Grammar school bans teachers from calling its pupils girls

I know two friends with DDs attending the school. When they found out about it before Christmas they started looking at other schools. They wanted their Dds to go to that school because they wanted them to embrace being girls and build up on that confidence. This decision has been taken by the parents, the fathers especially, that being a girl is less than. One friends DH has been raging about it saying that if a girl wishes to identify as a boy there needs to be a whole lot more done by the school to meet the mental health needs of the child. He was saying this change doesn't actually help a transgender child and we are on a very slippery slope if we deny the existence of girls but continue to recognize the existence of boys

I have been trying to put something like this in words. It does seem as if girls and women are being literally (word used deliberately) erased - and this is by the same school that nixed girls being involved in a campaign about feminism. One of the advantages of a girls' school, I would have thought, is that girls and women and the achievements of girls and women can be celebrated openly and positively, countering gendered and sexist norms and messages outside the school. If gendered words can no longer be used then this purpose would seem to be defeated. It's a linguistic invisibilising. It's very sad.

martha I'm just very happy both friends are removing their DDs. If my DDs attended a school that dealt with a transgender issue this way I would be looking to remove them too. Terrible way to deal with an issue a child is going through.

want2b your comment Why the heck were other pupils allowed to continue to terrorize a peer.

sadly from what i know of this school, this is commonplace and has been for aeons. A colleague went to this school in the 90s and her DH went to Alti Boys at the same time. She said that she would send her DS to Alti Boys in a heartbeat (as her DH was very happy there and reported no such issues) but she would never send her DD to AGGS. She said the bullying was horrendous, with high instances of anorexia, MH issues, all swept under the carpet.

I've also managed an employee going through a gender change. They knew from a young age that they felt like a boy but all the doctors strongly advised to wait until over the age of 25 to proceed with any sort of transition. I did a lot of research, brought in an expert team to help HR understand how the company could support him and the most poignant fact I remember is seeing the suicide rate being less than 20% in blue states here in America where people are a whole lot more accepting and less judgmental and more than 75% in the southern Bible Belt states. The advice I was given by the research group was to be as supportive as possible. They will need someone looking out for them. I did that in many ways. Simple things such as always putting them in a car service with someone reputable rather than using Uber, making sure their schedule was appropriate given the time needed to attend therapy and making sure any negative comments from others were dealt with so a strong message was sent that no negative behaviors towards him would be tolerated.

Therapy is there to support those going through transgender issues but I would assume the NHS has restricted the help to such a degree that these children are not getting the help they need. Instead the school is left to figure out how to manage and they really do not have the expertise to put an effective plan in place.

I know two friends with DDs attending the school. When they found out about it before Christmas they started looking at other schools. They wanted their Dds to go to that school because they wanted them to embrace being girls and build up on that confidence. This decision has been taken by the parents, the fathers especially, that being a girl is less than. One friends DH has been raging about it saying that if a girl wishes to identify as a boy there needs to be a whole lot more done by the school to meet the mental health needs of the child. He was saying this change doesn't actually help a transgender child and we are on a very slippery slope if we deny the existence of girls but continue to recognize the existence of boys.

I can't say I don't disagree with them. If a child committed suicide the naming convention adopted in the school is the least of the issues. Why the heck were other pupils allowed to continue to terrorize a peer.

Bill Robinson (Malory Towers) would be too.

After TRAs decided that Mulan was trans I wouldn't put anything past them. Congrats on missing the entire point of the story, dummies.

The Chalet School's various Teds, Rickies, Lens and so on would definitely be having a sympathetic discussion with Bill and Charlie, I should think.

George from the Famous Five would be binding her breasts and on T.

In the current climate, quite a few heroines of school books would be :(.

In the current climate, Nicola Marlow probably would have been identified as trans.

So there is no terms that means 'girls and boys'?

Yes, well, bloody Romans, treating girls as a lesser form of boy...

The 'Pueri atque puellae' - the pueri are the 'boys', atque is 'and', puellae' are 'girls'.

Do they not realize that the message they're sending there is that the girls are responsible for the abuse they got and that the solution is for them to shut up? The bit about endangering other pupils is the icing on the "a woman's place is in the wrong" cake

Yes, little girls should not be seen, heard, or indeed, exist.

"From Wikipedia "As with the original campaign, these spin-off campaigns have received criticism and backlash. The efforts of students at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls to participate in the campaign led to what one student described as a "torrent of degrading and explicitly sexual comments" when their pictures were published online; some of the participants received threatening messages.[12] Student Jinan Younis accused the school of failing to take action against the perpetrators and thus failing to support the participating students, while the school issued a statement recommending that students remove words or images they had placed online "that could compromise their safety or that of other students at the school."[12]"

Do they not realize that the message they're sending there is that the girls are responsible for the abuse they got and that the solution is for them to shut up? The bit about endangering other pupils is the icing on the "a woman's place is in the wrong" cake.

Oops - I tried to figure it out from here - but obviously read it wrong

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/puella#Latin

Caveat - all I know about Latin I learned from here

If children are really committing suicide, it must mean the ‘total affirmation’ model beloved by Mermaids etc. Is a failure. Not to mention the constant mention of suicide by Trans groups. But no, it’s probably those nasty terfs, telling kids theyre fine as they are.

Nope, puellae are definitely female (and feminine), sorry:

Puella:
Translation
Girl

Main Forms: Puella, Puellae
Gender: Feminine
Declension: First

So the school in question was also involved in telling girls to remove their pictures from the 'who needs feminism' tumblr campaign

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Needs_Feminism

From Wikipedia "As with the original campaign, these spin-off campaigns have received criticism and backlash. The efforts of students at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls to participate in the campaign led to what one student described as a "torrent of degrading and explicitly sexual comments" when their pictures were published online; some of the participants received threatening messages.[12] Student Jinan Younis accused the school of failing to take action against the perpetrators and thus failing to support the participating students, while the school issued a statement recommending that students remove words or images they had placed online "that could compromise their safety or that of other students at the school."[12]"

I think I've just been thumped over the head by the irony fairy.

One of my DDs goes to an all girls school. There have been a few trans pupils (biological girls now identifying as boys) and the pupils seems to take it in their stride. DD says, though, that most of them have left to go to co-ed schools. The school has been supportive and they have not left immediately (I guess they have valued the support of their friends), but once they get to the stage of fully identifying as a boy they probably feel unfortable in what is (and is called) a girls school.

Are there any examples of pupils born male and identifying as girls applying to all girls schools?

Whoever decided to name a character in a series of textbooks aimed at 12 and 13 year olds Sextus was definitely taking the piss. Either that or had suffered severe memory loss in their 20s and never met a child since.

Sadly none of those things, Spartacus!
We did have compulsory Latin, though, and the non-PC Latin teacher definitely called us Puellae throughout, without a clue what it might be doing to our developing psyches

I had to look that up - it sounds like the squishy part of the life-cycle of a butterfly to me. Does it simply mean 'boys and girls'? Although my students are usually older I'll have to try it out it beats 'OY YOU LOT!!!'

I'm jumping in to say me too - except we had 3rd form, lower 4th, upper 4th, lower 5th, upper 5th etc. And had enforced Latin lessons. What a bore they were!

And I loved all the Chalet School books.

I suspect we are a similar age ... and had similar reading habits? :)

YetAnotherSpartacus

I suspect we are a similar age...