To be shocked not to be told trans student sharing bedroom on school trips

[rosesrredviolets]

DD aged 15 shared a bedroom with a trans girl (born a boy) on a school trip. Dd only found out the sleeping arrangements whilst on the trip and we only found out later. I presumed that trans students would have their own bedrooms at this age. Am shocked not to have at least been asked by school in advance. However it would appear that the policy given to schools is that sharing is fine.

Not what I’m saying, I’m saying given the extensive safeguarding guidelines we have to follow on trips this would never happen
Keeping pupils safe is exactly what we have to do.

And are you saying that schools and individual teachers never fail to follow safeguarding guidelines?! I've been a teacher for 29 years, and they definitely do.

@tandoori

So OP's DD's SAFETY is less important than the privacy of the boy? Wow

Sorry, I've heard of this happening multiple times in the UK, so it is a very believable situation

Safeguarding.

Where is it?

There was an article (by Sonia Sodha I think?) in the Observer on Sunday regarding the tool kit… Some parents in Brighton have commissioned a lawyer to go through it with a fine tooth comb and highlight the many many places where it diverges from the law. Apparently they have written to Dorothy Stringer School and Brighton and Hove Council to ask them to withdraw it or to publicly state that they intend to break the law. Watch this space, I guess!

I have a kid who is trans.

When school trips came up the school put massive pressure on me to allow my child into the dorm of the sex they identify as.

There was actually a lot the school tried so they could tick their inclusively box actually.

In the end I had to state that my child had medical reasons to be in a room alone, and it took 6 weeks of me fighting and going above the teachers, then above the head, and I had to get a doctors letter stating that my child needed a room alone as well.

It was absolutely ridiculous.

It's not necessarily the fault of the parents, or them that's pushing it, ime it was probably the school pushing it.

I have seen at least one other thread where this has happened in the UK over the past two years.

I think I read that it recently happened for a sporting event in the USA too.

I am EVC at my school and on my training refresher course we were strictly told transgender pupils have their own rooms. Most well-established companies hosting school groups will accommodate this as they also understand the risk and don't want anything breaching safeguarding on their premises.

Any trip requests including risk assessments come to me for approval then sent to the headteacher for approval and then sent to the local officer in charge of trips (independent from the school). How this room sharing hasn't been picked up by the people responsible for authorising the trip is shocking.

So you think teenage boys should all share mixed sex bedrooms on school trips then? Have you ever met an actual teenager?

Ffs

Totally different!

Of course it's her fucking concern if a boy is put overnight in her daughter's room!!! WTAF

Me too.

I wonder how often trans boys would be expected to share with males. Would a trans boy be more likely to have a separate room than a trans girl.

Don’t be ridiculous. Female girls should not be expected to share bedrooms and bathrooms with male boys, no matter how they identify. Also, I very much doubt that there’s anybody in the school who doesn’t already know this student is male.

Take it up with MN?

My children are a bit young for this but my brother has teen kids. Their school tried to pull this nonsense at the last minute but it back fired massively when a parent felt they had no choice but to out the trans girl as being gay i suppose, in a relationship with one of the girls they were to be sharing a bedroom with. Initially the school tried to just switch the rooms around but keep them with diffent girls, but it was too late at that point.

I get wanting to be inclusive and not wanting to distress these troubled mixes up kids, but you can't have mixed sex bedrooms for teens on a school trip.

I think you need to contact the school and demand to see the risk assessment. Say you want a copy made there and then so they can’t alter anything.
A big safeguarding fail.
And to be fair a fail on everyone. The trans student could have been maliciously accused of inappropriate behaviour or assault.

Was your dd alone with the trans student or did other girls share the room?

And it is more likely to be feminisation facial or Adam’s apple surgery and breast enhancement rather than turning their penis inside out to make a pretend vaginal pouch.

This is disgraceful. Adults decided to put your daughter in a bedroom with a 15 year old male. Clearly their brains aren’t working properly if they think that the boy’s ’special gender identity’ remove all of the usual safeguarding issues and risks. I’m really tired of males stating they feel like girls and then morons rushing to accommodate this. I’d raise the roof with this one.

I would hit the roof. would be reporting to authorities - you name it. I also would be pulling my daughter out of the school after they failed to keep her safe.

My DD 16 has just been on a college trip where she and another girl shared a room with 16 year old boy. He is not trans, and they were both happy to do this, as was he.

I'm not convinced this was the right thing though. I didn't complain to the college as my DD wasn't bothered, but if she'd been unhappy I'd definitely contacted them.

By any chance was this child quite well known? I think I know who you are talking about. The child's parents were really angry. Has the child now left the school?

I think the other parent's were quite right to object to the trans child sharing a room with their daughters.

Major safeguarding issue. I would be furious and reporting to the governors and ofsted.

It won’t be long before schools stop trips altogether as they’re having to deal with more and more ridiculous situations like this one. It isn’t worth the hassle, quite frankly.