My child's teacher are starting to put pronouns in email signatures etc.

[SpartanRunningGirl]

Ok first off I'm new to MN so not sure where to post this...

In email comms from my child's school I note the teachers are signing emails with their pronouns, including the headteacher. Now I see this at work too - but that is an all adult environment. My concern in school is that by doing this the school is tacitly pushing and condoning a gender identity agenda and creating an environment where pronoun use etc is normalised, gender stereotypes are reinforced and sex based identity is marginalised. I want to challenge this, anyone out there with similar experience?

[Mermoose]

This may be of interest to you, if you haven't yet read about it - a talk given at a girls' school which portrayed transition as having good outcomes has resulted in uproar from parents:
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/top-private-school-faces-parents-fury-after-encouraging-pupils-to-change-sex-vrsdh5stc

[NecessaryScene]

You wouldn’t be happy if your kids’ teacher signed her emails saying ‘God is almighty’ either.

Or indeed even just "(Christian)", "(Protestant)" or "(White)"...

Even if they were indicating sex rather than adherence to the gender religion it would indicate something serious deviation from basic liberal principles.

[SpartanRunningGirl]

"relatively positive outcomes for young girls living as boys and vice versa" horrified by this and the idea that the solution to sex based discrimination, harassment and misogyny is to opt out and live as a boy, rather than the adults in the room working to better the lives of girls as they grow up.

[EmbarrassingAdmissions]

You might want to take a look at the resources on Safe Schools Alliance

safeschoolsallianceuk.net

[guinnessguzzler]

Its extremely odd in a school setting anyway, when most professionals are already known by titles that identify their sex. Or are there teachers signing off as Mrs Brown (He / him)? It seems one of the most obvious professions where, even if you do buy into this, it would surely be completely redundant?

[NewlyGranny]

OP, one thing you can do quickly and easily is look at your child's school's equality and diversity policy and see whether the protected characteristics match the law. If you see the word gender where it should say sex, and/or gender identity where it should say gender reassignment, you can draw it to their attention. Look for the Stonewall Champions badging on the website and pray you don't find it ...

[Totallyrandomname]

Watching this thread with interest.

My sons school sent home pshe info about work they will be doing around relationships and different families. I didn’t notice anything about gender identity but wonder if this will be included in some form too.

I find it so bizarre that any organisation asks people to put aspects about their personal identify in an email signature. As a PP said you would put other info like Race or religion in

[NecessaryScene]

Actually, the US has gone insane enough that people are putting their race in their signatures. They've reached the point of impending civil war...

twitter.com/AmnaUncensored/status/1402080391658414084

The pronouns is kind of a mild version of that, but with distinct added "gender identity religion" overtones.

[Leanandmean31]

So my comment got deleted for breaching the rules. Is it not permitted to say that it’s not a good idea to extol the virtues of medical transition to young school-girls? Or was it the fact that I said that it would be equally inappropriate for the teacher to indicate her religion on the email? I stand by both points.

[Totallyrandomname]

@NecessaryScene
what an odd thing to have in her signature. I assume she’s done it ironically to make a point but it is scary to think that there will be pressure on people to start putting their personal information in signatures.

To be honest I’m surprised my work hasn’t asked people to put pronouns on the signatures yet. All senior managers have them in their signatures.

[MissyB1]

Forgive my ignorance but how would it actually look? I’m trying to picture it 🤔 and what would be the point?

[NecessaryScene]

I assume she’s done it ironically to make a point

Isn't that Poe's law - something about reality becoming indistinguishable from satire?

No, it is part of some project National Geographic is supporting

twitter.com/NatGeo/status/1400120961232408578
twitter.com/NatGeo/status/1401932063775858691

[Leanandmean31]

@MissyB1

Forgive my ignorance but how would it actually look? I’m trying to picture it 🤔 and what would be the point?

You mean pronouns in signatures? Kind of like this:

Mrs Linda Brown
Head of Year 3
Random Primary School
Pronouns: she/her

So many people at my work do it now. It’s also a clear signal that they are likely to be hostile to anyone with GC feminist views.

[Forgotthebins]

I wonder if it would highlight in our school anyway, that most of the teachers are she/her and most of the senior teachers are he/him…but that is by the by. It would depend on my relationship with the teacher but I would aim to have a friendly word saying that of course she/he/xer/they is free to say what they like about themselves but I hope it won’t be required of kids in their writing, as we are trying to bring up our kids to resist gender stereotypes.

[Pellewsmate]

@NewlyGranny

I have done what you suggested and looked at the schools equality policy and attached a screenshot.
Are the school breaking any laws by misquoting the The Equality Act 2010?
I'm feeling sick at the thought of being the parent that has to tackle them over this as we've had issues with the school in the past but at the same time I can't ignore this.
They've also put gender identity instead of gender reassignment and sexual identity instead of sexual orientation, in my mind these things are very different.

[Pellewsmate]

For some reason it won't let me attach the picture but they've replaced sex with gender.

[MissyB1]

Bloody hell the madness just seems to get worse! The school I work in had better not adopt this because I will flatly refuse!

[Totallyrandomname]

Just check the documents at my sons school. Here’s an example of how the documents are written....

“Equality Objective: Gender
The school is committed to increasing confidence and reducing maths anxiety (an issue affecting a higher proportion of girls) by talking about the causes of this subject-related concern”

Shouldn’t that be sex instead of gender?

[GNCQ]

Yeah this wouldn't happen at my school in a million years.

I can only assume the head teacher has been taken by gender woo and your school is in a woke area.

[MouseyTheVampireSlayer]

@Totallyrandomname if that's in the school's mission statement it will be based on their own internal results and research and won't have anything to do with the equality act. In some schools for example pupil premium boys in reading might be the cohort they focus on.
It's a good example of primary schools wanting to write gender instead of sex because anything with the word sex in makes them uncomfortable and will even attract complaints (yes, really)

For the most part, primaries mean sex when they say gender and that's allowed this nonsense to get all tangled up with policies.

[KarmaViolet]

Maybe we should add all of our protected characteristics to email signatures.

Really, Adrian Mole (13 3/4) was a pioneer of anti-ageism for the pre-digital age.

[NewlyGranny]

Pellewsmate, bingo! What a giveaway. I have tackled exactly this issue just by screen-shotting the protected characteristics straight from the .GOV website and emailing it to school to ask if they have typos in their policy because it doesn't look accurate to you. I added that I was concerned that staff and pupils/students weren't specifically mentioned as having the protected characteristics of their sex, which involves 100% of them!

The school will then have to either correct it or justify why they have tinkered with the legal wording, leaving out the protected characteristic of sex, which is not covered by the word gender.

Good luck. I had success with being puzzled and mildly surprised with the addition of a little bit of concern that they might be misrepresenting the law...

[NewlyGranny]

If anyone tells you sex and gender mean exactly the same - they clearly don't, but they may claim this - it's reasonable to ask why they felt the need to change one word (from the law !) to the other?

If they are part of an academy chain, the policy may have been a simple copy and paste job, but in that case there will be a whole bunch of schools with the same misleading language changes.

Ultimately you could alert the DfE and Ofsted about it. Ofsted has just consciously uncoupled from Stonewall and it's Diversity Champions, I believe.

[Leafstamp]

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

You might want to take a look at the resources on Safe Schools Alliance

safeschoolsallianceuk.net

I second have a good look around this site. You can even contact them for help if you feel you need it.

On the off chance you’re in Bristol, or anyone lurking is. These people look to be doing great work:

bergbristol.wordpress.com/

Also, schools have a legal duty to consult on RSE - if the haven’t done this recently, ask them if a consultation is due.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/relationships-education-relationships-and-sex-education-rse-and-health-education