Autism vs trans - clashing views

The SENCO won’t be there when he leaves school, becomes an adult or at home. He/she won’t even be there much within school. It is very much mostly the parents job too they will be the ones to pick up any flack at school and beyond with zero support.

I wouldn’t be asking my non autistic children to lie to this child either. It absolutely will be more difficult for OPs son not to just say what he sees and refuse to lie, but my perfectly typical daughter would also point blank refuse to pander to this girls delusions and does refuse with the two girls with special boy feelings in her school. Teaching children that they must lie based on someone else’s feelings is dangerous.

BUT for his benefit, I’d tell him the truth. This girl has a mental condition being encouraged by the adults around her, and his life will be easier if he just avoids her and avoids talking about her, because some adults are desperate to look nice without considering consequences, and avoiding conflict is sometimes just going to be a better path than telling the truth.

The employment tribunal gave misgendering as a specific example! And I was trying to illustrate that it’s not just misgendering it’s lots of related behaviours as well, some of which have been advised on this thread!

But, sigh, yes my understanding of the law in the England and Wales at the moment is that deliberate misgendering is not a crime in and of itself but it could very well amount to, or contribute to the crimes of discrimination and harassment depending on the overall facts.

And that's something to take up with the other adults, and not with a 12 year old girl who no doubt has vulnerabilities also.

Gender is the social interpretation of sex and can only be expressed within the range of that sex. A transwoman can only be a males surface level impression of a woman/girl and visa versa for transmen.

Do you think that anyone could take legal action against the OPs son for breaching the Equality Act?

They can't. The Equality Act imposes no obligations on individuals

Adults have given this child an opportunity to power trip over all the other children. Can’t you see the issues with that?

This shouldn't be your son's battle to fight. Can you ask for a meeting with someone at the school, form tutor or Senco, say it's about a sensitive issue. Find out what their approach is and work from there? Ignore the girl in question's parents. This is about your son's relationship with the school.

Get assurance they won't be allowing this girl into your son's changing rooms or loos for a start. That would certainly impact on his privacy and dignity and is a more serious concern than anything about pronouns. Most transboys don't even want to so it's probably fine. Ask what approach they're taking with pronouns, explain he feels he's being asked to lie and that's making him very uncomfortable. School have created the problem by pretending a girl is a boy, what is their solution? You could read relevant schools guidance before you go and refer to it as necessary. Safe Schools Alliance or Transgender Trend may be good sources to direct you to the relevant bits.

When you've found out what the situation is, then you can discuss with your son. What's being asked, and what the options are if he doesn't want to comply. It's good he already understands about religion, because he will be able to understand this as another odd belief system.

And you can decide if there's anything you want to/are able to fight at a higher level via the complaints system.

Again you are flailing around trying give the impression that misgendering would break the law, by listing other unrelated behaviours which might break the law.

I agree with you that no doubt the school would and should make reasonable adjustments if the autistic person did if by accident. But this isn’t really the issue here- people are advising the OP that ignoring the request to use new pronouns is fine and that it would also be fine for the OP’s son to completely ignore and/ or misgender the other child deliberately which is quite different.

Can any of you see how oppressive it gets when people are forced to lie about something they strongly reject on pain of punishment?

That is all fine in theory but the reality in school is that an autistic child gets bullied because they are struggling with their identity.

Who said it was?

But this is an autistic child. What about his disability? What if he had Tourette’s, for eg? The school cannot guarantee that literally everyone will use wrong sex pronouns.

@frozendaisy Teenage playgrounds are influenced by the attitudes of the school. Unfortunately if this autistic child is being told by other kids that they can become a girl then the school's attitude is likely to leave a lot to be desired. I'm more concerned with what the school might say to the child than what other teenagers will say. Teenagers see through attention seeking behaviour unless their teachers are forcing them into one particular line.

On the off chance that you really are confused about this, no that is not all fine. The definition of discrimination under the Equality Act, and harassment (as a civil wrong or and criminal offence), are wide and include lots of potential elements, plus they evaluate the effect on the person. The civil definition of harassment in the workplace for example is whether the behaviour relating to a protected characteristic (including being trans) violates the victim's dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment.

Any behaviour which could be seen as deliberate discrimination or harassment would be a problem and this could (in some circumstances) include refusing to work with the child, refusing to talk to them, refusing to refer to them in conversation and other types of this behaviour.

You as an adult can choose to take that risk, but we are talking about 12 yr old children here.

I agree, I was more thinking in the workplace, and myself.

No. You can't change your chromosomes, (basic biology) but you can change gender (a societal construct.

Maintaining reality and safeguarding children and women is not equivalent to being an arse or treating anyone poorly.

It's exhausting having a whole discussion about pronouns. I recently had a conversation with a parent who was referring to their child as them. I managed not to use pronouns but it was probably very obvious as it's not a natural way to speak without referring to a pronoun at all.
I can't imagine asking an autistic child to keep that up.

But you're the one who said it wouldn't amount to discrimination and that there was no case law to back it up? You're the one who brought the law up?

"The child's parents are very pushy about the situation"

Hmm wonder how the idea of being trans got into the kids head?!

You absolutely cannot say this. In some cases it could be- that’s what the law says. Not every case and it will depend on the overall circumstances. But it would be downright dangerous to even imply that deliberate misgendering is fine.

And in the recent employment tribunal cases, there is a well established principle of Judicial Immunity and Core Immunity from Suit which makes it almost impossible to sue barristers and judges for things they say in Court or other proceedings (the justification is that it’s in the public good to have an open exchange of views in court without people worried about being sued). Or it could well have been agreed behind the scenes that the transperson wouldn’t take a point on this. In either case it would be foolhardy to advise a 12 yr old in school to take their cue from this.

www.barcouncil.org.uk/resource/bar-council-welcomes-court-of-appeal-ruling-on-advocate-immunity.html

this.