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To wonder if a child at a single sex school comes out as transgender

117 replies

PlayOnWurtz · 05/07/2017 21:07

Will they be expected to leave the school or will they be allowed to stay?

OP posts:
hackmum · 06/07/2017 11:00

Hypothetically it's an interesting question. I suppose if you're a run-of-the-mill girls' school and one of your pupils comes out as transgender, it doesn't make much difference.

But suppose you're Eton or Winchester. What if one of the boys would prefer to be treated as female? How would you deal with that? Would you expel the pupil?

Or even more interestingly, what if you're a girl with wealthy parents and you want to transition to male and attend Eton or Winchester? Would they allow you in?

lalalandxx · 06/07/2017 11:28

Bridgit I brought up the loos not being a problem as on many of these sort of posts, it is always questioned.

ChiefClerk Yes, I believe they were in the midst of their transition to become male. We watched them physically change and go through surgeries, countless hormone injections and such.
I will admit that two that I knew had a "wobble" of types and chose to be nonbinary but the other 3 I was friends with are all now fully living their lives as males.

ChiefClerkDrumknott · 06/07/2017 11:39

So if they were now the opposite sex, why were they allowed to continue in a school that caters to the one they were not? That seems contradictory to me.

ChiefClerkDrumknott · 06/07/2017 11:42

If they were still in school, which I'm presuming they were, what surgeries did they undergo? Interested to know what surgeries someone under 18, or not long gone, can have

DixieFlatline · 06/07/2017 11:53

ChiefClerk Yes, I believe they were in the midst of their transition to become male. We watched them physically change and go through surgeries, countless hormone injections and such.
I will admit that two that I knew had a "wobble" of types and chose to be nonbinary but the other 3 I was friends with are all now fully living their lives as males.

At what point of the 'transition' do you believe they did/would become male? At what point were they no longer female? What about those who were 'non-binary' - what did that mean to you/them? Were they still either male or female as well as 'non-binary'? What changes, if any, were required for them to become 'non-binary'?

MrsGWay · 06/07/2017 11:53

As said above sex isn't the same as gender, so they are legally at the right school.

Also worried school child surgery mentioned as they should be too young. Also you have to be over 18 to get a GRC so they do not have to be accommodated.

I wouldn't like males to go to females' schools as one of the reasons to choose single sex schools is to avoid male domination. I can imagine a male transgirl in a female school would dominate even more.

ChiefClerkDrumknott · 06/07/2017 12:00

As said above sex isn't the same as gender, so they are legally at the right school

I agree, however I'd like to know from posters who believe that these girls did change sex, why they continued to stay at a school for their original sex

OlennasWimple · 06/07/2017 12:51

Katniss - what's the relevant law that compels a school to keep an existing student but allows them to refuse a student who has already transitioned pls?

VestalVirgin · 06/07/2017 12:56

A transgender pupil will still have been primarily socialised up to that point within the gender that the school is aimed at. Therefore they will face the same potential issues as other pupils and (in theory) benefit to the same extent from the single sex education.

I used to be of the same opinion, but then I met a FtT, and changed my opinion. They can be exactly as overbearing as any male.

Don't you think that teachers who have subconscious biases against girls and want to dedicate more time to boys (as studies have observed to be the case in coed schools) would encourage the pupil they have been told and are forced and coerced to treat like an actual male by threat of losing their job more to excel at maths, and start to hold gender stereotypes against the other girls, because lo and behold, there now is a boy?

If they treated the transboy exactly the same as every other female pupil, wouldn't "he" feel that this "invalidates" his "gender identity"?

It's also about acceptance and tolerance, and making sure that teenagers are supported and not ostracised because of their personal identity.

All FtT I have talked to were, some more than the others, male supremacists. They wanted to be perceived as belonging to the "better" and "worthier" sex, it was apparent in the way they explained why they were trans identified (soooo different and sooo uninterested in that stupid femininity that we know all girls who don't believe in genderism totally love).

Their "personal identity" is an insult to girls and women. I just don't think it's fair to force girls to go to school with someone who feels so smugly superior to them.

Katnisnevergreen · 06/07/2017 15:07

Katniss - what's the relevant law that compels a school to keep an existing student but allows them to refuse a student who has already transitioned pls?

I'm afraid I don't know the name of the law, but I did have safeguarding and keeping children safe in education training recently where this was discussed.
I presume it's in the anti discrimination laws.

OlennasWimple · 06/07/2017 15:27

thanks, Katnis (I wasn't being sarky, BTW, jut re-read my question and it might have looked like that). I suspect very much that the trainer has conflated equality legislation (which talks about sex discrimination) with recent proposals on self-identification with some real life examples and come up with something that has no basis in law as of now...

ginnybag · 06/07/2017 15:58

On the basis that you can't change sex, they're still in the right school.

Gender is social nonsense, and I don't care who calls themselves what/what they wear/ how their hair looks. It's fluff, and we'll all be happier when that's accepted.

TalkinPeece · 06/07/2017 16:26

I know somebody who went to a famous public school
and now that they are female, goes to reunions in a dress
they had surgery as soon as they turned 18

ChiefClerkDrumknott · 06/07/2017 23:36

They're not female, they present as a woman

VestalVirgin · 06/07/2017 23:51

They're not female, they present as a woman

Indeed. Even the best cosmetic surgery cannot change the DNA underneath, nor is it possible to turn male reproductive organs into female ones with surgery.

Clownfish can change sex. Humans can't. It is just how life is.

TalkinPeece · 07/07/2017 13:41

She has the same internals as any girl born without a womb
or any woman who has had a hysterectomy
and having seen pictures from when he/she was at school, could have passed for a girl at any time

Do you not accept the existence of intersex people either ?

Terfing · 07/07/2017 13:44

@TalkinPeece

No, he doesn't. His skeleton, DNA, etc. and all male, despite what he looks like.

OlennasWimple · 07/07/2017 13:48

I'm always shocked at how many normal, sensible people think that a man is just a woman with the womb removed and a penis stuck on

DixieFlatline · 07/07/2017 13:50

She has the same internals as any girl born without a womb
or any woman who has had a hysterectomy

Really? Does he have ovaries then? Must be convenient - who needs hormone therapy in that case?

I assume he also doesn't have a prostate? Vasa deferentia? Seminal vesicles? Bulbourethral glands?

Changedtocovermyass · 07/07/2017 13:54

I started at a girls secondary school in 1987. There was a transgender pupil in another year. It was less of a big deal then than these issues appear to be now.
I think the narrowing of gender stereotypes and the massive increase in a shallow looks obsessed society is pointing a lot more fingers and generally less "live and let live".
Everything seems to need over analysing, explaining. I now have to justify not dyeing my hair, wearing make up etc. And explain how that's not a statement about gender.
Cheeky sods telling me how "brave" that is. It's not. I am not brave nor flying in the face of anything.

CaoNiMartacus · 07/07/2017 14:03

Sex and gender are different things. A pupil at a single sex school may identify as the other gender, but their sex won't change.

ChiefClerkDrumknott · 07/07/2017 14:39

I'm always shocked at how many normal, sensible people think that a man is just a woman with the womb removed and a penis stuck on

Really? Does he have ovaries then? Must be convenient - who needs hormone therapy in that case?

I assume he also doesn't have a prostate? Vasa deferentia? Seminal vesicles? Bulbourethral glands?

Quite

and having seen pictures from when he/she was at school, could have passed for a girl at any time

So? That doesn't make a male magically female

Do you not accept the existence of intersex people either ?

What does that have to do with this discussion?

ChiefClerkDrumknott · 07/07/2017 14:40

I've yet to have my answer from posters who insist that a person can change sex as to why, if pupils do, they continue to be educated at schools designed for their original sex

GreeboIsACutePussPuss · 07/07/2017 14:45

There is a transgender child at DS' all boys school, she has been allowed to stay but she came out half way through year 11 and their 6th form is mixed anyway, so I don't know if it would be the same for a younger child.

sticklebrix · 07/07/2017 15:05

I'd be quite happy for a trans identifying child to stay on in their single sex school because:

Their sex hasn't changed

Friendship groups, disrupted studies etc.

They are a CHILD and should be given every opportunity to accept the unchangeable fact of their biology. The school should just let them get on with being a masculine girl or feminine boy without dishonestly validating the belief that their sex has actually changed.

A boys school saying 'you might have changed your name to Brenda, grown your hair and wear dresses but that's a valid way of being male. Just be you.' would be a powerfully empowering thing. And vice versa.

I would not want to open the doors to MtT boys being admitted to girls' schools