School's response to a pupil transitioning female to male making me uncomfortable...

[MoreCrackThanHarlem]

Hi everyone.
Long time MN'er, and although I haven't posted in this topic before, I am an avid reader and have learned so much from the posters here.

I suppose I am looking for a feminist viewpoint on a situation that has developed at my daughter's school which makes me feel uncomfortable.

A child in my daughter's year at Secondary school has chosen, since Y7, to live as a boy. She was a girl through Primary, a footballing superstar, and was described by many as a 'tomboy', though I dislike the expression myself.

Most of the children in his year have only known him as a boy and are unaware of his past, though there have been many rumours and much gossip about this.

After a few incidents on social media where children have made comments about him actually 'being a girl', he asked to address an assembly to set the record straight.
During this assembly he told the entire year group that he is a boy, has always been a boy, and would like people to stop saying otherwise as it was very upsetting for him.

Since transition he has changed radically, particularly, conforming to social gender stereotypes by having relationships with numerous girls, calling girls 'slags' on FB, and becoming friends with a group of disruptive boys who truant ,drink alcohol and spend lots of time discussing girl's physical assets on FB. Not pleasant.

My daughter's friend has begun a 'relationship' with this boy, and it has gone further than kissing. He has told her he has always been a boy which she believes, and has explained his use of the toilet in the staff office by telling her he has a hormone disorder.

I think school have been complicit in his deceit by allowing him to address the other children during assembly and I worry that my daughter's friend is being prevented from making a fully informed choice with regard to her relationship with him.

I would just like to hear other's thoughts on this, and what, if any, action you would take.

To add, I absolutely support other's choices to live 'as' the opposite sex, though I feel uncomfortable with the idea that he has the right to tell others he has always been a boy, as despite his feelings, this is biologically untrue?

Sorry it's a bit jumbled.

Supporting*

I don't think you're derailing CaptChaos, I'm interested in your perspective.

Perhaps they have already spoken to the boy and his parents?

TBH I find it hard to believe that the girl doesn't know if everyone else in the school seemingly knows with such certainty, she certainly has suspected it and even with that level of doubt she is still happy to stay beside him. It is every bit the possibility that her insistance that he is male is because she is happy to accept him as he is and support him.

Thats the thing we only know a tiny, one sided part of the picture from someone on the outside looking in. We don't know what is really happening with either party

There is a lot of chat about this situation in the Twittersphere, where transwomen, who haven't surgically transitioned are saying that lesbian women who don't want to sleep with them because they still have a penis are bigots*

A lot of the content of the arguments being used in transactivism in its current form are simply gaslighting.

True Sirzy admittedly I get quite caught up in this topic quickly.

She may just be completely in denial though because of the school assembly and may have made a different choice if they hadn't allowed him to tell the school that he has always been a boy, which has already been mentioned, would be taken literal by a bunch of young teens.

MoreCrack, how do you know about this child at primary school? (And your dd doesn't - so not because they were at school together?)
Were you a teacher or something like that - or another professional relationship - do you have some sort of "privileged" knowledge? I think that matters, ethically maybe?

At least the girl can't get pregnant.

I agree that she deserves honesty from a sexual partner but I have no idea what a third party could do about it and I think it depends on your relationships with the two people involved.

It's tricky because of their age: we have a greater responsibility as adults to children ... but they may not see themselves as children

"It is sadly extremely common for ftm's to adopt a hyper-masculine, misogynistic persona to overcompensate for their unhappiness with the gender dysphoria etc"

• imo this is a bit of a red herring because I think masculine behaviour is all entirely predicated on insecurity being acted out aggressively on women; and the source of that insecurity is neither here not there. I would advise any young woman I knew to stay away from a certain kind of masculine behaviour as it is a sign of a person desperately asserting themselves, nothing to do with love for another person, and the cost in violence can be high

vezzie I agree it's unacceptable, which is why immediately after the bit you quoted I said it isn't an excuse. It's still true that it is very common, and I do think it's sad, because it's buying in to a socially constructed gender war and it shows he's learned from his peers this is 'how' to be a boy, which is rubbish.

Not being funny but when any of you were 13/14 and you had a special assembly at school where one child stood up and said x y and z rumours about me aren't true, would that have stopped them? Might it have reinforced them?

And OP if your daughter knows and some in the boys class know then surely the girlfriend must know? I mean just surely.

Anyway for me there are a host of issues around his behaviour which are concerning and none of them to do with being trans. Including the alcohol abuse, truancy, and string of sexual relationships.

All in all I think the trans thing is a red herring but the girlfriend's parents / school / boy's parents have a lot to be concerned about with his behaviour generally.

What you could or should do about that, I don't know.

I think the fact that this child is using the staff toilets is a subtle concession that the child is female and would not necessarily be safe in the boy's toilets. Why not just use the boy's loos if all is ok?

yep Blithereens, I got all that from your post but I just wanted, I guess, to say that it's not like he's being a dick because he used to be a girl and is therefore some sort of defective male; lots of males are dicks to females often, too

so why it matters that he was a girl (and I think it does) is not that he is being a dick. That is a totally different thing to object to

and tbh one that anyone could take issue with, including a person who was scared of taking issue with the other issue.

I know little of the situation as I am involved in a (female) club this boy attended when he was still a girl.
From what I know from other parents who are friendly with his Mum he has decided to live as a boy but has had no medical intervention to this end and simply straps down his breasts. His Mum still refers to him as 'she' in the company of other parents.

Since Secondary he has participated in boys sports.
I had not considered he may be intersex.

The girl concerned is certain he is a boy. In fact, the year group are generally incredibly suportive and he is indeed one of the 'popular' crowd as dd sees it...200 likes on his profile picture and a gang of 'followers'. (This is, apparently, how popularity is measured at 14)

Dd says it is like nobody would dare to question out loud whether he was a boy or a girl since he spoke in assembly.

I don't think school have considered that he might be in a sexual relationship. I certainly know that the girl's mum doesn't know. I can't imagine a 14yo would share that info with health professionals or counsellors either.

After considering all your responses (thank you!), I have decided to make an appointment with the Pastoral Leader.

I think girls have the right to know the sex of the person they are entering a relationship with. And I think the school are facilitating the deception.

To add, the club is unconnected to the school and his Primary is not a feeder school for the Secondary so his classmates from Primary attend another school.

I think that, whatever the situation, you should mind your own fucking business. This is nothing to do with you. You are not involved in this relationship, nor is either participant your child. You have no idea what these two teenagers have told or not told one another - and nor does your DD.

I'm not sure what you expect to be told by the school.

The most that they can say is "thank you for your concern, it is being dealt with."

IF the Pastoral Leader tells you anything other than to fuck right off and keep your beak out, then s/he would be seriously breaching confidentiality and professional standards.
Get a hobby or something.

There are two separate issues.

The first is the issue of social media. If pupils from a school are making comments about another pupil or multiple pupils that target their gender identity, their sexual behaviour or use misogynistic slurs, the school have a responsibility to deal with that. It sounds as if they have attempted to deal with the gender identity remarks by having the assembly, but have not dealt with the sexual remarks about girls. Your daughter, and all other girls in that school, should not have to be exposed to that on social media, and the school should be doing something about that - investigating it, disciplining the pupils doing it and educating pupils that it is unacceptable. I would take screen shots of anything visible on social media your dd uses, keep a record of comments made in front of your dd at school and who made them, take that information to the pastoral head and ask for something to be done about it.

The issue over the child who may or may not be trans is one where the school is in an impossible situation. There will presumably be numerous guidelines and procedures in place in schools, as there are in the workplace, around transgender people, including not disclosing people's pasts and people being treated as their declared gender. At the same time, the school curriculum - Science, Geography, sex education in PSE is still using words like man, woman, boy, girl, male, female to all refer to biological sex. The government should resolve all of this and bring it all into line. Children and young people should be educated so that the words boy, man, male mean particular things and this should be consistent each time the word is used. Otherwise, young people are being misled that when staff in schools or anyone else in positions of authority uses boy, man etc, they are always referring to biological sex, when this is not actually the case.

If the boy is trans, he is not misleading anyone. He may well believe that the word boy refers to a gender identity and he has always felt himself to be a boy. He is telling the truth as he sees it. If the government is in agreement with such beliefs, this should be reflected in the school curriculum and everywhere else in society, so everyone, particular children and young people, are equipped with the knowledge they need to enter into society and relationships.

What ever anyone thinks about trans issues, people arguing from most perspectives are using consistent terminology and statements based on their beliefs. It is the government that is causing confusion and misunderstanding by telling people wholly inconsistent things.

I agree with SGB. This sounds a bit like shit stirring tbh. Unless you inform the school of every teenage relationship where you think there may be a deception occurring then i cant see why you would become involved in this one. It is between the two teens what they tell/divulge to each other and their parents. Lots of teens lie to each other, dont tell everything about themselves upfront etc, you cannot and should not police other people's relationships when none of it affects you or your family. If it was your DD involved then you would of course tell her that you knew he was lying to her and give her the confidence to decide that she wanted a relationship based on honesty. But it isnt your child.

The OP has told her daughter the truth.

At least by having a meeting you are raising concerns, even if they (obviously) cannot discuss with you.

The assembly was clearly a mistake- the situation is a ticking time bomb. What about when the old primary school students find out? It's a very difficult situation.

Wasn't there a C4 documentary about a trans*woman who had numerous relationships where women had sex unaware a prosthetic type penis was used? Was legal action taken then?

From: NSPCC Safeguarding in Education Service
Briefing: Roles and responsibilities of schools, academies and colleges
in England for tackling bullying
April 2013

'Schools, academies and colleges have statutory responsibilities with regard to bullying. The Education Act 2002 gave schools a duty to “safeguard and promote the welfare” of pupils and this covers more than the contribution made to child protection and includes bullying. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 gave headteachers the responsibility for “preventing all forms of bullying”. It also empowered headteachers to regulate the behaviour of pupils when they are off the school site and for members of staff to impose disciplinary penalties for inappropriate offsite behaviour.'

'DfE Advice 2011 states that the schools responsibility can “relate to bullying anywhere off the school premises, specifically school or public transport, outside local shops, or town or village centre” and that if an incident of bullying is reported outside of school premises it should be investigated and acted on. This includes responding to cyber bullying.'

'In addressing bullying, schools must consider whether the behaviour may be a child protection issue or a criminal law offence. Under the Children Act 1989 definition of a “reasonable cause to suspect a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm”, some types of harassment, threatening behaviour or communications may be a criminal offence and should be reported to the Police.'

'Schools, colleges and academies are responsible under the Equality Act 2010 for eliminating unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Act. They must advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it. The Act covers eight “protected characteristics”: age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity.'

Coolas: 'no schools should not be investigating and dealing with and disciplining students over Facebook arguments.'

What argument? Calling girls misogynistic slurs on social media does not in itself constitute an argument. For it to be an argument, the girls or somebody would have had to have responded to the slurs. It is simply harassment on the basis of gender.

'That is the domain of the parents to monitor their child's FB profile and discussions.'

No, you have a statutory responsibility to deal with cyber bullying and harassment if it is brought to your attention.

'If they are unhappy with things their children are exposed to their options are to delete their child's profile, or take a screen shot to the other child's parents or report it to the police.'

And they also have the option to report it to you, and you have a statutory responsibility to look into it and either deal with it within school or report serious cases to the police.

You also have the legal power, as school staff, to take communication devices from children to look for evidence of cyber bullying. A parent of a bullied child does not have the right to look at communication devices belonging to the alleged bully, so it would be less effective for them to contact the parents than you.

'If we spent all our time being FB intermediaries then we would get nothing else done.'

Indeed. When I had to call the pastoral head of my daughter's school about a friend of my daughters being cyber bullied, the pastoral head told me that most of her time was spent dealing with situations that were mostly taking place online.

'As a pastoral leader myself, I would not even entertain the discussion with another parent. I would say "I will not be discussing another child with you, just as I am sure you would not want me to discuss your daughter with another parent"'

When I contacted the pastoral head about an issue involving dd's friend, she took all the information from me, advised me on how dd could best support her friend, called in dd and the friend and the pupils using social media about the friend to talk to them all separately. At no point did she have to 'discuss another child' with me. She simply listened to my concerns so that she could decide what (if anything) needed to be done and advised me about my own child's response. That is a discussion, but it isn't a discussion requiring the pastoral head to say anything at all to me about somebody else's child.

I am sure any reasonable member of staff will be able to listen to the OP and advise her what to say to her own daughter, and the staff be made aware of issues happening on social media to make decisions about, without the staff having to give out any kind of information about any of the children involved.

I'm quite shocked that anyone thinks this is ok.

A relationship at any age should have fundamental tenets of honesty.

The girl should be allowed to know who she is entering into a relationship with. By implying that this boy has always physically been male, that choice has been removed from her.