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

You nailed it. I’d be removing my child. This is unacceptable.

I'd go with being child-led. They ask questions, give them answers. Say as much as necessary to answer the questions, as little as possible to give them space to be curious and come up with their own next questions.

It'd be very weird to discuss or speculate about an adult's private parts with a child.

Starting off with basic respect, we call people by the names and titles they prefer.

Oh lord, find out first!! Lots of women look masculine or have deep voices. I think you're rather jumping to conclusions!

I'd move if I could but I understand it's probably not a realistic prospect.

But he would absolutely go into school and say "My mum says Mx ... is really a man".

Let him

Make it clear you refuse to lie as is your right, that if your child is corrected you will take it up with the school and that you expect him not to be singled out by teachers for having different beliefs.

You respect the person but you will not tell a 5 year old lies about sex for safeguarding reasons.

Then make sure all their policies are in line with the equality act using sex and having gone through / are in the process of gender reassignment (note non binary does not have legal status as it is not reassigning to the other sex, it is trying to be neither) and do not use gender identity which is a weasel phrase which is incorrect.

They pretty much can't do shit at this point, without you having massive recourse to tell them to fuck off if you need to.

I wouldn’t have that person teaching and educating my child.

That’s ridiculous We can always really tell. That’s getting into dangerous territory telling a young child not to trust his own eyes, ears and instincts.

OP perhaps contact Safe Schools Alliance or look on their website for advice.

DD1 (19) has LD and asked why a friend of DD2 now has a male name. I just said 'some people feel happier when they call themselves something different. So we can call them the name they prefer."

If you take that line, you can avoid the male/female thing altogether and just say 'this is the name we use.'

Children do innately know, though. DD1 had a taxi driver when she was young, who wore bright pink, had boobs, long hair, female name, makeup. DD1 would always stumble over he/she if she was talking about them. Her brain just knew and she was having to consciously override it.

I would pop into school and ask at the office. Say your ds isn't sure if his teacher is male or female and you couldn't tell him because the title is ambiguous and you haven't met the teacher yourself.

If the member of staff doesn't give enough clarity, push politely eg if they say the teacher is a woman or non binary, ask whether it's someone born female or someone born male but now identifying as a woman or nb.

If the teacher is male, you can tell your son that the teacher is a man but some men like to wear dresses and make up. That's fine because we can all dress however we want but it's a bit confusing if you haven't seen a man dress like that before.

How about this.

Everyone is male or female, but sometimes we can't tell.

I would go into school and find out what the situation actually is. It might just be a manly woman?
If it is a man identifying as a woman ask the school what they recommend you say, 5yr olds cannot negotiate this diplomatic minefield. The cognitive dissonance is a lot. But on the other hand 5yr olds are also open to accepting gender non-conforming men, I would frame it as they have the body of a man but they like to wear a dress (or whatever they wear). Lots of little boys like wearing Elsa dresses and that’s fine.

I would treat it the same way that I'd treat overt displays of any personal belief someone holds. So with this maybe "some people don't want anyone to know whether they are a boy or a girl". I think that would be enough to satisfy a five year old without getting into anything about gender or "changing your sex".

Think about what you'd say if he had eg a female teacher who wore a hijab and he asked why and go from there, that's my suggestion.

'I don't know, but you can ask them'

DO NOT DO THIS OP!!

JFC

If you’re from New Zealand.

The school need to be advising you all on this. Every school I know expects the children to call the teachers Miss smith / Mrs smith / mr smith etc.

"Mx Smith" is fine but the school need to be supporting parents in having the conversations with their children because 5 year olds are too little to understand transgenderism, however open you are to having those conversations with them at that age.

Hmmm. Personally I don’t think we should be telling reception aged children that their teachers are tricking them. They should be able to trust their teachers.

Can you email the head and ask how they will be dealing with the inevitable questions that small children ask?

Or mux.

I think it’s like if you took the Mc from a surname eg McNally, and added an s. Mcs

(Also I know women can use Ms to avoid the whole marital status thing; I think she just wanted to make a point)

I worked with a Mx. She was recently divorced and, when changing her name, decided to use a title which didn’t indicate her marital status (in the same way that men are allowed to exist outside their marital status)

It sounds like there’s more than that going on here, and I’d definitely want to know more in your position, because there are some red flags there. I just thought I’d chuck my experience of Mx into the chat alongside the others

"mix"

How do you even pronounce Mx?

I personally would want to see the teacher before I made comment but would probably just use something about everyone being different and to be kind.

That is a stupid and dangerous thing to say to a 5yr old! "If you tell him, he'll be cross" is a classic manipulative line used by people trying to groom children. And "the silly man trying to trick us" undermines the teacher's authority. I thought the "remove your child!" Responses were extreme but better that than manipulating your child into complying with someone you've told them isn't trustworthy!

Why do you need to say anything? At 5 years old asking “why do they look like a woman but have a man’s voice” can just be answered with, and honest, “I don’t know”.
If you really had to say something I’d just go with “some boys want to be girls so dress like them. Everyone’s different”