Parents evening - pronouns

[Chillyboots]

To put this into context a little, I work in secondary school and generally we have a good idea of the students who prefer to use the pronouns 'they/them' and their preferred pronouns are on their file. I don't actually work directly with any of our students who prefer these pronouns but I do know there are a few students in school who use them.

I went to my daughter's parents evening tonight (another school) and one of the teachers started talking to me and kept saying 'they'. I was pretty tired after work and assumed he was talking about my daughter and her friends but then as it carried on realised he was referring to her as 'they/them'. He was actually a trainee teacher who'd been teaching her for a few months (so he does know her).
All the other teachers referred to her as 'she/her'.

I know this might sound petty but just as students who prefer being called 'they/them' like to be addressed accordingly, I feel that her/she/he/his should also be used for those who choose it.

I wonder if all students will, in the near future, be referred to as 'they/them' if teachers become afraid to use gendered pronouns.

I'm not fuming about this by any means but wondered what other people's thoughts were. I am also interested to know if this is what is being advised in TT nowadays.

The child is either
male (he him his)
or
female (she her hers)
Ignoring biology is contrary to DfE guidance
if your school policy is in breach of DfE guidance
more fool them

Genuine question - are you sure it wasn’t just poor grammar on the part of this teacher? The use of “they” (rather than he/she) was very common in the part of the world where I grew up (long before anyone had ever heard the term “trans”). If no other teachers are doing it, it could be down to that?

Obviously there was context to the way it was being used and quite clearly it was not this.

But it be ever ends up being a discussion. It just ends up being condemnation like non binary or trans people are deliberately being obstructive and pushing an agenda. They're just trying to live their lives like everyone else. It seems like no day goes by without something having to be posted on Mumsnet about it. Live and let live. Someone else's pronoun has no impact on my life or anybody else's.

I am also interested to know if this is what is being advised in TT nowadays.

I've not come across it with my trainees.

Only when you are referring to a person you've not met and you don't know whether they're female or male, e.g. because they have a name like Chris that could be either. Once you do know, in standard English, you switch to using the correct pronouns for that person's sex.

Wrong reaction. Why are you misgendering my daughter would be more appropriate.

“Someone else's pronoun has no impact on my life or anybody else's.”

You’re wrong. Being coerced to deny reality to valid someone’s feelings has a cost. Especially to women.

Didn't you just correct - assumed they were confused or tired - or was it one of those conversations where it feels like they kept trying to correct you.

DH says he younger work colleges doing it with him referring to me as his wife or wife - wife says apples - your partners say apples - yes my wife prefers apples - maybe your partner has a has a point and so forth. I wonder if he hears it as we often correct the kids speech that way. I've had it with neighbour and sex of cat - I kept saying she neighbor immediately referred to cat as he when on for few sentences - I had an internal does it matter moment and thought no - if teacher was doing might well ask why though.

“I saw Susan in town. They were heading into Primark”

”Oh really. Who was she with?”

You have no idea how much we're spending in public funded organisations to ensure pronouns are given front and centre focus. Multiple threads on this on the relevant boards.

Or perhaps you're wrong. Did that ever cross your mind?

I've also worked with someone that does this... not in a school setting, but in an office and when referring to colleagues, just refers to everyone as they/them. It is grating... presumably too worried about getting it wrong they just make it all wrong in a different way?

It does have an impact, because the other person is expecting you to re-learn the normal rules of English grammar just for them, and to pretend that you can't see which sex he/she is.

"I saw my friend I. Town - they were heading into Primark"

Nobody British would use this sentence since the speaker knows the identity of the friend and so would say “I saw my friend in town he was heading into primark”.

“They” would only be used if referring to a group or a person’s sex was unknown. Anything else is entirely unnatural speech.

I would have probably just have made a comment and used a "she really enjoys x, y, z". In the same way if they mispronounce my daughter's name. I just repeat back what they said with the correct name. They seem to catch on to the error then without embarrassment.

I imagine it wasn't a conscious thing. To be honest I know people that say they in conversion and wouldn't think they were using the wrong pronoun just bad grammar.

It must be very overwhelming for the teachers trying to get it right and trying to remember so many pupil's.

This is literally about inappropriate pronouns being used about OP's daughter. So not "someone else's pronoun." You clearly don't believe in live and let live - you believe one side is worthy of consideration over the other.

Hopefully the new guidance for schools will help change this

DH says he younger work colleges doing it with him referring to me as his wife or wife - wife says apples - your partners say apples - yes my wife prefers apples - maybe your partner has a has a point and so forth. I wonder if he hears it as we often correct the kids speech that way.

I do this when talking about DSs trans flatmate. It’s the only way to avoid the pronoun issue. It’s really awkward and I have to think hard about it.

But what's normal? Normal changes all the time. Think about the words that were classed as normal 20 years ago to describe someone with SEND or someone who was black or gay. Some of those words are absolutely not classed as normal today. Language changes all the time. It's not hard to re learn language but perhaps it's too hard for some people to be open minded.

The OP is not 'over-dramatising'. Why should the fact that a very small minority of people's 'chosen pronoun' is 'they' mean that the whole rest of the world who want to be called 'he' and 'she' get called 'they'? Statistically, you'd piss off far, far, far fewer people if you just referred to everyone by the pronoun that matches the sex that they obviously belong to.

Yes because once again it's just the same old condemnation and closed mindness.

I would possible question it if my kids teacher started doing this - as I know school did socially transition kids in eldest year group - she now at uni - without family involvement as it cause issues further down line when younger sibling joined school and peers knew - including my younger kids - and they didn't. Hopefully they wouldn't be doing this now - but after an initial correction I'd probe further.

It happened on this occasion with one person not 'the whole rest of the world'

What's your daughter's name? If it's something like Sam, is it possible the teacher just can't remember who she is, and didn't know if it was a boy or a girl?