Autism vs trans - clashing views

[sunshine244]

I'm in a tricky position with my AuDHD 12 year old. There is a trans boy in their class who recently started using a new name and pronouns he/him.

My son is very black and white thinking and very scientific. He is a bit grumpy at having to learn a new name as he struggles when e.g. teachers or family/friends get married and change name. But he has accepted that pretty quickly. But he flat out refuses to use the new pronouns as he says a girl can't just decide to be a boy unless they have surgery (which at this age of course isn't going to happen).

I sympathise with his as personally I don't think social transitioning this young is sensible. But I am also aware that the child's parents are very pushy about the situation and have already posted in the parents group about children bullying by not using the right pronouns/name. They got a lot of support from other parents.

I suppose my aibu is should i be forcing my son to use the child's preferred pronouns?

Yabu - I need to push my son to use preferred he/him pronouns

Yanbu - let child decide which pronouns to use or try to avoid pronouns

@Sc0rched Again, misgendering is not breaking the law.
Otherwise several leading barristers would have been continually breaking the law through recent high profile tribunals.

This. If your DS needs to refer to the person (eg to follow up a point they made in class discussion) use their name.

I think if they refused to make any concessions at all that’s one thing, making people call a man “she” is something else. I just wouldn’t use pronouns. Good luck discriminating against me for my belief.

Op can you talk to your child's school or are they captured? The new school guidance makes it clear that social transition in not a neutral act and the school should be limiting the extent to which the child is treated as the opposite sex. There are many children being abused here - starting with the child whose parents are insisting they are trans. If allowed to go through normal puberty they are likely to desist soon.

There has been a recent employment tribunal won by an autistic person who was badly treated for "misgendering" someone. It was recognised that autistic people may find it harder to use wrong sex pronouns. So if the school do ever try to make an issue of this you need to look up the recent guidance to schools and the employment tribunal case.

Just fight it out then

One the one side a dramatic trans boy family

on the other black and white autistic thinking

there are no superior positions here

spend the whole of year 8 wrapped up in this drama fighting about how one child can think and say what they want and the other child can think and say what they want

one child demanding male pronouns
one child demanding he won’t use them

and round and round you go

it’s the summer holidays the beginning of the summer holidays
so forget about it until September and see what the position is then

Neither @Sc0rched nor @Heronwatcher have said misgendering is always breaking the law, but it can amount to harassment and discrimination in some circumstances, e.g. where it's being done to intentionally upset someone.

It's the difference between calling someone an idiot as a one-off versus following them around shouting idiot at them. The latter is likely to get you in trouble.

You need to be careful how you phrase things and support an autistic child. Not fostering tolerance, kindness and tact alongside using some of the anti trans ideology on here could lead to an autistic child running away with it, not knowing when to stop or what is acceptable within law, school and the workplace.

Autistic young people can get involved in legal trouble due to a lack of understanding of social boundaries, suggestibility to being manipulated, or hyper-focused interests. Those with ADHD are statistically more likely to come into contact with the police and face criminal charges overall. They are hugely over represented in prisons. This is primarily linked to core symptoms like poor impulse control, risk-taking behavior, and emotional dysregulation coupled with autism it can be a difficult combination.

This young person has both.

And that is all fine in the adult world with legal cases

you might find even if the school do agree autistic children can use the original pronouns in the playground you can’t then demand how the other teenagers respond to them

adult solutions don’t work in teenage playgrounds

Right so as long as the OPs child isn't following the girl around and shouting "you're a girl" at them, which there is no suggestion of, they are all fine then. So its odd to bring the idea of law breaking nto it.

this.

You absolutely cannot say this. In some cases it could be- that’s what the law says. Not every case and it will depend on the overall circumstances. But it would be downright dangerous to even imply that deliberate misgendering is fine.

And in the recent employment tribunal cases, there is a well established principle of Judicial Immunity and Core Immunity from Suit which makes it almost impossible to sue barristers and judges for things they say in Court or other proceedings (the justification is that it’s in the public good to have an open exchange of views in court without people worried about being sued). Or it could well have been agreed behind the scenes that the transperson wouldn’t take a point on this. In either case it would be foolhardy to advise a 12 yr old in school to take their cue from this.

www.barcouncil.org.uk/resource/bar-council-welcomes-court-of-appeal-ruling-on-advocate-immunity.html

"The child's parents are very pushy about the situation"

Hmm wonder how the idea of being trans got into the kids head?!

But you're the one who said it wouldn't amount to discrimination and that there was no case law to back it up? You're the one who brought the law up?

It's exhausting having a whole discussion about pronouns. I recently had a conversation with a parent who was referring to their child as them. I managed not to use pronouns but it was probably very obvious as it's not a natural way to speak without referring to a pronoun at all.
I can't imagine asking an autistic child to keep that up.

Maintaining reality and safeguarding children and women is not equivalent to being an arse or treating anyone poorly.

No. You can't change your chromosomes, (basic biology) but you can change gender (a societal construct.

I agree, I was more thinking in the workplace, and myself.

On the off chance that you really are confused about this, no that is not all fine. The definition of discrimination under the Equality Act, and harassment (as a civil wrong or and criminal offence), are wide and include lots of potential elements, plus they evaluate the effect on the person. The civil definition of harassment in the workplace for example is whether the behaviour relating to a protected characteristic (including being trans) violates the victim's dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment.

Any behaviour which could be seen as deliberate discrimination or harassment would be a problem and this could (in some circumstances) include refusing to work with the child, refusing to talk to them, refusing to refer to them in conversation and other types of this behaviour.

You as an adult can choose to take that risk, but we are talking about 12 yr old children here.

@frozendaisy Teenage playgrounds are influenced by the attitudes of the school. Unfortunately if this autistic child is being told by other kids that they can become a girl then the school's attitude is likely to leave a lot to be desired. I'm more concerned with what the school might say to the child than what other teenagers will say. Teenagers see through attention seeking behaviour unless their teachers are forcing them into one particular line.

But this is an autistic child. What about his disability? What if he had Tourette’s, for eg? The school cannot guarantee that literally everyone will use wrong sex pronouns.

Who said it was?

That is all fine in theory but the reality in school is that an autistic child gets bullied because they are struggling with their identity.

Can any of you see how oppressive it gets when people are forced to lie about something they strongly reject on pain of punishment?

I agree with you that no doubt the school would and should make reasonable adjustments if the autistic person did if by accident. But this isn’t really the issue here- people are advising the OP that ignoring the request to use new pronouns is fine and that it would also be fine for the OP’s son to completely ignore and/ or misgender the other child deliberately which is quite different.

Again you are flailing around trying give the impression that misgendering would break the law, by listing other unrelated behaviours which might break the law.