BBC article on schools trans guidance

I find the whole situation so depressing as a teacher. My school is so "captured" and the number of trans identifying students is increasing all the time, and I think they wouldn't so rapidly if they weren't bombarded with progress badges and flags everywhere in the school. I've already contacted the DSL to push back on the policy that students use the changing rooms "they feel most comfortable in". After one assembly when a trans-ID male student, Susie* was invited to speak about his dyslexia [hundreds of students have dyslexia but he was chosen] one boy in my form asked me very seriously and concernedly whether that student uses the girls' facilities. Another simply snorted "That ain't no Susie". The majority of my students are so fed up of the few trans students being chosen for assemblies and parts in the school play etc.

The latest thing we were told at the recent inset is not to use the word "girls" when we mean female students. We must use a specific abstract symbol that essentially means 2nd best, I don't want to say because it's outing, but along the lines of "B", because we have a system where girls [and nb females and trans-boys] have a code with B in the system. Boys have A or C. A member of the 6th form team even said it in a sentence "if you've got any B's in your class...". I want to complain but I already stuck my neck out about the changing rooms. I resigned myself to moaning about it in my department - I told them if anyone dared call me a B to my face I'd bite their head off, I'm a fucking woman not a B.

Mumsnet is the only place I can talk about this... I tried telling some friends and all they could say was they thought it was wrong that trans boys are Bs too. Shouldn't they be lumping the trans girls with the "other girls". I'm exhausted

I wonder where that school got their "legal advice" from? Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids, Stonewall all purport to "know" the law in relation to this yet all ignore safeguarding guidance and overlay adult wishes onto children - completely legally untested. I suspect they'd find it hard to defend in a court a school removing parental rights - when in law only the courts have this legal ability. The police and social services both have to defer to the courts before removing parental rights,

There's no reference to safeguarding duties (apart from a government quote) in there? Mostly about following "equalities" law?

In what seems to be the case of a natal girl suffering gender distress, I feel for the school as regards changing facilities. The child is still female and so they were right not to put her with the males. If I were the mother of one of the boys, I'd have been extremely concerned about the impacts of that. And the child's family should be too. The school safeguarded her, it seems. They could try being grateful.

I noticed the 'Mike says Sam felt excluded from the discussion and would have been much happier using facilities with a gender-neutral sign.'

When DC was at sixth form, and again at university, apparently the transboys preferred the gender neutral loos; the transgirls preferred the girls' loos. Funny, that.

I think this is a good point too. I think more and more people don't think of 'gender dysphoria' as a medical condition. It's a choice that children have a right to make.

It's still fairly sinister that parents are considered to be an enemy. In law children are still responsible for their children and their children's education. We don't parent because the state says we can. I think parents need to take back 'control.' Teachers etc don't know our children better than us.

I thought that was a really key point Warrior. Which other medical diagnoses would schools allow students to make without reference even to their parents? Too sick to come to school today? Allergic to sport/swimming? Autism - need extra time in exams?

I like the juxtaposition of these paragraphs:

"We are talking about a very small number of people who are transgender, and I think that schools need to consider this," Mike says.

How are teachers navigating this?
As many as two thirds of secondary school teachers teach pupils who identify as transgender or non-binary,

Mike’s child is not as special as he thinks!

On a quick read, surprisingly balanced.