‘School rushed to help our boy become a girl’

Just came on to post that link IsitM - superb piece from Safe School Alliance. It's terrifying how safeguarding just goes out of the window the moment the word 'trans' comes in to view. And this lunacy is being pushed by Welsh Government.

"They have failed this vulnerable child and his family miserably. They have thrown all established safeguarding out the window. They have abandoned the principle of working collaboratively with parents in the best interests of children. They have shown absolutely no professional curiosity regarding the toolkit from the council."

This should be shared with all schools, with every teacher you know, hell, with everyone:
"This toolkit fails every child in the county with its disregard for child safeguarding and respecting the human rights of all."

merchedcymru.wales/2021/08/23/rct-council-transgender-toolkit-for-secondary-schools-is-a-safeguarding-nightmare/

Just popping in from SSA to say we have produced an advice note for parents and teachers worried about school policies.

safeschoolsallianceuk.net/2021/08/22/advice-for-parents-on-social-transitioning-by-schools/?fbclid=IwAR2Vf7Kn6MC-j3G6YwZwl6ZoBd31xQYsg_9BU7paCp8lbtAdsyAvWtcOr5A

Also Tanya Carter from SSA was talking on GB news this morning about this.

Other mumsnetters might find it worthwhile to look into this initiative and to nominate school staff.
sex-matters.org/take-action/sponsor-a-gift-copy-of-helen-joyces-book-trans/getting-it-read/

Thank you for speaking up @hip, would you consider writing a letter to the Sunday Times to make this point? The whole thing has gone utterly crazy

I've seen that on countless occasions oscarandelliesdad . Sadly this ideology with its #nodebate mantras encourages this arrogant approach to parents.
I found working in safeguarding (as opposed to doing a couple of courses) a real eye opener and it embedded in me an understanding that children can love the most abusive of parents and breaking that fundamental parent / child relationship (which at times is necessary) rarely results in good outcomes for the child.
It's outrageous that trans activists have been allowed to use children and schools as collateral in their personal battles. I hope more and more parents take action against schools for this fundamental breach of basic safeguarding guidelines.

@MrsOvertonsWindow. That is really interesting, I have left a school because of that toxic attitude towards parents. The senior management down would eye roll to each other about parents and gossip about the children's home lives. There was very much an unspoken sense of superiority to the families we taught. I'm in Scotland too so we had the whole'named person' hoo ha going on in the background. I could quite easily picture then changing names of a pupil on a register without consulting the parents.
They also used to use well behaved girls to moderate the behaviour of boys that were struggling in school. Awful fucking place. Happily my next school couldn't be more different and went out of it's way to support and advocate for our families as education partners. Sorry to digress from the point a bit there

That's an excellent article and the comments underneath are great.
Sadly too few parents understand that there's a toxic atmosphere developed in too many schools where parents are now automatically seen as bigots and unhelpful to their children if they fail to bow deeply enough in obeisance to the overwhelming power of the trans ideology.

What on earth will happen when these children reach adulthood and look at their scars and malfunctioning bodies addicted to drugs and more surgery? It doesn't bear thinking about.

I suspect that part of the problem is that many teachers, and also students and parents, even before gender was an issue, were being heavily pushed along other identity politics lines around race, sexuality, etc. But not in the same way as many of us who are older would remember from school.

What I find really noticeable now when I am in schools is that all of these ideas are simply taught as unquestionable truths, that there is one way, for example, to think about race, or sexism, or sexuality, that is right. And people who disagree, or did so in the past, simply did so because they were racists. Now, we know better so we do better.

There is no sense among even the older children that it is possible to have an intelligent discussion about some of these questions, that even among non-racists or people who aren't sexists there might be differences of opinion on certain issues.

So when gender ideology came along, it was slotted into the same kind of approach. Teachers treat it the same way, and many would see questioning it the same way they would see questioning the latest antiracism idea - as something only a bigot would do.

@oscarandelliesdad the kindness point is a really good one. That is the genius of the gender ideologists’ strategy. The conversion therapy discussion going on now is a good example. Of course trying to change someone’s sexuality through coercion of any form is hideous. But watchful waiting, rather than instant affirmation of gender id, risks being lumped in with genuinely awful practices.

The other key point I think is the eggshell-walking that has come about through the rigid policing of language. Again, this has piggy-backed on much needed work against racism and sexism, but the high profile success of getting misgendering or TWANW views classed as hateful has left people anxious and it is no surprise they then they cling to the life raft of gender neutrality crewed by the many charities and consultancies that offer CPD.

'When the institutions of your profession have all been captured and you need to pay the mortgage, it’s not easy to stand up' @partystress has it, I think.
I have a few quietly gender critical colleagues, one of whom is totally fearless. Generally though, it is a subject we avoid. Teacher's are also heavily into the 'be kind' mantra and many have not stopped to really think about the repurcussions of this craziness, if they do raise questions and get shot down , it would be horrifying to be thought of as bigoted, let alone any official reprimands that may arise.

You are making sense Gibbons and I didn’t feel got at!

We are required to teach “the facts” about sex and gender but these seem open to interpretation. When most people are nervous and look the other way, there is plenty of space for ideology to sneak in. Sometimes this is accidental: lessons have been downloaded from the internet without any scrutiny on the assumption that they are written by “experts”.

We have no policy for “trans” children (or staff) at my school. We do apparently have a few “gender-questioning” children but it’s all very hush-hush.

HipTightOnions thank you for speaking up

To be clear the intention of my questions wasn't to denigrate teachers but to question the environment that is allowing such things to happen. In Scotland I think much of it can be linked to the SNPs authoritarian desire to separate children from their families (Named Persons etc).
Across the Uk There seems to be a general "get the teachers to do it" push over the last decade (? Two?) for all sorts of raising children type things whereas previously teachers were expected to teach academics.

(I'm probably not making much sense!)

I am in a very fortunate position as a teacher - mortgage paid, and though I love my job, I have no financial need to work - so I am speaking up.

I have been horrified at the reaction, and how easy it is to make a teacher’s working life really quite miserable. I have some “woke” colleagues but I think the majority are scared to even think about the issue - we have no policy - and so shut down any attempt at discussion in a pretty brutal manner.

Teachers are a compliant bunch by and large because, despite what you hear, it’s distressingly easy to get rid of them. Performance management is so subjective in schools that a headteacher can make like unbearable for a teacher they want rid of.

Teachers love teaching, for the most part, so they do what they have to around the edges in order to be not the one in the sights of senior leadership for ‘support’. Plus, the DfE, the Chartered College and the head teachers’ union have very clearly signalled that diversity and inclusion is all about the T. The NAHT’s chosen charity partner was strongly focused on T representation. The DfE promoted a similar charity during diversity week. The Chartered Collge tweeted a link to an anti-Transgender Trend petition. When the institutions of your profession have all been captured and you need to pay the mortgage, it’s not easy to stand up.

Cite not cute

It seems to me to be the theme that threads all this together in a variety of spheres can be summed up as professionalism. They can cute boxes ticked and it excludes them from personal responsibility. Moral responsibility no longer exists.

Sorry, I meant affirmation is presented as safeguarding.

Why are teachers throwing away safeguarding?

Because to affirm their chosen identity presented AS safeguarding.

It’s a nightmare for GC teachers. Many of us are already having to be careful what we say in the workplace. Lots of the education authorities have swallowed the ‘born in the wrong body’ line and there are a sizeable number of parents gunning for anyone who doesn’t immediately support their child in its new identity.

Maybe the teachers are wanting to keep their jobs?

Why are teachers seemingly keen to assume parental responsibility in this one area?

Because issues like bullying are a 'wicked problem' that nobody has the political will or resources to solve and this looks like a reputational win and is comparatively straightforward to implement?

Plus, in the UK, I doubt the teachers who implement this will ever be subject to legal ramifications if they're following a policy, no matter how flawed, because it's presented as best practice.

NATALT obviously

It's as though the flat earthers are in charge now.
It seems part of an anti scientific movement that has taken over the West.
Being Trans is a hard road for a person to take, the dysphoria, the surgery, the dificulty acquiring sexual partners etc etc, we should not be cheerleeding them into this as though it is not a big deal, and as though itis literally true. By affirming it you are setting in stone what might be just a phase and I don't know who's interests this serves but it is not the childs.

How is it possible that teachers, who are expected to have basic science knowledge as a minimum, are going along with this nonsense?