When Exactly did Trans/Non Binary Become So Commonplace?

[miniaturepixieonacid]

This isn't to start (yet another!) debate on the rights and wrongs of gender identification, transitioning etc. Just pondering on how quickly and in what year it became so common.

I'm just watching an old episode of Waterloo Road (Drama set in a comprehensive school) where one of the characters (Casey Barry for anyone who watched it) realises that she wants to be a boy rather than a tomboy and everyone reacts as if it's extremely unusual. The other pupils mock and bully her, her brother gets violent and tells her she is disgusting and a freak and the teachers talk about what a difficult road she has ahead and how much support she will need.

The episode is set in 2013. Not the 1990s. Only just over 10 years ago. But in a Year 10/11 class in a comprehensive in 2024 this wouldn't even raise an eyebrow, would it. There will be several trans and non binary pupils (maybe even several per year group) and pupils would consider it normal.

I teach in a prep school (only goes up to Year 8) so we haven't actually yet had a single pupil transition to the opposite gender. There's one 10 year old who I could potentially see it happening to over the next couple of years but it hasn't yet. So I'm relatively unknowledgable about the whole thing.

Interested to know from secondary school teachers who have been teaching for 10+ years what year you think it was that transitioning and being non binary went from rare to a relatively popular trend.

And kids referred had ten times the number of parents who were registered sex offenders than kids not referred.

Of course it’s always existed, due to the narrow expectations for how girls and boys should behave

I think that’s such an important point.
I can imagine it can be applied to adults as well - depending on what kind of society you live in, you might feel more or less restricted by prevalent gender stereotypes.

Like, in a society where women are expected to look and behave in a particular way, to be interested in certain things and not in others, all based on their womanhood, more women might feel like there’s something wrong with them if they don’t fulfill the stereotypes (same goes for men).

Your comment reminded me of that law professor of medical ethics who used to be in the media a lot. Ian Kennedy. He would be retired now. There certainly were enough committees and inquiries, councils and commissions for this important topic to have been considered and regulated. Why was it not?

I wonder who is his equivalent these days or if there is one.

Wiki: [In part]:
Kennedy was Dean of the Law School at King's College London, from 1986 to 1996. Kennedy is Emeritus Professor of Health Law, Ethics and Policy at University College London. He is an honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple.
Kennedy was the BBC's Reith lecturer (on the subject of "Unmasking Medicine") in 1980[7] and hosted many editions of After Dark on Channel 4.[8]

Kennedy has been a member of numerous committees and inquiries.[9]
For nine years, he was a member of the General Medical Council. In 1978, he founded the Centre of Medical Laws and Ethics, of which he later became president. He also served as member of the Medicines Commission, and the Department of Health advisory group on AIDS. He is a member of the board of the UK Research Integrity Office.[9]
In 1997, he took part in a UK Government inquiry that gave cautious approval to xenotransplantation (the use of animal-to-human transplants), and in 1998, was a member of the committee that recommended pet passports.
Kennedy was a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1991–2002 and Chair during 1998–2002.
Kennedy is a trustee of homeless health charity Pathway.[10]
He chaired the public inquiry into children's heart surgery at the Bristol Royal Infirmary (1998–2001),[11] which concluded that paediatric cardiac surgery services at Bristol were "simply not up to the task", because of shortages of key surgeons and nurses, and a lack of leadership, accountability, and teamwork. This resulted in his becoming chair of the Healthcare Commission,[12] from its creation (in shadow form) in 2003, until it was merged with other regulatory bodies to form the Care Quality Commission in 2009. In October 2009, Kennedy became chair of the King's Fund’s inquiry into the quality of general practice in England, replacing Niall Dickson.[13] He led an inquiry into the work of breast surgeon Ian Paterson in Birmingham in 2013.

And kids referred had ten times the number of parents who were registered sex offenders than kids not referred.

Why is this enormous red flag not being given more attention?

Because it requires actual thinking.

Exactly. Tbh, I had to look this play up as I hadn’t heard about it before.
Reading about it I wondered what having to be disguised as a boy after being chosen to be sacrificed as one of the ‚fairest virgins‘ had to do with being ‚queer‘ and ‚trans‘.
One of the girls is actually described as being ‚sceptical of whether she can successfully pass as a boy, explaining the disguise "will neither become my bodie nor my minde"‘.

Despite your plea you'll get a lot of ignorant and phobic responses. Trans people have always existed as have gay people, asexual people etc etc. Social media just amplifies talk. However it isn't "commonplace" at all and this kind of lazy adjective only stokes fear mongering

What a lazy and ignorant post this is.

One of the things this debacle has taught me is the amount of people who appear to be incapable of using their brain.

All they can do is quack out the mantras their tribe has fed to them. Zero thought. Zero scrutiny.

And look, I get that this is a tricky topic to get your head around. But the people who have most to lose from unquestioning acceptance of TRA ideology are vulnerable women and vulnerable children.

They deserve better than people mindlessly cheering on something they haven't even bothered to think through.

@Tukmgru

Would you rather SEND children were taught by people with zero knowledge of how autism presents?

If a child presents as trans, I use this information as part of the picture as to what kind of support they might require. Autistic girls especially have an ‘internalising’ autism presentation, which might manifest as gender dysphoria, anorexia, self harm or similar behaviours and beliefs about themselves.

I have exact figures from my fairly average comprehensive. It's less than one child per year group, and there's 270 in each year.

That's kids who identify as any gender other than the one they were born with. It includes non-binary.

This is a significant drop in 3 years. Don't know what the figures were 3 years ago.

@Curioushorse

I agree, it seems to be ‘over’ with secondary school pupils. I wonder what might emerge in its place?

Actually, the picture at KS3 is leaning towards the ‘EBSA’ presentation for girls: many anxious (ND?) girls are now point blank refusing to come to school.

We're confidently predicting it'll go back to eating disorders and self-harm. Numbers for both are up significantly. Sadly.

Oh, the irony. It's based on historical fact but hey, any way of evading inconvenient facts, eh?

that is interesting thank you. Two years ago, my teen was in a friend group of 7 and five of those seven had trans identities. All in the same year at the same school. And I knew of at least 3 others in the same year in the same school. I am sure there were others in the same year too.

Secondary teacher here - been teaching for 20 years. Never had any officially transgender/non-binary (I’m sure there will have been kids who would have liked to be, though) in any school I’ve worked in until about 3 years ago. Now we have 5 in a school of 1100 students. There was another who changed back and forth about 3 times during year 7 and seems to have settled at her sex-based pronouns.

I have always taught at single-sex schools until this one though. I don’t know if that makes a difference. Still about 3 years at this mixed school before any official changes of identity.

I think the normality has actually reached gaslighting levels now. North Yorks police are posting about a missing ‘girl’ - who is very obviously male. It would really help to find this person if the police gave an accurate description rather than put pandering to the very people they’re supposed to protect, first

It would really help to find this person if the police gave an accurate description rather than put pandering to the very people they’re supposed to protect, first

Exactly. Why is this not being pushed back on internally on the grounds that it's inhibiting them doing their job?

I’ve taught for 25 years and wasn’t aware of any gender questioning kids until around 2014. I am part of Pastoral and we sought advice from the local authority when presented with a very defiant girl who wanted to transition, name, changing room, toilet etc. Local authority had had a few cases and it was clear we worked with the family and offered counselling (possibly would be seen as conversion therapy by some now).

She was supported through previous trauma and although presented as a boy we didn’t socially affirm. As soon as she went to college she was affirmed within days. Just before Covid we had a few more, including friends and aquaintances of the above.

Post Covid we had around 10 across a school of 800. Local authority advice was to socially transition in conversation with parents, that’s where we are currently. We still offer counselling. Some of these don’t mention their gender anymore and after the initial fanfare it’s not as spoken about. Possibly it has peaked?

I've been teaching since 2005. My school had our first trans Id girl in 2013ish. It's increased year on year since then. As someone who was anorexic as a teen myself I see a lot of parallels. I work hard to push back against mindlessly encouraging these unhappy girls to alter their bodies to better fit gender stereotypes.

Oh I love facts. Facts are great. Have you read the facts in @Helleofabore 's posts or the facts in the links they posted?

What do you think of all those lovely facts?

I can also see the parallels with anorexia and other eating disorders having suffered myself.
Has Iran always had the highest amount of ‘transwomen’ per capita or might it be that they are actually a massively homophobic society that kills gay men or allows them to trans?
thats all these “trans people have always existed” arguments are, people who didn’t fit rigid social roles who were forced out of their own sex class box onto other made up more socially acceptable boxes.
which is the same reason these zealots are trying to post humously trans the likes of Joan of arc and James Barry

Oh, that's low. Yet somebody else was saying 25%. I wonder if there's any kind of divide or difference between rates in urban/rural, north/south, affluent/deprived, grammar/comp/indie or mixed sex/girls'/boys' schools.