Daughter is due to go to an all girls secondary and now thinks she may be bigender - help!

[Caro382]

My DD age 11 is due to start at an all girls secondary school in September. It isn't our closest school, but she had her heart set on so I was very relieved when she was offered a place. It seems like a lovely school and she still really wants to go. However, I got a phone call from one of her teachers the other day to say my daughter had told her that she thinks she's bi-gender.

Spoke to my daughter and she says that she sometimes feels like a girl and sometimes like a boy. She doesn't feel she wants to change her pronouns or dress differently. She's aware that the school she's going to everyone wears skirts etc and she's ok with that. I don't think it had even occurred to her that identifying as anything other than female might be a problem at an all girls school - in all honesty I don't really know how it would work myself as this has come a bit out of the blue.

As background, my daughter has been very interested in LGBTQ+ questions and rights for several years and has said she'd rather marry a girl than a boy since she was 3. I'd often thought she might come out as gay at some point, but she's never given the impression of not feeling she herself is a girl before. She's also hit puberty in the past year and her body has changed a lot and fast which I know she feels qute awkward about, but I've always previously had the impression of this being about not feeling ready to 'grow up' more than necessarily gender related.

I've obviously told her that I love her whatever, and have contacted a local charity for LGBTQ+ people of all ages and their families to ask if there are options for her to talk to someone who might 'get it' a bit better than me. But how on earth do I handle the question of how to talk to the school she's not even at yet about this? Or would it be better to wait until she's had a chance to talk it through with someone from the charity?

Also she wants to do a talk to her class about being bigender before they finish school in July. I don't think this is a good idea at all until she's had more time to explore what it means to her, as she'll probably get asked a load of questions she can't answer and end up feeling worse than if she'd given herself more time. I'm a bit pissed off with the teacher for letting her think a presentation to the whole class was a good idea to be honest.

School allocations have happened for her year/ our area now so if she can't go to the all girls school she's chosen then our only option is to go to the school admissions people and see what spaces are left at schools which are under subscribed, and then scrambled to figure out new transport arrangements by September as I'm a single parent and work full time.

Does anyone have any advice or has been in a similar position? WTF do I do?

Also the new court ruling should protect her place at the school. She's got entry based on being female, that can't change and they can't discriminate against her based on her appearance or how she identifies as biological sex is now being recognised in law again.

Yep DD is at one and I worked at one and she won’t be alone in it. In DDs class alone 3 have changed their names to gender neutral names and no one bats an eyelid about it at all

Thanks everyone who has responded so far. To answer some questions so far:

It's unclear to me whether the presentation to the class is hers or the teacher's. Could have been hers to be fair as she has a flair for the dramatic, is on the school council etc. I just think the reality of it would be very different to what she's imagining and she'd end up getting hurt, glad to hear I'm not the only one who thinks that. And no, the year 6 girls at her school definitely aren't all unusually sweet and gentle.

If she does one day come to feel that she's bigender or non binary then I'd want her to feel supported about that. It just feels a bit sudden, and I'd rather she could just know that support is out there if she needs it one day but that she has plenty of time still to just be a kid, and she doesn't have to know the answer to all of this yet.

I'll check what she has access to on the internet. She doesn't have any social media apart from WhatsApp and that's limited to family and friends she already knows in real life. She has access to Google on the laptop that we share as a family to look things up for homework, stories she writes etc. although I block anything that's obviously age inappropriate.

She is definitely looking at TikTok or Reddit or Instagram etc. This stuff isn’t organic, it’s online grooming. She’s just a child. A little girl. Don’t look ahead too far.

This. There is no way an 11 year old has come up with this on their own. I’m wondering if the school have been teaching gender woo, hence the teacher’s keenness for your DD to present on the topic.

She may well be a lesbian and it’s normal to be thinking about that age 11. But you can’t be both male and female, or neither.

What LGBT charity have you contacted? They are not created equal.

I am so confused - she’s biologically a girl j can’t understand why she can’t go to an all girls school? It’s happens at all girls schools that some girls decide they are trans or gay - for the trans girls they just tend to wear trousers rather than skirts it’s usually an option

The local girls school to me had loads of transgenders. Your daughter will be fine and on trend

She is a girl. There is no such thing as bi-gender.

Where is this coming from? Is she involved with kids who are into all of this? Is she getting it online?

She might be a bit of a tomboy , she might be gay. Or both or neither. She’s 11 - a kid. All of this may well be a phase.

I’d send her to the girls’ school where she has a place and take what she’s saying with a pinch of salt. Certainly no assembly is needed - encourage her to just be herself without labels and making statements.

Her priorities in the new school are to get stuck into her academics, get involved with some sports and clubs and to make friends.

@Tiswa Yes, this also happened at the all-girl’s school that my DD attended (she’s now at uni). It wasn’t an issue.

Obviously she'll need to attend the girls' school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and you'll need to find a boys's school for him to attend on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Two sets of uniforms, and two sets of pronouns. This could get get complicated. But on the bright side, they should get extra time in their exams because there's two of them.

There were lots of girls questioning their gender at our local all girls school.

By sixth form / college, that fad had passed for the bulk of them, a few were in same sex relationships and one who had demanded to be called Oliver from year 8 onwards, returned to her given name of Olivia by year 12.

Just roll with it and let her work it out; the school will have seen it all before.

This !
It isn’t possible to “feel like a boy” unless you are actually a boy, just being a boy. What this means is that she likes things associated with boys, she may like activities that are more traditionally male, or clothes. She may want the freedom that boys sometimes have. None of this makes her a bit like a boy. She is still a girl, she always will be female. This is a very freeing thing to understand, that you are fine just as you are.

You say she hasn't got access to social media on her phone

You definitely need to have a look at it because unless you are effectively controlling her phone, it would be very easy for her to sort access to this

And what is she seeing on WhatsApp? There's all kinds of channels and things there.

Other than that, she may be looking at this stuff on someone else's phone

It may sound picky, but I am particularly surprised to hear the term bi-gender coming from an 11-year-old

It feels if she's gone for something quite specific and detailed rather than non-binary or gender fluid.

she can still go to the school, but I'm afraid there's a lot of other concerns here

What a load of naval-gazing bollocks.

Get that child off the Internet. She doesn't know better because of her age. You should, op.

Check for Discord.

I'm not saying what you're saying isn't true, but it always baffles me that people have 3 year olds who talk about who they want to get married to and complex concepts.

My 4.5 year old son, who's been to holiday club in nursery over the Easter break, is fully convinced that the nursery manager doesn't have a home and sleeps in nursery.

My 3 year old daughter would also never express herself in that way.

I have no experience or anything useful to say, but wanted to tell you you sound like a wonderful mum and that any child would be lucky to have you

Why on earth would anyone need to do a talk on whether they fancy boys or girls at 11?!? Or ever. Who cares?

why on earth would you need to confirm that you love her?!? Of course you do.

My 4.5 year old son, who's been to holiday club in nursery over the Easter break, is fully convinced that the nursery manager doesn't have a home and sleeps in nursery

This reminds me of about 3 years ago when we bumped into ds3's reception teacher in Tesco. He looked at her in wide-eyed astonishment and said 'How did you get out?' 😂

Agree.

Think about what you're saying here - that your DD might end up at a random school, miles away rather than one she was enthusiastic about because she jumped on a bandwagon , aged 11, and mum joined in.

Obviously she goes to the girls' school, where a good chunk will have pronoun badges etc. She doesn't need help or support as nothing has happened to her. Confront any sexism she comes out with around boy things or girl things but otherwise just leave it alone. Don't let her do the presentation to the class, but maybe get her to write one so you can see what's going on.

Talk to the school and see what their attitude is. I don't think an 11 year old should be encouraged to think of themselves as transgender or to be encouraged to change gender. I would think sending her to a girls school might be helpful in shutting this down. However some people do actually have real gender dysphoria, and I would be worried about her being a 15/16 year old who was still really struggling and was going to be told they were stupid for feeling as they do.

Can you gently explain to her that you cannot change your sex and then say ‘that’s nice dear’ when she brings it up?

My son happens to be at an all girls school (Year 12, he has a girlfriend already there which was a driving factor along with the A Level choices). It's a very inclusive school. It would be worth going to visit all the contenders as it's surprising how different the vibes can be!

Sounds like she needs a talk about gender norms and how they are stereotyping and nothing to do with who a person is. How does one 'feel like a boy' exactly?

She's picked up on and internalised mysoginy.
It need to be addressed tootsweet.