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?

But you do know

A grown man, especially a teacher, ought not need external validation from pupils about his internal beliefs on gender stereotypes. It is his business and his business alone if he a) identifies as NB and b) uses language commonly understood to refer to sex to refer instead to gender identity.

The problem isn't his identity or beliefs, it's the unreasonable demands placed upon others.

Pronouns are a courtesy and a personal choice IMO. They ought never be demanded, especially not from children.

"The new teacher is a fundamentalist Christian and all children are to declare whether they believe in God. Heretics will need to sit at the back of the class and the teacher will be exorcising the devil from within them Friday break times."

"The new teacher is a flat earther. No child is to use language which refers to a spherical planet. Australia cannot be "down under " for example. Science lessons will be adjusted accordingly".

"The new teacher has body dysmorphia and believes themselves to be extremely overweight. Children need to treat the teacher as though they are the size they believe themselves to be, remembering to leave wide spaces for the teacher to pass through, and never directly touching the teacher, always stopping a few centimetres before reaching them".

A ‘good’ teacher wouldn’t push this hideously regressive ideology on young children.
How is gaslighting them into denying what their eyes and ears are telling them a positive thing?
Nobody who says they are a different Sex or is non binary 🙄 is fit to be a Teacher.

Please, please pull your DD out. Don’t subject a little 6yr old to this confusing and batshit nonsense! School is hard enough without this crap.

I'd go to another school. Had a similar situation in Rainbows with a leader who claimed they were non binary. "It doesn't affect anything, they won't mention it" said a parent. They certainly did mention it, setting it out as a fact not a belief. It's like telling children they will go to hell if they don't get baptised, it is a lie.

Jesus Christ, what a reach of an opinion based on knowing zero about this human

But this is a rabbit hole you don't have to go down. "Some people prefer to be called Mx" is all you need here, which is true. It doesn't have to be a grand ideological battle unless you want it to be.

It may be a fact that people prefer different pronouns, it's also a fact that they don't get to compel others to use them.

The whole idea of gender identities is nonsense and sexist, it has no place in schools for sure.

Exactly this!
essentially it’s just a name, no need to “teach gender ideology” just treat them as you would any other teacher really and see how things develop.

a) "pearl clutching" is misogynistic. What parallel insult do you use for men?

b) Yes, some people prefer different pronouns. That doesn’t mean everyone else, especially young children, should be forced to comply with and thus validate that preference.

I'm sure you supported Section 28 too. When it was legal.

Gone now.

Potentially life long health issues involving her sexual function / bladder issues are bit more than 'a shame'.

But thanks for your concern.

I'd be much more worried about a teacher who's openly non binary. They've obviously drunk the kool aid. And I cannot for the life of me see how they could not bring gender ideology into the class. Their very presence will do that.

1. Males and females don't present the same level of risk
2. Making young children question the reality, giving them mixed messages and misrepresenting biological facts is indeed a very harmful thing to do.

As far as I understand the meaning of “non binary” - and it doesn’t make any sense - it means “neither of one sex/gender nor the other” (conflating sex and gender).
So yes, they are claiming to have changed sex in some way.
If it’s “just” gender, it’s simply not conforming to societal sex stereotypes, so why does it demand a different title?

It’s all completely mad.

I don't think I've ever had any experience, as a student or a parent or as a teacher, where a teacher has talked about their sex with their class.

There is zero correlation between Section 28 and the current situation.

Hi,
Which gay teachers demanded that the children in their classes validated their sexuality?

What is this lie that all gender critical people are also homophobic? Where did it come from? Gay people weren't asking for anything different from what the rest of us had. They weren't asking us to lie or modify our speech or be less safe so they could get their way. It's a totally different thing. It's untrue. It's regressive, and it doesn't make anyone a bigot for saying so.

I work with someone non-binary who prefer to use "they/them" pronouns but is OK with "he" and is quite comfortable acknowledging they're of the male sex. They just prefer to identify in a non-gendered way. I've gone from finding non-binary quite a confusing identification to feeling it's actually quite progressive and liberating. Why do we need an announcement of our sex/gender built into how we are addressed day-to-day?

Mx seems not too dissimilar to the adoption of Ms rather than Miss or Mrs - I don't need to announce my marital status in my title, why do I need to announce my sex or gender? Mx is fine. They/them is fine.

Wasn't that long ago that you had to make quite an effort to be identified as Ms - it wasn't on every drop-down menu on forms, on the phone you'd be saying "No, not Miss, Ms, M-S Ms". And now it's entirely common and normal. I'm sure Mx will seem similar in time.

Took me a while at work when talking about our non-binary colleague not to assume when people were using "they" in conversation that they were talking about more than one person but honestly it's quite easy to get accustomed to.

How do you know I know nothing about him? I may know the school and know where this guy trained to be teacher.

If nothing else I know that he believes in nonsensical and harmful ideas about the nature of what being a human is.

BUT you don't actually KNOW anyone's sex. You assume that a 'she' has a vag and grew her own boobs. She might not have either. I appear to have boobs but it's all foam and elastic 😂

But we're talking about an autistic child here. People with autism often find it much harder to do this!

I don't teach my children that people's biological sexes can change. We've never had to have that conversation.

I DO teach them that some people, not all, believe that gender is a social construct and that some people don't subscribe to either. And that some people feel as though they were born into the wrong gender and take steps to change it.

I don't have to agree, I don't have to like it. I don't have to believe it. But my opinion on it won't change the fact that there are people out there who DO believe it. That's just fact. It won't change.

So me telling my child that someone sees themselves as non-binary and wants to be referred to as they is not the same thing as me saying that there aren't only two biological sexes. I don't get why people are struggling to understand that.

As for finding a woman when they're in danger, well, statistically if they go looking for a woman they'll find one because the trans community is a miniscule portion of society. So on the off-chance that they find themselves in a situation where they need to find a woman, I'm pretty confident that they'll find one. And if I tell them to find a mother, they'll find one. Perhaps it will be a transwoman, perhaps it will be a biological woman. Either way, it will be a mother and they'd be hedging their bets regardless if it's a total stranger.

This 100%

Really? So you had male teachers entering the girls’ changing rooms, for example? You had male teachers escorting female students on school trips without a female member of staff?

You work and attended really terrible schools with no regard for safeguarding. They should be reported.