Are there any GC teachers here?

I have a few goths/emos though I think most will have left this year.

Definitely a distinct lack of tomboys though. Our one 'identifies as a boy' pupil is indistinguishable from what would have been a tomboy in my day. We do have one of two rather 'camp' boys who brilliantly seem to give zero fucks.

Something I have noticed and I'm not sure if others working in secondary have noted it too is that ALL of the teenage girls I i each have very very long hair. The only girls with short hair (2) identify as boys.

This might seem like a small thing but when I was at school (am 36) there were a lot of acceptable hairstyles. Bobs, pixie, shoulder length etc. Now ALL the girls have extremely long hair down past the midpoint of their backs. It seems like there is this hyper feminine orthodoxy and if you don't fit into it then you must be a boy. Tomboys don't exist. I don't even think there are goths/emos all those tribes anymore.

I find it disturbing.

Me - family support worker.

I attended a conference earlier this year about supporting LGBTQI+ young people and shamelessly carried the flag for GC views. I declined to give my pronouns and at a workshop on gender when asked for definitions, I said that sex is binary and gender is stereotypes that have oppressed people (mostly women) for decades. It’s no exaggeration to say a pile-on ensued, but thanks to FWR I had plenty of ammunition to defend my views.

I care too much about the damage to children to keep my mouth shut but I know I’m lucky that I’m not the sole earner in our household.

Me, but I keep quiet at school. We have a fair few trans kids and no matter what I said it would backfire - I have to put them first so I am just gently supportive, because I have to be. I do take every opportunity to point out feminist issues in the texts I teach though.

Great comments on here. If we keep children's needs and rights centred as opposed to the demands of lobby groups, then schools won't go far wrong. There's a massive iceberg underneath the good ship Woke and it is slowly slowly starting to appear ,

I'm a governor at a primary school and aim to ensure no teaching on gender identity or biased external instructors at a review meeting in Sept. Obviously we'd accommodate and educate appropriately if we had a trans child at the sch. So maybe govs might be a way to shape things at your sch?

My DD moves to secondary in Sept so am hoping here to get gender identity (which is on the curriculum) taught as a contested new idea rather than as fact, and more emphasis on exploring gender stereotypes and their problems. And teach them there have always been g non-conformists e.g. Boy George

Sorry for typos - doing it one handed while drying my hair.

Twitter account

The other day

I follow a retiree account called GCSE Macbeth and the other fat they said something re transphobic dog whistles from behaviour gurus - obs a ref to Tom bennet

I am one. But my dept is v young and woke and I'm ashamed to say I'm not out, only with one senior colleague who is a gay man and seems bemused and bewildered by the whole thing.

I also teach language and gender at a level. I play devils advocate a lot. "Some people might argue that...." etc

I’m a GC biology teacher. Many colleagues know this, and agree. You can’t teach biology and believe that men can menstruate or gestate. I also don’t want young people to believe they can avoid aspects of puberty by identifying away from them.

We have a few trans young people, and whilst I want them to be safe, happy and healthy, I support the need for single sex spaces. Third spaces are the only way forward IMO.

GC science teacher here. I don't do twitter but have outed myself on FB, but I'm not friends with colleagues on there and I don't follow or post to the school feed either.

I'd say most of the staff are quietly GC. One has a child in the process of going FTM and is totally enraged that her child has been pushed in that direction, definitely GC there.

We have one Year 8 who 'identifies as a boy' but afaik uses female toilets and original feminine name, I haven't taught them and I have no idea what their pronouns are, and I won't this year either as I have no year 8 classes. To be fair, no one wants to identify into the boys toilets at our school, and a 'gender neutral' option has never been even considered afaik. Parents round here are pretty old school so I can't see it any time soon.

So pleased to see so many responses here. I run two Twitter accounts because I slightly fear for my job if I am out as GC - in education, but not school-based.

The Chartered College is a worry for me. Seem well and truly captured and in a position to influence particularly new teachers, who as PPs have commented, want to be ‘kind’. And the heads’ union, NAHT, has partnered with Diversity Role Models, the group who produced the awful ASDA -supported pack that was withdrawn, and whose ambassadors and resources seem very focused on gender identity.

I feel there are many more GC than are visible, but successfully silenced by the authoritarian nature of the thought and speech policing, and the brazen misrepresentation of the law.

I'm a GC teacher, but as I teach MFL in a variety of settings (primary to adult), I'm in schools pretty briefly and gender stuff doesn't really come up for me. I'm not sure I'd be willing to out myself as GC though. My dc's school (where dh also works) has a few trans kids, but I don't think there's been much controversy about anything. Not sure what the toilet situation is actually.

Me. Out at primary school. Teach that females with XX chromosomes menstruate in SRE. Have been mildly challenged on general GC stance by a previous SLT member who has since moved on, and current Science lead (a 'kind' NQT). Have irritating AF 'All Genders' signage on unisex staff loos; keen to get that changed to Unisex (or the snappy 'Both Sexes') this year.

Secondary teacher and teach subjects where it does come up as a topic. Tend to be very careful about how I discuss it. Not openly gc except to a few close colleagues. We have trans children in the school and I have/had some in lessons. Had a lot of respect for the trans student I was knew best and wouldn't dream of making them feel uncomfortable intentionally. Makes it all very tricky.

Me.
I have timidly challenged the idea that we should talk about a gender identity.
Will continue to object to it.

I am GC and teach in a school for boys with SEMH needs. Now, as much as I adore my students, there is no pretending that many, many of them are actually transphobic, homophobic etc. So even as GC I spend a fair deal of my time explaining that wishing physical harm or death on transgender and/or gay people is not acceptable/legal.

I am SLT at a secondary school and as a team we are gc. We have resisted suggestions by some staff that we should have stonewall in for training.

I did find one annoyingly woke book in the library but didn't have the guts to raise it. SLT hate me enough as it is, don't need to give them more ammunition 😅

Secondary. In a school of 800 pupils we have two female non-binary pupils and 3 trans boys. HT says it's still very rare for children to be trans in our school, which I'm about. I suspect that the trans boys have problems accepting their sexual orientation. All but one of thew kids come from troubled homes. Our school never does anything to do with LGB rights, which used to piss me off. I'm not getting involved now though, as it will be trans left right and centre. I also wonder if there was more support for gay teens whether fewer would be trans...

I know of one colleague who is very woke. When I pointed out that there are issues with women's safe spaces I got the predictable reply about the numbers being small and inclusivity being more important. I left it at that's she is very vocal and I was new to GC ideas.

When it was discussed in the staffroom at break time someone mentioned that born men would never be allowed into women's sports. I said it was happening already, to which the caretaker replied, "Well that's clearly wrong then!". He'd piss himself laughing at the suggestion he was a feminist but he got that one very right!

@moptophairshop so good to hear you'll be checking the PSHE resources at school. This is even more important with mandatory RSE coming in. I'm a retired teacher and LEA advisor so just about to join edutwitter.

Me. Not in the U.K. though.

Staff all GC I would say.