How to talk to 5yo DS about non-binary / trans teacher

I really don’t care what your opinion of me is and I’m not going to be bothered about you scolding me either I rarely get posts deleted. But my life experiences have led me to be angry about this issue.

Not hide it as such, I'm just aware that some people use Mx, usually NB or trans men. I can understand why some women don't want to be called Miss or Mrs. It's just a title yet so much has been read into this, without any evidence of any wrong doing at all!

Ha that's not what your comment said and you know it

Not everyone blindly goes along with something that has become toxic.. I have no issue with people presenting and dressing how they want but this isn’t the same issue as it was 15 years ago any more.

Why would anyone try to hide what sex they are?

What good purpose could there actually be to do such a thing?

I saw your comment before it rightly got deleted

FFS there's no evidence this teacher is trans at all, let alone a trans woman!! Going by the title Mx would indicate either prefers not to advertise what sex they are or is a trans man. Trans women do not go by Mx!! So ridiculous

Exactly this. Trans people can do what they like. But I’d prefer that my 5 year old didn’t have to learn all about an issue that has become incredibly toxic because some people feel that their voice, their problems and their victimhood trumps everyone else’s.

Ships and sometimes other vessels are referred to as she. It's a kind of personification. If you're aboard a ship, you're trusting your life to it. People form emotional attachments and personify the vessel, traditionally as a woman - maybe because historically the crews were all men and boys, and statistically speaking mostly straight. Some people also personify other beloved possessions like a car or a cello. They might give them a name and corresponding pronouns. If a male acts a female part in a play one might use 'she' referring to the character, not to the actor. This might include drag queens.

However, this is very different to using different pronouns on a daily basis for a person whose sex you know.

If they said I'd like to be called 'she' but of course I'm not really a woman and will respect women's privacy and stay out of their spaces, we might have gone along. I think for a number of years a lot of us did go along.

More recently it has become obvious that that incorrect pronoun is not being taken as a polite playing along with a harmless role play, it is being taken as acquiescence with the whole lie that the person is the opposite sex. Those little pronouns are being used as a crow-bar to force entry to single sex spaces people shouldn't be in.

And that's when more and more people started saying no.

The they or made up pronouns thing is also being used to force entry (though why 'they' can't just as well use their own sex's spaces I have no idea), and it also doesn't come naturally as a role play because they (plural) aren't role playing at being someone else, they're role playing at being extra specially different from anyone else. Which is pretentious and sounds it.

No wonder the op hasn’t been back!

@WhatNextCatsAsDoctors

This is what you wrote.

I’m clearly referring to the fact that many people traditionally refer to boats as her, saying things like ‘she’s beautiful’. I was using it as an extreme example around why pronouns are not precise labels for sex, which someone else said earlier in the thread. It’s simply not true.

It is true however. For anything that actually has a sex, pronouns have always referred to refer to their sex, not something else.

The very occasional example of a gendered noun, doesn't negate that in the slightest. In any case, the vast majority would use it for a boat, not she.

I’m clearly referring to the fact that many people traditionally refer to boats as her, saying things like ‘she’s beautiful’. I was using it as an extreme example around why pronouns are not precise labels for sex, which someone else said earlier in the thread. It’s simply not true.

Also I did NOT say that Islam was a race. Someone was speaking about race and I shared an example of Islamophobia. Many, many people consider Islamophobia to be a form of racism but I should’ve picked a better example (of which there were many to choose from). Don’t twist my words.

The irony of you saying I’m gaslighting when you are so purposefully twisting my points is too much.

There are gendered nouns in other languages, which occasionally cross over a little into English.

This, however, is totally irrelevant to whether we refer to sex or gender when using pronouns to refer to humans and pets - both of which have a sex.

You’re trying to gaslight us now @WhatNextCatsAsDoctors but it ain’t working I’m afraid.

The pronoun for boat is “it”. Pronouns function as a replacement for saying the noun. So I can say: That boat looks very expensive.

Or, if we’ve already discussed the boat and it’s clear what I’m referring to, I can say:
It looks expensive.

English unlike many other languages isn’t gendered when it comes to nouns. So while French has for example le pain for bread (masculine noun) and la maison for house (feminine noun), there’s no equivalent in English.

Kindly stop trying to sound as if you understand what you’re saying because your last post in particular is plain gobbledegook. It’s a tedious way of attempting to derail a valid discussion and as I said above, it won’t wash with many posters and readers. Your earlier comment about Islam being a race was frankly ignorant.

We are not talking about boats.

Pronouns are what we use in place of someone’s name to communicate with a third party about the person under discussion. We are able to do this even if we don’t personally know the person under discussion because we can tell what sex people are and so can the person we are talking to. It is how language evolved.

No-one owns their own pronouns. They are a function of whatever language is being spoken. And they refer to sex in English (except for the drag queen situation which is theatrical convention stemming from gay males sometimes calling each other “she”).

Sometimes we do. But as I said in my post, pronouns in English have never functioned as precise labels for biological sex. What’s the biological sex of a boat?

Agree.

Exactly and likewise Mr and Mrs also refer to sex not gender. "Mx" as far as I can tell doesn't refer to anything.

We absolutely do use pronouns for sex. Evidenced by every person who's ever used a pronoun for a baby or an animal. None of them can be said to have a 'gender identity'.

We do use pronouns for sex.

If they have a man’s voice but look like a woman because they are a man dressed up as a woman, you would be telling them a lie about an important fact of life.

I would find out for yourself OP, then move your child if the teacher is a man dressed as a woman. Five is too young to not get muddled.

@Christinapple

any teacher who is putting their own wants / emotional needs before those of the children, shouldn’t be teaching.

@WhatNextCatsAsDoctors do you think a 5 year old could be accused of creating a hostile work environment? Pulease.

We find it very jarring when we read a sentence like:

Mary was at work when he noticed the window was open. (Who's "he"?)
or
The actress thought they could ask for a day off (one actress, we know she's female, so "they" must be someone else).
If we see someone with a female sexed body then exactly the same applies - in both of these instances we'll be confused about the pronouns as neither "he" nor "they" can refer to someone who is clearly female.
If you read "the child will bring their books to school" you don't know the sex and indeed if you see a baby dressed neutrally you'd probably also go with "they" but it's jarring and confusing to have a pronoun that doesn't match sex.

If we use "she" for drag queens on a night out that's a really advanced use of metaphor which children won't understand. Just like they wouldn't understand mum or dad having a "cheeky half" or a "lock in": because they are children and don't understand idiom or adult contexts.