Non-binary teacher?

[Thompson198]

Name change.
I’ve got a 5 year old daughter due to go into year 2 in September. We’ve just been told that the teacher for next year is a non-binary/‘non-gender-conforming’ man who wants to be referred to by ‘Mx’ (pronounced mix) and they/them pronouns.
Quite a few of the parents have already complained and started looking for other places at local schools because of this.
what do you think?
My daughter has SEN and is one of the youngest in her class, I worry how she’s going to be able to keep up with the pronouns and understand this without us having to teach her about gender ideology at her age. My husband is extremely against teaching her gender ideology, especially so young, I’m not the most positive about it either but don’t feel as strongly as him. He also doesn’t want her being at the school in September but they have been very supportive for her so far and I’m concerned it might not be the same elsewhere.
Thoughts? How would you feel if this was your child’s teacher?

I would be asking how the school will be dealing with any children who cannot follow this request or who momentarily forget? Will it be ignored ? Will they be spoken to? Will it be logged? I would want solid answers.

Sorry, what? You want to pull your child out of a good school just because they have a gender neutral teacher? seriously? I think you need to give your head a wobble. In doing so you would be teaching your daughter hate and intolerance. And then where does it stop? Pull her out because she has a male teacher? A black teacher? A Muslim teacher? That has all happened in the past.

I would 100% be moving school.

Anyone who is self obsessed enough to seek 'validation' from 6 year olds will find any and every opportunity to squeeze gender ideology into their teaching.

im a “biological woman”. Calling me “Mrs” or “Miss” is not “reality” - it’s an insult. I’m Dr.

I think it's bonkers to move schools because a teacher wants to be called Mx.

My son's English teacher is Mx, it has made literally no difference to his education and he now has a friendly face to associate with this issue. I think he's a more thoughtful person for knowing them.

There's no such thing as a gender neutral teacher though.

A PP on this thread has said many times elsewhere that what they believe sex and gender to be is incredibly complex and infant age children wouldn't understand it, so pretending it's irrelevant and you shouldn't care is rather disengenuous.

Sexism may be unimportant to some parents but it matters to me.

👆🏻

It's not at all relevant

Ha ha, I'm a Dr too. I only see it as an insult if they choose to call me something other than Dr when they actually know that it's my title. Dr isn't a title which attempts to inform anything about made up genders though.

I would imagine the same way that children accidentally call female teachers "sir" or "mum". Largely ignored.

You've got a child with SEN who is in a school which is supportive to her and where she's presumably settled and happy and has friends? And your DH wants to remove her, with all the uncertainty and unhappiness that that might cause her, over the gender identification of her teacher?

Your DD should come first, and the fact that he's prepared to risk her happiness and her supportive environment over this, is pathetic.

A 5 year old does not need to understand gender/ sex theory.

They need to understand that you address people by their name .

This is a basic thing that all 5 year olds understand and so do all adults until and only when it interferes with their desire to openly flaunt their disgust of trans people.

He isn't a 'gender neutral' teacher. He is a teacher that is starting off his teaching career confusing 6 year olds.

You’d think but there have been stories about teachers getting getting pissy and kids getting into trouble for getting it wrong. It depends on the individual teacher and how sensible they are about it all, which, unfortunately, OP won’t know until of and when it happens.

Just to avoid hundreds of posts of talking at cross-purposes, Tandora uses the words woman, sex, gender, male and female to mean something different from their regular definitions so if you start a discussion with them you'll be talking about different things without realising.

I'm not going to get into it on this thread but thought it worth pointing out, as a lot of time was lost with me trying to work out their viewpoint only to have them mention that they don't think "female" is a 'sex' or what they use it to mean.

No. As a parent of an autistic older teenager who has been very drawn into this ideology I would either move schools or homeschool in your position now.

He's Mr.
There's no other option that doesn't deny reality.

I do agree with this, but I'd be worried that this is actually teaching children about gender conformity more than anything. That if they're a boy but like more traditionally feminine things, they might actually be a Miss or a M, when I think we need to teach boys that they are allowed to be however they want, and still be men.

How do you pronounce Mx? Mix? Regardless, 5 year olds won't mind.

As long as they stick to the syllabus and keep their personal opinions out of it it shouldn't be a problem.

It cracks me up how Mr has become so important to people. It's a title, we have always been able to choose those on forms.

Crikey! 😂 Someone's got a bee in their bonnet this morning.

There seems to be a lot of 'pandering' and 'peddling' going on in these type of threads.

@Thompson198 you could always go with the flow and see if the teacher is good at their job and kind - as perhaps those attributes are more important.

Exactly, a man is a man - he can choose to express himself in different ways but that doesn't make him gender neutral.

Not in my very long experience! We all get it so much, it's really not an issue. We had a teacher who asked to be called Mx, but never bothered if Mr was used.