I am resolutely gender critical and one of the things that makes it so tricky for me to believe the 'born in the wrong body' idea is that I was a primary teacher for about ten years (from 2000 onwards) and the question of gender identity never arose. Ever.
To give a little context, I was a full time class-teacher for many of those years (across four schools), spending the whole year with 30+ children (so knowing them extremely well) and then taking on management positions where I was involved in reviewing the attainment, progress and wellbeing of dozens of other children. Yet a desire for a child to identify as a different gender to that of his or her biological sex was just not apparent; many children were facing problems such as poverty, broken families, refugee status, learning disabilities, involvement with the social care system, being a young carer... I worked in schools where a significant proportion of children could be described as disadvantaged; in other schools I also taught the children of surgeons, diplomats and bankers. Huge amounts of time were spent in school on initiatives to support children's wellbeing. There were undoubtedly children who had mental health needs and, at the time, budgets were good so services such as school counselling or play therapy were available for some children where there were particular concerns. As a teacher I worked alongside those other professionals and read their reports, yet the issue of gender identity was never, ever mentioned. Other children were receiving support from CAMHS (even a very well-known clinic in London) and the lack of feedback on this topic was the same. Nor was it ever raised in training sessions, professional development meetings or online teaching forums, where I spent a lot of time.
This lacuna is very puzzling to me, as that same generation of children is now in their mid-twenties and a narrative of having 'felt wrong' from an early age seems to be prevalent. If this was so much the case, why did it never arise? Not once, in the many hundreds of children with whom I had contact? Never from colleagues in other schools? I am confident that it would have been discussed, albeit anonymised. Schools were certainly making time and resources available to explore and support wellbeing, so surely it would have emerged? Or are personal histories simply being re-told to suit current identities?
However, for the sake of fairness, it is important to note that, at the time, mental health was generally viewed by schools in terms of how it was impacting upon a child's progress, attainment and behaviour, rather than being an outcome in itself. I think that shift in perspective has been beneficial - I think that children and young people certainly do get more support than hitherto which can only be a good thing - but I also wonder if a certain 'pathologising' of emotions has taken place...
So, arriving at my original point, were you teaching around the same time and were your observations and experiences similar to mine? If not, when did you first notice gender identity politics becoming apparent in schools?