Critic my Letter to DD school regards LGBT club

All these threads make me wonder what the attitude of a school management would be to a mixed sex "heterosexual lunchtime club" with 18 year olds discussing sex and relationships with 11 year olds.

I somehow doubt it would be hailed as progressive and inclusive, and certainly any middle-aged-male-teacher who offered to run it (most likely alone) would be viewed askance!

Why is it that LGB children are presumed to be deserving of less stringent safeguarding than their peers?

Whilst your letter raises some very valuable and valid concerns, as the parent of a child with ASD I would be more likely to approach school first and ask what was being suggested in the club. My main difficulty being that my child hears "you could", "you might like to", "you may" as "You MUST". This leads to quite a number of situations where she has taken things in entirely the wrong way.

Lots of schools run LGBT clubs now- membership isn't restricted to those that identify as LGBT, but more as support groups for people and friends of people who are affected by questioning their identity.

I think it’s unprofessional too. When I was at school one teacher in particular was gay (others would have been - but we just didn’t care) and I remember my friend bumping into him at a gay club when she was almost 18 (in sixth year). She said that the just stopped, gawped at each other and then both sidled away (and it was never mentioned).

He didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know. As it should be! Unless a child (and these are kids) are exposed to harm then the teachers really have no right to get involved with their private lives, just as the children don’t have a right to their teachers private lives. And all l this ‘pick a sexuality NOW’ and ‘it’s our secret’ is just plain wrong, and very sinister.

The trouble is Darhon - what qualifies any teacher, pastorally minded or not, to run an LGBT club with children. What are the aim of the sessions? What qualifications do you need when dabbling in children's sexuality? Do you need to be LGBT? Apparently some groups in schools are run by sixth formers.
I'm a lesbian teacher with endless pastoral and safeguarding qualifications and I wouldn't touch a group like this with a bargepole. It's professionally dangerous, but like so many other initiatives being pushed at schools by adult LGBT activist groups, the issues of child development and psychology, let alone safeguarding are completely absent from all their work.

I said upthread, running a group like this, especially without explicit parental consent and an open curriculum plus supervision is opening up adults running this to all sorts of serious charges. Schools are places of learning, not where adults proselytise to children about sexuality. Children's emotional health and wellbeing is NOT best served by running groups about sex / sexualities.

Indie not undue - sorry

@KittenKong

Yeah and in my day they were goths/undue kids. But this isn’t where we are at now. Also, I didn’t know anyone at all at School who was LGBTQ+ and kids who were often miserable and unhappy. So I really don’t want to go back to those days as some sort of accepting utopia. We are where we are in late post-industrialist capitalism and need to keep discourse open.

There are loads of trends that you have to navigate teens through and ASC ones with a more interventionist hand. Self-harm and neurological tics are fairly common at the moment. Knowing someone who thinks they are trans or wondering whether you are bi don’t necessarily lead to anything and overreacting and banning the child from attending are not always the best way to manage teens. But I also accept the poster’s child is highly anxious at the moment and probably needs lots of pastoral support.

@Darhon

Your comments would be completely on the button if it wasn't for the emerging trend that the idea of social transition, binding, medicalisation and surgery for preteens is being normalised for & amongst our children - and we old fogey bigoted parents are being completely left out of the loop.

Then good luck!!

In my day they ‘quirky’ and non c kids hung out in computer club and ate pizza.

I suspect the LGBTQ club is where the slightly quirky and non-conforming kids hang out. I suspect many of the discussions are driven by the kids and you probably have one of the very nice, pastorally minded teachers running it who is probably managing it in an appropriate way. To some extent, for your daughter, having an adult around for these discussions is probably useful. I think the wider issue, and I massively feel for you, is the lack of SEN/Mental Health support. She may be a child who will very much struggle to manage in a mainstream, large secondary and it's awful.

I would manage the discussions around sexuality at home as you would anything else. Lots of reassurance that it doesn't matter and she doesn't have to decide yet. The rainbow thing is probably a way of finding an identity in what feels a shifting situation. If you think it makes her more anxious to follow the rainbow, then discourage it, if it's something she finds soothing, support it but contextualise in terms of rights and wider issues not just about identity and her sexuality.

And yes I have teens, and yes one is high functioning ASC -diagnosed after a horrid time as an early teen and yes, my kids have LGBTQ+ identities (it's hard to find a straight teen around in some social circles!) and yes, I have a job working with young people and disabled ones at that. So I don't actually think it's hugely concerning. Her lack of support is and I would want to discuss this with the pastoral team in more detail.

If it's a formal complaint open the letter with that statement as the school will have two process, one to deal with formal complaints and one for everything else.

Dear
I have a safeguarding concern please consider this letter a formal complaint.

Please note that I will be raising this very serious issue with the governors and Ofsted.

The safeguarding concern is for my daughter…she is 12 years old, still in..

I'd be absolutely fuming if my children's school had a club like this. It's completely inappropriate. I have an older, autistic teenager who thinks she's transgender, and if school had encouraged her then they wouldn't have heard the end of it from me.

I hope your letter gets a good result.

Yep. Happening in my other dds school too.

And a breach of the equality act also.

Apologies - was in reply to @Levithian

For me, it's not about being gay, but the current trend now to be non-binary, or trans, and for young girls to be rejecting what they feel is being female, and a growing trend in body and gender dysphoria.
Young girls seem to know all about binders, puberty blockers, hormones, 'top-surgery' - that is the real issue - being same-sex-attracted is a small part of it.

OP, just a thought, it might be worth asking what her friend has said to her. could the friend have an influence on your DD ? has the friend invited her to apps, groups online or shared links?