Teacher upset with my child questioning about trans child

I’ll spell it out as you’re beingg deliberately obtuse.

Gay is a word for sexual orientation.

Why are you referencing the sexual orientation of 4/5 year olds?

You do understand that “gay” means sexually attracted to the same sex don’t you?

It isn’t just a shorthand for “likes musical theatre and dressing up” or other personality traits.

So when you say there was a “gay child” in a primary class, that’s usually considered as jumping the gun somewhat in terms of that child’s development. I assume the child’s “gayness” only manifested itself in gender non-conforming behaviour?

It would’ve better to say there was a gender non-conforming child in my son’s class who grew up to be gay. There is a strong correlation between childhood gender non-conformity and growing up to be gay, but it isn’t a given.

And there is nothing wrong with being gender-non-conforming as a child or adult.

It’s the assumption that this means a person is “really” of the opposite sex in some way that is magical nonsense gender identity theory. Humans cannot change sex. Sex is just a fact like hair and eye colour.

According to developmental psychologists, understanding sex and sex constancy happens later than this, typically at 7 or 8.

This is a good article by Katie Alcock, with a few interesting videos, including a 3-year-old boy who thinks he'd turn into a girl if he was dressed in a skirt and a 5-year-old girl who thinks giving a boy doll a handbag turns the boy doll into a girl doll (the 9-year-old obviously doesn't).

Young children, reality, sex and gender | by Katie Alcock | Medium

From the article

This little boy is firm that hair and clothes make a boy or a girl, and that they also makes other people (and dolls) into girls or boys. My own child aged four was convinced a teenager we knew must be a boy because she had short hair.

So, based on the idea that girls have long hair and boys have short hair, James is also age-perfect in thinking that when appearance changes, sex changes too. Until the age of about 7 (yes, 7 — in some children it’s older) children think that when something changes its appearance, its underlying reality changes too.

But at the same time — we’re talking 4, 5, 6 and even 7 — children do NOT understand that people’s genitals (and biology in general, but genitals are more obvious to small children) are what makes them boys or girls, men or women.

Why on earth would any teacher do this? It's not a plausible scenario.

Well, that's odd then. Because invariably children misgender my DC. The majority of the time. DC is gender and bio sex matched so no issue around trans at all (DC is VERY firm on this). DC just happens to have chosen not to have a stereotypical appearance for their gender (their choice, not mine). Also firmly corrects those misgendering.

So no, it really isn't 'instinctive'. It's done through external markers such as clothing, hair length, height, size, personality and mannerisms.

I thought Intersex people are completely different to trans people. Most of them seem to want no part in this argument. A trans person makes a conscious decision to change their gender whereas an intersex person has a physical difference in development of their sex organs and they are all either male or female. There is no middle ground.

How ironic!!

Not me bringing up children thinking about sex.

What do you actually think the word 'gay' (or 'straight/heterosexual' for that matter) means then?

I was pointing out to the OP that the world of gender is not one or the other. There are children who are intersex.
And that was it.

You are right, the world of gender is not one or the other.
However, the world of sex is.
There are males and females who have differences of sexual development, but they are still male or female.
They are not 'inter-sex'.

"It feels very wrong to single out a child, and read books that introduce a concept that we haven’t broached with our children yet."

Isn't introducing new concepts part of their job?

If my child was the only one in the group that didn't know something the others did I'd be delighted the teacher found the 1:1 time to help them....while dealing with umpteen other individuals who were being settled into the Reception routine.

What the other children “know” is a load of bloody nonsense based on the lie that humans can choose the sex they are. The teacher is massively overreaching and needs to have her wings clipped.

Absolutely you bringing it up, claiming you know a 5 year old gay child.

'Intersex' children are still either male or female. There is noone who is a bit of both. They have a disorder of sex development (DSD) and that is sex specific

Much to your chagrin because it makes you all have two types of bigotry.

So now we're bigots for not believing that children have a sexuality.

No it isn't! I had short hair as a child ( and still do) and my granddaughter also did aged 9. She was never 'mis-gendered 'and neither was a I.

'Misgendering' such a nonsense and retrograde concept. Girls have always dressed in clothes that they like and/or which work for them; have always climbed, played sports; played with meccano or lego; riden their bikes, and had short hair - without people assuming they were boys. At one point in time people may have referred to girls as 'tom boys' - but this didn't negate recognition of their sex.

Sexual orientation may be nascent in very young children, but doesn't really mature until puberty as the sexuality/sexual function develops A young child cannot 'be gay'. Though it may be possible to speculate that the child could very well turn out to be gay.

For over a year now I've been keeping a record of examples of 'mirroring', i.e. where TRAs + allies take a phrase or concept often used by sex-realists, and turn it around against them.
'what the law actually says'
'transpeople a tiny minority'
'cognitive dissonance'
etc.
have all been 'mirrored'.

I've added one to the list: accusing anyone who brings up the issues of safeguarding of children, sexualisation of children, etc., of being 'dodgy' or suspiciously interested in children's genitals.

That has cropped up a few times on other threads, and I see it has happened here too: a poster says that to apply a sexual orientation to a young child is wrong, and they are accused of being 'dodgy' about children and sex.

Once you've spotted these tactics, you can see through them and they lose their effectiveness.

Yes, because children are not generally exposed to other people's genitals.The ability to determine is learned by other clues...some overt ( clothing, interests etc ) and others more subtle and 'inarticulate' .

How true. There's a certain poster with a long history of making similar batshit allegations about posters on here. I presume they've had the "MNHQ calling" missive as recently they seem to have ceased.

But as ever there's always another transactivist rocking up trying to weaponise the issue. It's very revealing to see such denial of safeguarding children on a site for parents.

Why is the Trans child being singled out as different? If he/she dresses as a girl and behaves as a girl, all the other children will accept her as being a girl, without having “transism” pushed at them.

He’s not a girl, and the other children know this perfectly well.

I doubt the existence of either child. A trans-identifying 6yo in 1991? Really? Perfectly plausible that there were two children in that class who behaved in a gender non-conforming way, and maybe the poster knew them, and maybe as adults one is gay and one is trans. (And there may have been several other GNC children in that class, who didn't grow up to be anything interesting to the poster.) But equally maybe they are figments of the poster's mind, created to bolster a non-existent argument.