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’d be extremely unhappy. He’s not ‘non-binary’, he’s a male with a perfectly ordinary personality trait which is not wanting to be a stereotypical man. He doesn’t need special labels or pronouns, he shouldn’t be seeking validation for this nonsense and he shouldn’t be training children to ignore their eyes when they see a male. In short, he’s a gender-ideology-addled, attention seeking twit who shouldn’t be teaching children. I say that as a teacher!

I think if the school is generally supportive, I would say to your child that this is Mx Smith, for example. But I wouldn't go into pronouns because it's likely they won't be needed.

If your child asks why not Mr or Mrs / Ms, just say some people prefer Mx.

I'd teach them a bit later on about the fact that people can't change gender.

I don't have any evidence, I'm sure this person is lying, perhaps it will never be an issue. I'm sure all men will be incredibly welcoming of transwomen and won't be as hsotile as women. https://metro.co.uk/2024/06/11/simply-refuse-trans-people-forced-use-birth-sex-toilets-21012701/

You don't want mixed sex facilities 😂You want spaces based only on sex.

Imagine having to plan where you went based on where you are allowed to use the toilet.

Oh dear.

These arguments are getting weaker and weaker.

So... I can only assume from this post that it supposedly 'testosterone' that is one of the major issues. Because now female people 'pumped full of testosterone' are more of an issue to you than some male people. Is that what you really meant to say?

Because you realise don't you, that only a fraction of male people with transgender identities are suppressing their testosterone at all? And that we know due to sports monitoring that suppressing of testosterone is very variable in any case.

So, if you don't want female people who use testosterone in your spaces, why do you want male people with potentially the same testosterone levels in your space? Please explain in detail what the difference is.

No, that isn't what I meant to say at all. I'm pretty good as using words to say what I mean.

You think my argument is weak, because only your opinion and comfort matter. I'm not alone in disagreeing with that.

You're arguing that if someone belongs to a particular demographic that is over represented in offending, then we should treat every single member of that group with suspicion

No, she’s not. She’s arguing that lying about someone’s sex is problematic from a safeguarding perspective - she states this clearly - and backs this up with relevant evidence. The rest is all you.

Lots of women have to plan where they're going based on whether there are toilets or not. As do many men. People with health conditions and disabilities etc. Don't know what's funny about that.

Yes, we want single-sex facilities (because stats show mixed-sex is more dangerous for women) but there's no reason why there can't be mixed-sex provision for those who want it too.

That example's in the US, and there's no evidence it's something that's a particular issue in the UK. Even if transwomen were getting assaulted in toilets int heir droves, it doesn't mean they should just use the women's and make them less safe (and there is tons of evidence women would be less safe), does it?

I think just give them a chance. They might turn out to be a great teacher. It would only bother me if there was any annoyance or repercussions for small children accidentally misgendering their teacher. It’s going to happen and they need a thick enough skin to just suck it up.

other than that it wouldn’t worry me.

Male violence against other males is not women's problem to solve.

Trans men are women, and as such they are welcome in women's spaces.

I don't think you know anything about what I personally want. And you have posted a link about a shocking incident in the USA. We are in the UK . Do you have any evidence that is UK based?

In any case, planning toilet use is actually a major need for many disabled people. You really are presenting such weak arguments to support allowing male people into female single sex provisions that you have forgotten a very large portion of the UK population. It is rather ableist of you to forget the needs of a group who have to plan their toileting in advance.

If you, generally, are a person who has a specific need for toilet usage, in this case due to your very own decisions, and you refuse to use the single sex facilities that match your sex then yes, you need to make your own preparations.

There is no right for male people to not have to share public single sex spaces with other male people. Some people have stated that this is a 'right'. But this is incorrect. All sub groups of male people use the male single sex space unless they require an accessible space for those with disabilities.

Yes if natal born women with higher than average testosterone are known to be more violent then why doesn't this apply to those women with PCOS or intersex conditions like CAH? The fact is there probably isn't a correlation here at all @Mumble12 . No we aren't afraid of real women, however masculine they might present as or how much testosterone they have. We are however afraid of men, whether they are cis or transwomen.

Well. if you think that you are pretty good 'as' using words to say what you mean, then perhaps you should reread what you are posting.

Because if that wasn't your intended meaning, then you were not clear at all in racing to use female people with transgender identities as a 'gotcha' the way you did.

That's awful and shouldn't have happened.

Is it worse than what happened to Katie Dolatowski's victims?

We should protect trans people but not at the expense of everyone else.

Third spaces.

This is a guinuine question. How woujd you feel about my DD in a classroom? She dresses like a man and has a neutral name. She is curvy with long hair and painted nails. She is working in a school with full DBS and her pronoun is Mx and then lately Dr. Would you discriminate against her?
Fwiw I think it's all nonsense and have been very active on this subject for years on MN but not everyone is a TRA or a pervert. Perhaps the new teacher feels more Martha than Arthur and a lot of NB people are not interested in sexual relations.

You’re not asking me I know, but I treat every man that I don’t know well as a potential
risk.

That’s not to say that I go around terrified, I don’t, but in certain circumstances I’m aware that I’m not going to assume that they’re safe, like I can with women.

I may be less likely to encounter a TW that will cause me harm based on numbers, but that doesn’t mean I need to accept any of them, given they are men with a known higher rates of sexual crimes, into single sex spaces. The very fact that people like you are minimising what women all instinctively do and what we know we need shows it’s a predatory men’s movement and nothing more.

Well, those women with PCOS do not have testosterone levels that cross over the typical levels of male people either. The testosterone argument fails on so many levels.

I am happy to provide at least one graph that shows the gap. If any female person is producing typical male levels of testosterone naturally they need to seek medical help immediately. It is likely from a tumour.

“Imagine having to plan where you went based on where you are allowed to use the toilet.”

Said with the confidence of someone who has never had to consider this.

Female toilets were fought for because women were highly restricted as to how far they could travel due to lack of facilities. Urinary leash. Is that something else co-opted by men? FFS.

Disappointing how so many men and women are happy to see women’s rights flushed away.

I understand people not wanting to be defined by their marital identity and therefore using Ms instead of Miss or Mrs. Your daughter is using Mx, which reads as a political statement as it suggests your daughter views herself as neither male nor female. Given that every human being is either male OR female - even those people with DSDs, it’s a silly evasion of reality. Since you asked, I would think your daughter is a bit silly. There are plenty of silly people with doctorates in our universities. She may well think that it works well with a neutral name and creates ambiguity about whether she is male or female, but I’d wonder why she consciously wants to hide the fact she is a woman.

Exactly. Hormones are only part of it, the testosterone argument doesn't take into account the fact that many men (by no means all or not even most) have been raised in a "boys will be boys" entitlement attitude. Not all of them, but I can't think even of one girl who has been raised with that kind of entitlement mentality around aggression or sexual behaviours in the way that boys are.

How she dresses is neither here nor there. Plenty of us wear “man’s” clothes but we are still women.

Insistence on Mx would concern me as it’s so mixed in with harmful ideology and heavy reliance of stereotypes, which I’d hoped would have long gone by now, not being more heavily pushed than ever. It suggests that she relies on external validation, which is not healthy for her or anyone around her, especially young children.

People don’t need to be TRAs or perverts to be pushing an ideology that children should have no knowledge of.

Nobody is castigating a whole group. We are pointing out that men who identify as women and possibly men that identify as ‘non binary’ should be subject to the same rules as all other men. Nothing more.

If he can run a club and abuse children, why would he need to take female hormones and transition to a woman (putting aside whether or not we believe that's possible). That's the bit that's lost me

I think is where we may be talking at cross purposes. There is no requirement on taking hormones or even dressing a certain way for a man to claim he is a woman and therefore should be treated as a woman by all.

Running a club is just one example of the opportunities to abuse that men create for themselves. As you’ve sadly discovered, there are a huge variety of opportunities men can exploit in order to abuse children. Can you think of a good reason why we should not give them more opportunities? Especially not an opportunity that gives them some pretty solid protections, shields them from suspicion and gets anyone who complains fired or at least silenced?

The swimming coach who identifies as a woman and insists on wandering round the female changing rooms while teenage girls are changing even though he’s been asked not to by parents of distressed girls. Do you think there’s a small chance he might be exploiting his trans status in order to watch girls change?

What about the Green Party man who identifies as a woman who gave his paedophile dad a job as a campaign manager knowing he’d be in contact with children?

Or the Girl Guide leader who identifies as a woman who posts pictures of himself in revealing lingerie in hotel corridors and poses with machine guns? Does he sound suitable to supervise girls on an overnight trip? He chose his lady name which refers to a sexual activity for good measure. The GG policy allows him to do that. Public outcry led him to resign and is now employed by the Scouts apparently.

Do you think it is odd that men who identify as women have a far higher percentage of sex offenders among them in the prison population? Is this blind coincidence? Are ‘trans women more likely to be sex offenders? Or are male sex offenders identifying as trans because if the advantages it gives them (ie imprisonment with a captive group of more potential victims which include babies)

No, but if we have a decent tilt at keeping sexual predators out of single-sex spaces (by not letting in people who are not of the correct sex but say they are to gain entry) we can help to keep the numbers down.
Once you let one man into a single-sex space you have by extension let them all in.

Do you understand that for general safeguarding principles to work, ALL male people have to stay out of female single sex spaces? No special sub groups can be exempt

I have lovely men in my life, but they also understand that for safeguarding to work, they stay out of spaces that have safeguarding policies.

You are using falsehoods to create a sub-group of male people that you feel should be exempt from those safeguarding principles being applied to them.

'When people stereotype any other minority we rightly call it out (or those of us with a conscience do), so why do people feel so comfortable doing it with this issue.'

Because the issue for robust safeguarding female people is SEX based. You are the one who is arguing that a group of male people should be excluded from being subject to the same robust safeguarding principles applied to all other male people.

What you dismiss as a 'stereotype', that generally male people are more likely to commit sex and violent crimes, is an indisputable fact.

Imagine having to plan where you went based on where you are allowed to use the toilet.

They're being asked to do exactly the same thing as everyone else. Use the facilities designated for their sex. Why do they need special, additional privileges?

If men are being made feel unsafe by other men, in men's facilities - why would that be women's problem to solve?

If she was the type to not insist on forced or compelled speech around pronouns,expecting vulnerable children to validate their identity then I wouldn't have an issue at all. Classrooms aren't pride parades and I just don't want a teacher bringing their whole self to work or whatever it's known as these days.