Any experience of teaching a transgender DC?

[EvilTwins]

We have a student starting in September who is at the beginning of the process. There will be others in school who knew the DC as being one gender and will now need to accept them as the other. Has anyone got any experience of this? I'm not concerned about actually teaching this student - more wanting to be prepared for any issues which might have come up. Experiences would be very much appreciate.

TIA.

Is this primary or secondary? Is the child or their parents coming in to talk to the class, or are you going to need to do that?

I think a common source of confusion is toilets. Is there something in place to ensure the child is able to use an appropriate facility?

We had a student in year 9 this year who changed from female to male. I was surprised how little fuss the rest of the class made. I called out the register and said "James" and one boy looked round very confused and asked who James was. I replied that Abigail had decided to be called James. This was accepted without further question. 3 weeks later Jamesstarting wearing a tie which only boys wear in our school. No one commented. I was prepared for lots of comments and discussion it didn't happen.

Bosco- if you knew my class, the boys would be quite happy to comment in front of me!

In my experience, most teenagers will have very little problem with this. Most teenagers are very well read when it comes to gender/identity issues these days, and very accepting of individuality. I'd expect more of a problem from 'old school' staff who can't/won't understand the complexities of gender, sexuality and identity.

There will, inevitably, be some idiots who deliberately choose this to bully/tease. But you'll already know who these are.

Stamp on anything less than appropriate that you witness. Same as you would for anything else.

I recently had a student identify themselves as gender fluid. Which I thought was brave. Not a whisper from the rest of the class about it. (Not a centre of progressive diversity here either)

To follow what StBosco says about online/hidden bullying etc, I would imagine the student is already knowledgable enough to keep their online profiles secure and exclusive. But related to my point about staff, you might need to be vigilant that any issues here are dealt with as thoroughly/rigorously as racism would be.

Thanks - this is all helpful. It's secondary. An expert (not sure who) is coming to talk to staff but I don't know yet how it will be addressed with the rest of the students. I will teach the student in question but I am not going to be the form tutor/year head.

Sounds encouraging that other schools have found that kids have been pretty accepting. We have students at school who are open about sexuality and so I'm hoping that the same open mindedness will be applied here.

We have had three through our high school while I've been working there. Two started the public process in sixth form and the other had just finished Y11, declared her intentions mid-year. I admire them greatly for having the courage to make such a public change. Fortunately it's a nice school where the majority of students would think it completely beneath them to deliberately cause any embarrassment to the TG students. The way this is acted upon however is just not to refer to it at all. As I'm not TG myself I don't know if this felt as totally a good thing.
If you have the kind of kid who only feels good about themselves by putting someone else down, then picking on some aspect of the gender change is an easy target. I suppose it's something TG kids have to learn to manage.

In my case I used the term"public process" I mean the point at which the student requested s/he be referred by their new preferred name and gender, and changed their appearance significantly to reflect that. It was not my business to know what stage medical or surgical intervention they were at.

When I say beginning of the process, I mean that the students is dressing as the preferred gender for the first time and asking to be known as the preferred name. I met the student in the summer term, but as the previous name/gender identification, so I think this is literally the first step.

The child is about to start yr 7.