Advice for dealing with schools re trans child

[IamMrsElf]

My Trans DD is due to start school in September. I was wondering if anyone else has enrolled a trans child or has a trans child at school, what are your experiences and advice?

I'm just not sure what to expect or how to deal with it all.

I do have a child at the school currently, so I know the teachers and the school. Some of the staff are aware and so far my interactions with them have been positive.

I feel apprehensive for my DD and just want some thoughts and advice from those that have been there.

It is interesting as to why though? No criticism of your boy, mine would be the same.

My 14 year old son does ballet. I think a pink ribbon might be step too far although aged 2 pink was his favourite colour. Mind you he would not be showing any of his school friends (boy's school) any ballet awards anyway and he has made damn sure none of them know he does ballet!

Whether it should be necessary to behave like that (of course it shouldn't), it seems wise to me - why provide a bunch of teens with ammunition.

In his mind it's a colour for girls!

We're back to how competely ingrained gender stereotyping is in todays world again.

Of course the ribbons are pink. Because all girls like pink. Every single one. And ballet is for girls, so of course you need pink ribbons, because all those little girls, without exception, want pink. Other colours dont reflect the sheer girliness, and will be rejected.

If pink were just a colour, and it stopped being the go to for anything even remotely associated with girls, then children could have all different colours of award ribbons, and the boys, or girls, who dont like pink wouldnt mind the odd pink one, and a pink ribbon wouldnt be a symbol of boys being forgotten about.

My dd was furious when her school started a lunchtime ballet class. Several boys put their name down but their parents wouldn't sign the permission slips. So at age 4 the entire reception year get a very strong gender message.

Hopefully as he gets older, he won't feel the need to hide it, one of the Y12 boys at my school did a solo ballet performance at the school concert. All the girls were swooning!

I think he's wise to hide it at the moment tbh. They did a class discussion on stereotyping recently and as soon as the male ballet dancer was mentioned the class started shouting 'gay'. He thinks they're immature and it doesn't bother him, but on the other hand why invite a kicking? He doesn't tell many of his school friends about his disabled brother either because some would be unpleasant. They need to grow up a bit.

My 14yo Ds is hanging out with his friend today. Friend is also 14 and in the last year has formally started steps to transition (FTM).
I feel very sorry for the op, but sorrier for her son. I know so many toddlers who have gone through lengthy phases of wanting to be the opposite sex etc, and very few who haven't grown out of it within four or five years. When I say 'grown out of it', I mean there are some who continue to enjoy activities/ clothing that we are culturally conditioned to believe are for the the opposite sex (but who don't give a damn and are happy to accept they are a boy who likes ballet or a girl who likes football), and some who have been successfully socially conditioned and taken up with new approved likes and dislikes. I can count on the fingers of one hand those who are still struggling with gender.

I do applaud any increase in understanding of trans issues, but it makes me distinctly uncomfortable when the reporting is not critical. Lazy reporting that merely states 'I knew he should be a girl because he always loved dollies' is farcical, and does nothing except reinforce rigid gender boundaries, when in reality we should all be crushing them.

Trans being used to reinforce gender stereotyping makes me very very uneasy.

Go easy on your poor son, op. Let him be, doing what he wants, wearing what he wants, but for goodness sake don't attach a gendered label to him. Let him find out who he is and what he likes in his own time. At three he isn't capable of making any life long decisions, and you should be smiling, ruffling his hair and buying him a damned Elsa frock if he wants one. But the last thing you should be doing is telling him that means he is a girl.

Excellent post madwoman

Applauds madwoman too
A dear friend of mine who I thought was quite open minded once asked me if I thought her ds (pre primary) doing drama and horse riding activities would make him gay?
Gender stereotyping is such a huge issue still and I say that as a mother of girls who do ballet (and love it) and are very frilly and pink by choice.

newnameillchangeback and madwomanbackintheattic those are the most insightful and useful posts I've read on this thread. I can't add any more to that.

Proper Ballet is bloody hard work. Not pink and fluffy in the least. I think it's also been a victim of gendering- when I was a child it was formal black leotards, no skirts to obscure lines, and technique all the way. Now it's parents smiling indulgently at little Jemima in her pretty pink ballet dress pretending to be a fairy.

I did laugh once when I took DD to a football class age 5, to burn off some energy. She hated it- all the little boys stood nicely, waited their turn, did all the drills and exercises while she ran round like a whirlwind. It was all too slow for her. All the parents giving me the stink eye while saying how much energy boys had for football, their girls all preferred craft and sitting nicely, girls are so much easier...

I would be mortified if my child refused to accept an award because they didn't like the colour, that's just rude! Having said that, my daughter doesn't like coming 6th in pony club competitions as the rosette for 6th is pink

It's interesting that with so many prominent, athletic, macho male dancers/sex symbols known outside the ballet world like Nureyev, Carlos Acosta etc (I've crossed Baryshnikov off my list because his Sex and the City 'acting' was so god-awful) that ballet is still seen as so heavily gendered female. It's as athletic as football, if less immediately accessible. I'm trying to find a local class for my three-year-old son, because I think he might love it. (Or he might riot.)

I did laugh once when I took DD to a football class age 5, to burn off some energy. She hated it- all the little boys stood nicely, waited their turn, did all the drills and exercises while she ran round like a whirlwind. It was all too slow for her. All the parents giving me the stink eye while saying how much energy boys had for football, their girls all preferred craft and sitting nicely, girls are so much easier...

Yes, one of the annoying things about insidious gender stereotyping in small children is how much it contradicts the actual behaviours the stereotyping commenters are actually looking at but not 'seeing'. My three-year-old son's best friends at a weekly toddler/pre-schooler playgroup were all older girls, who were an extremely boisterous gang, who consistently ran around shrieking and throwing toys and climbing things and mooning one another - normal enough for energetic four year olds (and why my son liked them).

Yet no one sighed and said 'Oh well, that's girls for you' about them, yet it was trotted out everytime a boy got riotous. It was as if they didn't see the actual behaviour, or that it was pretty much gender-neutral, only with the boisterous girls more prominent, because there were more of them.

I have a fit-as-all-hell 15yo female ballet dancer. She is currently writing a TED talk on why ballet should be considered a sport . I pick her up from class and she is sweating, aching, often bleeding, and gets home and sorts out the blisters whilst stuffing her face with as many bowls of dinner as she can fit in, then goes and stretches and rolls out her muscles. She trains 4 nights a week for 3 or 4 hours a night. It's very fluffy... The girls who do it for the pink and sparkles are usually long gone by 9. I love the juxtaposition between what it looks like on the stage and the reality of what it means to make it look like that. I see a lot of parallels with 'performing femininity'. Fascinating. Subconsciously dd also sees them - the saga involved with stage make-up and hair means she has been left in no doubt about the 'performance' aspects of womanhood, and that to conform or not is an individual choice.

My dds wear a navy ballet uniform. I feel quite irritated by the pre primary parents who don't follow it. Even though I know I am being precious about it. We do exams. It's a serious hobby. Class is still all girls though

I wanted to be a boy from age 8-13. Cut my hair, identified as male and was pleased when most/all thought I was. But then I slowly feminised. Not totally, as I (as you can see from my username) play rugby and compete in eventing - and although straight/mildly bi and in a long term and happy hetero relationship, I prefer the company of my mostly gay female friends as they aren't, generally, very typically girly.

I would have been a terrible man. 5'4, massive hips, tiny hands. I'm a very good Nagsandovalballs, though. Sporty, academic, tough, unemotional (unless kittens are involved), successful.

Let things remain gender fluid, op, as it is far more helpful than thinking in binaries.

Yes, one of the annoying things about insidious gender stereotyping in small children is how much it contradicts the actual behaviours the stereotyping commenters are actually looking at but not 'seeing'. My three-year-old son's best friends at a weekly toddler/pre-schooler playgroup were all older girls, who were an extremely boisterous gang, who consistently ran around shrieking and throwing toys and climbing things and mooning one another - normal enough for energetic four year olds (and why my son liked them)

yy. I've had people insist DD is a boy, and short of stripping her down in front of them they cannot be persuaded otherwise. I can really see how, if we were more traditional parents, or if her peer group at nursery hadn't been only male, she might have started thinking she needed to "be" a boy if she wanted to follow her own interests. People think nothing of challenging a toddler- DD2 has had adults and children alike asking why she is wearing a dress or female swimsuit style, because she's a boy. Not such a stretch for a 3 year old to then think she's a boy, and start refusing girl things, is it?

I didn't say he would refuse it Frank - I said that he wouldn't want it and would protest (to me - a lot), basically he would get no joy from a link award and surely they defeats the point of working for it.

Pink not link!

Why does he buy into the stereotype though will? He rejects pink because it's "for girls", as a boy who does ballet he should realise its a social construct, and people won't think he's a girl, or gay, or less of him because he has a pink ribbon? Or if they do, its their issue. Rejecting an award because of the colour seems a bit daft, and he's stereotyping just as much as those who say ballet is for girls.

I think you're expecting rather a lot of a young child there Micah. Ds2 just wants a quiet life which is why none of his school friends know he does ballet.

He's 8 Micah - I really don't think he would think about it so deeply!

Devilish - DS isn't bothered about people knowing and happily takes certicficates it to class for now, but then he is the boy 'not to mess with' according to his friends!

Ds2 is 14 & at a boy's school - the comments would be constant. He doesn't tell them about ballet for the same reason he doesn't tell them about having a disabled brother. It would just be never ending.

I'm surprised that my DS tells people to be honest, but nobody seems to care (they are young still though) - it's sad that it has to be hidden as they get older.