Non Binary Teachers

Yet, I find the claim that there are more than two sexes, and that it's possible to change sex, offensive and dangerous.

So how to proceed?

@MrsOvertonsWindow you don't think saying 'schools are teaching kids that facts no longer exist' is extreme? Again, I ask you where the evidence is, because frankly that kind of claim is offensive.

I am a teacher and I use the term non binary because I reject the gender binary.

If "reject the gender binary" refers to rejecting expectations and limitations based on someone's sex, I think the vast majority of posters on this thread will be in agreement. Like me, many wouldn't call it "the gender binary" these days, owing to the way that the word gender has ceased to be a synonym for sex in common parlence. These days it's become shorthand for a gender identity, where gender (identity) refers to the way someone chooses to opt in or out of cultural sex-based expectations/limitations.

The key question: does "rejecting the gender binary" mean that you ask your students to refer to you with they/them pronouns? If so, what would you say or do if they didn't?

I never used the word “compelled” or “forced”.
So what word would you use for your actions, of firm correction, when a pupil calls you something other than what you want?

You mean when they call me “Mrs” and I remind them it’s “Ms”? I just say “It’s Ms Coffee473 actually” and get on with the lesson. I also never mentioned “firm correction”.

To the previous poster who mentioned a teacher “telling students off” when they didn’t address them as “Mx” - obviously that is not right. But in my experience that is not the norm.

I actually found it quite refreshing that my class of teenage boys, after having the supply teacher who identified as non-binary and asked them to use the name “Teacher” made absolutely no comment whatsoever. They talked about what they had done in the lesson and just said “Teacher Jones told us… “ (and yes it was about the topic and not gaslighting or brainwashing about trans ideology)

In my humble experience, the teens are quite accepting and not bothered by any of it.

What did that post say that's untrue?

@ArabellaScott for example the comment below, quoting George Orwell. An extreme comment in response to unproven and unsubstantiated internet claims.

I think it is okay for teachers to believe in gender identity/ideology, but they should no more be allowed to indoctrinate, coerce or compel children to go along with it than any other extremist belief system.

I think it's also okay for teachers to ask to be called 'Mx' or to say they believe they are non binary so long as no child is expected to actually believe that there is a third sex, and the counter idea, that humans are dimorphic mammals and sex change is not possible, is also offered.

This is a massive social experiment with children being used by the medical profession to experiment on with untested drugs and experimental brutal sex change surgery. Schools teaching children that science and facts no longer exist. That sex change is not only possible but really desirable, even for the youngest of children. That they have no rights to privacy and boundaries from the opposite sex. The professions that children are meant to respect and aspire to be now promote complete nonsense, TWAW, some people have no sex etc
The impact of this experiment on the young is already catastrophic - not only for those desperate, mentally vulnerable children trying to medicate their way out of their developing bodies but also other children as they realise these once respected adults are literally telling lies.

As Orwell reminds us:
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command".

Everyone is a boy or a girl. To pretend otherwise is gaslighting.

Coffee473 · Today 16:14

I never used the word “compelled” or “forced”.

So what word would you use for your actions, of firm correction, when a pupil calls you something other than what you want?

@Coffee473

I think you are trying to twist the issue to make it fit into ‘safeguarding’ because it’s something you are uncomfortable with.

You don't believe that encouraging children to tell untruths for the purposes of making adults feel better is a safeguarding issue?

Would you call him Father if he had nothing to do with the church but just liked to fantasise about being an ordained priest?

rainydaysandwednesdays · Today 15:14

They won't have this at private school, that's for sure.

No, they have something worse:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4992522-dear-god-has-everyone-seen-this?reply=132484686

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12991767/We-treat-young-people-individuals-seeking-accommodate-needs-accordingly-45-000-year-boarding-school-taught-Daniel-Day-Lewis-singer-Lily-Allen-REFUSES-trans-pupils-plans.html

Boarding school that charges £45,000-a-year and taught Lily Allen and Daniel Day-Lewis refuses to back down over plans to let trans pupils stay in dorms of their 'preferred gender', declaring 'We treat all our young people as individuals'

BonfireLady · Today 10:15

Thanks for your link to Anya's Twitter thread, it turns out that I had a similar question.

Yet the poster upthread pointed out her experience of children feeling anxious to the point of schools refusal for fear of being told off by this "non binary" male teacher. For a teacher you seem to be remarkably complacent about how effective conditions for learning work in a classroom?
Good teachers always put the needs of the children first, differentiating, ensuring that the weakest are supported and the able children extended. The idea that a teacher would suddenly start disciplining children for calling an evidently male teacher sir demonstrates just how little they're concerned about children and learning. The children are being used to validate their luxury belief.

Where is this 'frenzy', can you point it out, please?

The boy is on the spectrum. He hadn't intended offense, by all accounts, but was confused. How on earth is it 'transphobic' to ask whether a person is male or female, what does it even have to do with trans people? Presumably the SC was quite androgynous looking, so it might have been a perfectly rational question, if not one that most people would ask.

Yes, it was rude, but is there no consideration for people who struggle with societal rules and manners? And since when did 'rude' become something we arrested people for?

Wow,ok. I do feel really sorry for that teacher who is clearly tying himself in knots trying to follow the school’s inclusivity policy and handled it badly. The student shouldn’t have filmed him though- and that’s why he was suspended.

The boy shouting “is it a boy or is it a girl?” is clearly transphobic, not sure what your point is.

But in my experience it would be explained to a child, in an age appropriate way, that yes, this person looks like a woman but they want to be called “Mx” and “they”. But if you forget sometimes it’s fine. They are not being ‘gaslit’ or told “no, you idiot, that man with a beard is clearly a woman”

'This person looks like a woman but they want to be called "Mx" ' - Gasligting.

'This person is a woman but they want to be called "Mx" ' - not gaslighting.

For me, there's a lot of people getting whipped into a frenzy here based on the testimony of a random person on the internet's teenage daughter. Where is the evidence this is happening? And frankly, if it is- why isn't the OP following the complaints procedure?

I am a teacher and I use the term non binary because I reject the gender binary.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67754359

'Minister for Women and Equalities Kemi Badenoch added the guidance made clear "schools do not have to accept a child's request to socially transition" - a term referring to when someone wants to change their name, pronoun, or clothing to reflect their gender identity.
Teachers or pupils should not be pressured into using different pronouns, she said.'

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/teen-prosecuted-after-asking-whether-17651755

'Declan Armstrong, 19, was given a curfew requirement and ordered to pay £590 at Mold Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday after he was found guilty of making the comments to PCSO Connor Freel following an earlier trial.
Rhian Jackson, prosecuting, said Mr Freel had been in full uniform on foot patrol in Mold on October 16 last year when he passed Armstrong, who was with friend Chelsea Bassett.
She said: “Declan then shouted very loudly: ‘Is it a boy or is it a girl?’.” She said when Mr Freel looked over at Armstrong he made the comment loudly again.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7171195/Teenager-17-insisted-two-genders-suspended-school.html

'A teenager suspended from school after insisting there are ‘only two genders’ has revealed he spoke out in protest at the ‘dangerous’ views being forced on to pupils.
The 17-year-old sparked an international debate about transgender rights and free speech after a secretly filmed video clip of him being reprimanded by his teacher went viral.
He was thrown out of class after arguing that only two genders exist – male and female – a position which his teacher claimed was ‘not inclusive’.'

But in my experience it would be explained to a child, in an age appropriate way, that yes, this person looks like a woman but they want to be called “Mx” and “they”. But if you forget sometimes it’s fine. They are not being ‘gaslit’ or told “no, you idiot, that man with a beard is clearly a woman”

From what the OP says, the pronouns are just a symptom of teachers with very poor skills. Sounds like they're being used, as they usually are, as a tool for forcing compliance (sometimes subtle social pressure, sometimes overt threat of sanction).

The underlying problem is teachers using children for self validation and prioritising their own needs/wants/feelings above those of the children they are supposedly responsible for.

This is quite common ime - there are lots of teachers with weak life skills, social skills, teaching skills. What is new, I suppose, is that 'diverse gender identitites' are a useful vehicle that allows people with these issues to find new ways to try to control, manipulate and exert influence on children ostensibly in their care.

Whereas a teacher making inappropriate political statements would be pulled up, however, I'm not quite sure that a teacher making 'gender' statements would be similarly brought into line.

It does make me think of a very new, shiny belief system that has been encouraged, fostered, and paid obeisance to by government and industry. It's created a whole wave of self identified priests who see a great way to access power.

And I can also find a bit of sympathy with what are probably young, inexperienced teachers, struggling with 'identity' issues and having been taught a lot of pish in uni, now coming up against those most clear-eyed, ruthless, and honest of judges - teenagers.