis-shines-on-yale-field-of-dreams/

well hello there

About DeSantis and baseball: Ron DeSantis grew up in Dunedin, Fla. When he was 12 years old, his team went to the Little League World Series. While working his way through Yale, he was also captain of the Yale Baseball Team.
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2001/03/30/baseballs-desantis-shines-on-yale-field-of-dreams/

I'd be okay with DeSantis becoming the next Yale baseball coach. I'd even let him wear GHWB's old game worn uniform. But I'd rather have Ron Darling for a president.

Imagine thinking that women should feel free to wear pants if they want to is a polarizing issue.

In one of the all time posts that didn't age well:

All that bill did was limit that sort of stuff being utilized for kindergarten through 3rd grade

The Florida Board of Education has voted to expand restrictions on classroom instruction related to sexual orientation and gender identity.

In one of the all time posts that didn't age well:

It wasn't supposed to age well. It was just the argument of the moment. There'll be a new one for the next moment.

If that argument was made by Clapper, then you know it's a dishonest argument.