AIBU to think RSE lessons should be separated by sex not gender identity?

[Ljcrow]

My daughter's in Year 4 and had her first proper RSE lesson this week, covering puberty: body changes, periods etc. Girls and boys were separated apart from one boy who wears his hair long, dresses in what most people would view as "girls' clothes" and who likes to be referred to by female pronouns.
Besides the blatant ridiculousness of it- the fact that this child is never going to go through female puberty, I'm uncomfortable with the fact that girls are already being given the message that anyone can self identify into girlhood/womanhood and I worry about the precedent that this sets.
What complicates matters is that my child is really good friends with this boy and I'm friendly with his parents, although not super close, not enough to feel comfortable broaching the subject with them.
I've no problem with them being friends, my worry is that the school is reinforcing a potentially dangerous falsehood: that anyone who says they are the opposite sex, is.
Myself and my husband have always talked to our daughter about how there's more to being a girl than having long hair and liking pink or unicorns and how people can dress how they want and like whatever they like, but somebody's biological sex doesn't change.
As long as we're consistently giving this message is that enough or do I raise my concerns with the school?
Am I being unreasonable to be concerned about this?

Oh god. No that wasnt my reasoning. I do
Not think we should pander to children "identifying as". however I do think people shouldnt feel like sex and periods are something secret that can't be discussed with the opposite sex

It does benefit girls if periods are normalised for little boys though, which is the main reason for joint lessons in 2026

(Also fairly sure that pp was talking about a biological woman in ladies toilets, trans with a beard.)

But again, with decades of teaching experience behind me, in some, few cases, a separate class is appropriate. Whether we as confident adult women like it or not, there is an embarrassment factor and a boy / girl dynamic in a classroom. If tje overall objective is for girls to be able to learn and ask questions, they are best served in a single sex group. That does not exclude additional mixed sessions or bots also being taught about it

Boys need to be taught about puberty in girls and vice versa but in a single sex setting so that they can ask embarrassing questions.
When my boys did sex ed they came home knowing all the ins and outs of periods but almost nothing about the things that happen to boys in puberty.

Can we put some bells on this and put it in neon lights please?

Why on earth should normal people be relabelled for the sake of those who have issues

The full insanity of this movement is perfectly captured in this line ...

But to get back to the point: I agree this child needs to be taught about male puberty as this will be what she goes through

If they’ve separated the rest of the boys for these lessons, then he needs to go and sit with the other boys too.

He’s not a girl and never will be and making the girls accept his presence in their class where they’re likely to feel uncomfortable and embarrassed at the very least, is a massive safeguarding error of judgement.

I’d be there kicking up a huge fuss with the Head, if this happened in our school.

Can you document where it has been stated that there is a safeguarding risk to mixed-sex RSHE???

There is no safeguarding risk to boys and girls being taught RSHE together, let alone a "massive" one. It's standard normal practice. It doesn't become a safeguarding risk just because the school have decided to separate them. There is no DfE recommendation for this segregation.

Indeed.

Just asked my year five son whether his puberty lessons are separated and he said absolutely not and they weren’t last year either

Yet this is not recommended by the DfE, OFSTED, KCSIE, the PSHE Association, Brook, or any other agency.
Schools should teach the facts, parents should be the ones holding discussion if children still have questions on this subject.

I would challenge the school. I absolutely disagree with children being separated!

Do these boys not have mothers and sisters and in time possibly girlfriends and wives?! Surely they need to understand menstruation!

You are being unreasonable not to question WHY the school are segregsting sexes at all. Such lessons should be to mixed groups, about both sexes, with a tough no-nonsense teacher (preferably a qualified biology teacher) who will squash any stupidity from the children. It is horrific how little many people seem to know about how their own and other human bodies work.

The child's parents will follow up. As any parent should after this kind of lesson.

Trans man. He was rather hot, actually. Slightly androgynous, like some men are, a bit taller than me - about 5' 8'' perhaps. Nice voice.

Do you know any trans men? Those who have had the operation and hormone treatment are not easily distinguished from 'male from birth' men. It's harder for trans women. Post-puberty male characteristics are harder to change.

Saying 'no' to a child who is determined at whatever stage they are not the sex they were born is only going to confirm them in their view and make them deeply unhappy. Many kids who believe they are trans in their childhood and teens change their minds as they get older (which is one of the reasons why puberty blockers are a bad idea) but if a child grows up and retains their beleif they are trans, what does the parent who said, 'No,' do? The relationship between parent and child will be horrendously damaged.

Schools can work with parents to support children who wish to socially transition. Which clearly has happened in this case.

Please stop quoting a piece of draft legislation that went out for consultation and no further. The correct guidance can be found in KCSIE, not a draft document written 2.5 years ago.

Ah, a drip-fed story change. How convenient.

Yes, as it happens I do know and have worked with several trans-identifying individuals of various degrees of transition. The most physically modified TIW all give themselves away in exactly the same way as the TIM: by their movement.

I recall one bearded colleague who I thought was a young man with an endocrine disorder. Slight, boyish frame, voice broken but not deep, quiet manner. But I only ever saw this person sitting down. The moment I saw this person walking it was immediately obvious that this was a woman with a self-inflicted endocrine disorder.

The boy in question isn't going to see this for a start but regardless, I'm not going to be coerced into referring to a male as a she. It sets a terrible example to my daughter and other girls that you must accept someone is female even when your eyes and brain tell you the opposite.
He's actually happy and confident at school and seems to have no issues with bullying. He's always been welcome in my home as my daughter's friend and will continue to be welcome. I've never passed any judgement on how he dresses or looks because it's irrelevant. It doesn't however make him a girl. I'm not raising my daughter to believe someone is a girl if they have long hair and like pink or that anyone can change sex, because they can't.
I personally believe that if society was more tolerant about people expressing themselves however they wish, we'd have far fewer trans people. It should be perfectly acceptable for boys to like pink, unicorns and have long hair without them ultimately feeling as though they'd fit in better as a girl. And vice versa for girls who don't fit the female stereotypes.

As for confused, if he wasn't before he certainly will be after sitting through a girls only lesson on puberty.
His parents use he/him by the way.

I do think that both boys and girls need to be taught about eachothers bodies as well as their own. And maybe at some point they could have joint lessons but surely you know that in any random selection of 30 eight-year-old boys such as will be found in every primary school year 4, there are going to be at least 5 of them, quite possibly a lot more, whose presence would be torture for a shy young girl learning about her own body for the first time. You have met some eight-year-old boys haven't you? Some of them are lovely but some of them really aren't and you cannot make policy on the assumption that every child in the school is lovely.

No child is 'not the sex they were born'.

I’m not advocating for that. I’m advocating for everyone to be in all the classes for all information.

PSE classes are not single sex provision, so there is no law that is relevent to this.

There is relevant law: the Equality Act 2010. Itsays that sex discrimination is permitted if it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate objective. The objective in this case being enabling children to access education. Or do you think that it is not legitimate to enable girls to ask sensitive questions about their development away from the presence of boys, or for boys to have that same opportunity?

@JellySaurus is correct @OwlBeThere

The default is that boys and girls must be taught together, otherwise schools risk sex discrimination (see days of old where girls did needlework and boys did woodwork).

If a school has judged that single sex provision is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim then they must not then allow a child of the opposite sex into the lesson.

The issue of whether there is a legitimate aim here - ie whether boys and girls should or should not be separated for RSE - is not really the point of this thread.

The point of the is thread is that a boy has been allowed into a girl’s single sex provision.

But its not just about teaching the biological facts. RSE is not purely biology. Its around the feelings and emotions around puberty and anyone who cant see that there is a need for single sex spaces, hasn't been a teacher of adolescents. For the third or fourth time on this thread I will say again...both joint AND separate lessons are needed. If it's the parents job to answer tricky questions that might be uncomfortable in mixed sex groups then no PSHE /RSE should be taught in schools at all.

The Supreme Court judgement doesn't come into effect until 5th August, so the school isn't on "shaky ground" at all, as certain posters suggest. For people who have spent the last 15 months talking about this, I'd have thought gender critical people would be aware of details such as this.

Also we don't know, maybe it wasn't a single sex space, but a self-selecting space.