You're viewing part of a thread.
You know what else your arguments remind me of? (Also, sorry to respond to you twice in two different comment threads, I know that's kind of rude, but I already responded the other place and I have another thought from reading this comment. So, sorry.)
Your arguments remind me of people who think my sister shouldn't be teaching because she's visibly trans. She's very openly, publically trans and let me tell you, quite a few parents have an issue with that. These parents think that since my sister is a "role model" for their "very impressionable, not very wise" children whose learning style is "observational/copying", the kids will be influenced by her visible, open transness and become trans themselves.
This is, of course, nonsense, but if we simply listen to parents and remove people those parents have issues with, then we end up in a place where trans people are barred from being teachers because of their transness, and that's just bigotry, pure and simple.
I want to be very clear here, I don't have any reason to think you'd agree with the transphobic parents wanting my sister barred from teaching. But I do think your arguments for why an onlyfans model shouldn't teach are exactly the same as the arguments transphobic parents make about trans teachers. Identical.
No problem
It might well remind you of that, but being visibly trans isn't sexualised content being shown to children. I'm not surprised the arguments seem similar - its why right wingers use those lines, because it resonates with people, and if you conflate sexualised content (that people fundamentally will have an issue with for the reasons I've given elsewhere) with simply being trans, you can persuade people that being trans is an issue.
And a teacher being an onlyfans model also isn't sexualized content being shown to children. It's ok, I think we're just going to have to disagree here on whether teachers should be fired for having an onlyfans. I gotta move on with my day, I hope you have a good one!
No, but it is sexualised, actually sexual, content being advertised by somebody who works with children, and that may be accesible to those children. That isn't the case with somebody who is visibly trans and teaching, unless for some reason they decided to become a pornographer.
thanks, and likewise
being visibly trans (especially transfem) is inherently seen as sexual by wide swaths of the population. there's no conflating to be done at this stage. we've been conflated. we have to live with that, and that means not accepting the premise that teachers deserve to get fired for this shit
you keep dancing around the issue, saying "oh we need to respect parents rights and their worries," and i just fundamentally don't think that's true. it reads as cowardly reactionary garbage. just admit you think sex work is gross
Well schools do need to respect parents rights and worries if they're correct or well founded - they've entrusted their care and education to them, and they have a duty of care as part of their job. If they don't think the concerns are well founded, they need to discuss that with the parents and explain why.
I don't think you should live with that conflation, because it would mean that a trans person could never be a teacher, since it will never be tolerated for something or some person that is inherently sexual by mere presence or nature (like pornography) to be involved with children, except in the sense of carefully regulated sex education.
9 times out of 10 "parent's rights" just means the right to abuse and control your child. fuck parents rights
i agree i shouldn't have to live with that conflation! however we play the hands we're dealt, and the hand i happen to have been dealt is that a good chunk of this country thinks i am an inherently sexual being. and being a sex worker isn't really any different. both i and the sex worker are significantly less likely to be a danger to children than the child's parent, and there's no reason to prevent either of us from being teachers. if a parent can't explain to their child what being trans is and why it isn't a big deal that's on them. it's the same with sex work
I can see why somebody in the US might have that perspective, but it isn't true. Most parents want to protect, nurture, and help their child(ren). Their interests are in their childs best interests - certainly some amount are misguided or decieved about what those best interests are. But from that basic premise, it is possible to persuade them otherwise, no small task and easier said than done given what you're up against there, but certainly possible because of that fundamental premise, that most do love and care for their children.
Sure parents can be abusers, but a school would (should at least) also fire such a person if they were employed there, certainly they would if it became public knowledge. Obviously pornography production isn't absuse in this case, but you can see why the school won't take the risk once it becomes public knowledge?
Its unfortunately not on the parents - or it should be, but it isn't. As you say, we work with what we've got, and its the case that many parents are not able or even willing to explain to their child that, and society must therefore do it for them.
I disagree however about sex work - if it isn't publically known, or if the sex worker/teacher doesn't publically do such, then thats ok, but as I've argued elsewhere, children need to be treated differently when it comes to sexual material, and there is a high degree of risk that children would end up having access to such published material. So I don't think its the same - if a teacher is publically trans, there isn't a safeguarding issue because there's no sexual material possibly being accessed by the children.
In my country, and I don't mean this as analogous, but as an example, teachers have an enhanced check of their records. It isn't perfect of course - it doesn't stop someone who hasn't been caught. It does prevent people who've had for example a bar fight (I think within a certain time period) from working with children. Obviously, without context, you can't say that someone who got into a fight is a danger to children, but I think its necessary in a practical sense, because while of course in many cases over-protective, it does serve to eliminate a risk. Do you think this is too much, given that it will inevitably prevent some perfectly safe people from working with children? Personally, I can see the point of it, especially from the school or parent's perspective. Again, I don't mean that a bar fight is analogous to sex work, just that there are always practical and practicable considerations with risk assessments.
maybe most parents genuinely want what's best for children! but if we're at the point where anyone who is or ever has been a sex worker should be banned from working in education because that'll make parents feel better, we need to start analyzing what that most means, and whether parents feelings matter more than the actual real world safety of their children. and let me tell you, i do not trust that parents are reasonable people who can be persuaded that they might be wrong about how they raise their children! obviously some are, but my experience is more often exactly the opposite
i cannot see why having a sex worker employed at a school would be a risk. sex workers aren't more likely to abuse or groom children than any other group of people. and when the risk is "parents would be unhappy" then we get into the point where that exact same logic gets used against queer people, or people of color, or any other marginalized group
and i cannot stress enough: CHILDREN ARE ALREADY GOING TO HAVE ACCESS TO PORN! A TEACHER BEING A SEX WORKER DOES NOT MAKE CHILDREN MORE LIKELY TO ACCESS SEXUAL MATERIAL! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT! the healthy way to deal with this is to simply talk to children about sex like it's a part of life (which it is) and not like it's some mysterious thing they aren't allowed to know about until they turn 18! i get that we can't trust parents to talk about this with their kids, i agree. if we can't trust parents to explain this to their kids why do we trust them to decide who teaches?
you agree there isn't a safeguarding issue with a trans teacher, but where we disagree is that you do believe there's a safeguarding issue with a teacher who is a sex worker on the side. why? a teacher who is a sex worker isn't going to expose children to any more porn than they'd already see. a teacher who is a sex worker is not any more likely to be a predator. parents can deal with their feelings on their own, without firing someone who hasn't done anything wrong*
*i mean in this specific case she'd done many things wrong but having an onlyfans wasn't one of them