What can teachers and other professionals do to create a more gender free environment in our schools?

[SarahCarer]

As my dd is autistic and, as a result, Gender non Conforming (GNC) I thought I would share some thoughts about how to de-gender our schools.

Firstly, teachers need to find a way to address groups of children without saying "girls" or "boys" . This is commonplace in some schools and puts an unnatural focus onto a person's sex which is of no relevance at all in the context.

Secondly every school should have at least one unisex toilet which any pupil can use without special permission.

Thirdly school staff should avoid using the terms "good girl" or "good boy" Again the sex is of no relevance and the statement risks implying that they are being good because they are behaving in a way consistent with femininity or masculinity.

Fourthly ALL sexism and homophobia should be robustly challenged

Fifthly sex ed should not have gendered content

Sixthly there should be no organising of classes with reference to sex except in PE or for sex ed.

Any thoughts on these suggestions or suggestions for others?

These are some of the ways we can protect our autistic children from gender dysphoria (GD)

I wouldn't get rid of uniform, not every family can afford the latest fashions and bullying would happen. I would get rid of blouses though, have had to hand out emergency safety pins to curvy students whose buttons couldn't cope.

See school uniform is probably one of the clearest examples of how little is actually thought of girls and why it's such an uphill struggle.

Uniform clearly reinforces stereotypes! It's its very purpose to do so!

One way to reduce the impact of gender in schools would be to make them single sex...

I wouldn't get rid of uniform, not every family can afford the latest fashions and bullying would happen.
I agree. I was one of those poor kids at school and I hated mufti days.
As a teacher I’m also not keen. We recently had a mufti day and the girls spent a lot of time comparing clothes, talking about how pretty they looked/ didn’t look, etc. Uniform gives them a break from the pressure of ‘looking nice’.

Uniform clearly reinforces stereotypes! It's its very purpose to do so!

It may be an unintended outcome (where for example, girls aren’t allowed to wear trousers) but it’s definitely not its purpose. Why would you claim that?

My autistic nephew is quite clear about there being boys and girls, he knows how their biology differs, and it makes perfect sense to him to have boys toilets and girls toilets. When he starts sex ed, I hope that it will not be in the mainstream class but will be taught by a specialist. It will need to have a lot of very explicit (as opposed to implicit) gendered content. As I am sure OP is aware, individuals with autism struggle with making sense of the social world about them and the social world as it stands is currently very gendered. The unwritten rules surrounding gendered stereotypes and expectations will need to be explained and part of that explaination should be how and where they can be ignored.

I would keep uniform, but girls and boys could wear trousers, skirts or shorts as they prefer.

nuffaluff

We’re just about to amend our website so that instead of having two columns for uniform (one boys, one girls), we’ll just have one list with everything on it that can be worn as uniform. Then the children can take their pick.

Sadly the secondary school most of them transfer to has a skirts-only rule for girls. Some of our girls have never worn skirts to school and are not looking forward to it.

I hate the skirts only rule, especially in mixed schools, because of upskirting.

Furthermore, all children should be issued with Mao Suits in plain colours. The regulation haricut should be a practical short back and sides. Only ideologically pure literature should be studied and absolutely must NOT include any sexualised content whatsoever.

Physical Education should only be for productive purposes (eg potato-picking, sack-weaving), and pupils and teachers should only refer to each other as Comrade.

There you go, OP; I've clarified your initial post.

I must say I always say: "class x" or year 3 over boys and girls. I also say well done rather than good boy - firstly as it's good practise and secondly as an autistic child I taught once hated it - as they were a (their name), not just a generic boy or girl! The upset wasn't worth not remembering this...

Unfortunately many primary staff do need to be better educated about all the suggestions on this thread.

New schools being built these days certainly tend to have unisex single cubicle toilets for staff and are likely to have disabled shower/ changing / toilet spaces (a single room).

Why is your child's gender non conforming as a result of having autism? Seems a very odd thing to say. They aren't related.

It's very common.

@Owlettele "why should this fall on teachers...?"

If you watch the BBC's great 2 part documentary "no more boys and girls" it shows how much of an impact teachers have on pupils and their stereotypical attitudes.

Ekpharasis My ds struggled with the concept of 'everyone' because he didn't realise it included him. So they had to say more along the lines of 'can everyone do x like/with Fred'

How do you (collectively) address girls in an all girls' school? In my experience they call each other 'guys' and don't seem to have a problem with that,though I don't think they would even connect it with maleness.
I gave heard members of staff saying 'you guys' which makes me cringe but I may be in the miNorty.

Why

Teaching's hard enough without making it even harder. If I was still teaching this could be the sort of thing that would make me quit, frankly.

Our job is to teach DCs to read, write and add up.

I hate the use of “guys” for a group of children.

Thankfully at primary we can get away with calling them “children”. It seems to work ok

I have seen it and agree there needs to be something done to end the stereotypes and pay gap etc. However, it is not for overworked teachers to solve. I am not denying there are things that can be done on the classroom but often you fight a losing battle as they go home and hear different messages. See different messages in the media. There needs to be a global shift. Teachers and schools no matter how inclusive and neutral can not begin to make a dent on the issue in isolation.

@campion it is easy to address collective pupils by yeah group/house name/class name/school name. Not difficult. I have never used guys or boys and girls or children .

I'd never use guys/boys/girls unless it's a group of single sex children. Not really even then.

I use folks a lot, or Year *, and they have group table names, which are also used.

As far as 'good boy/girl' is concerned, it's the 'good' that I object to rather than the entirely accurate 'boy' or 'girl'. 'Good' is such a controlling, patronising concept, when used to categorise a person. Good by whose judgement? Good because they've done what they were told to do, or what society expects them to do, whether male or female?

Meh, I use boys and girls. If there’s a large group of boys hanging around in the corridor I will say ‘come on boys, get to your next lesson’.

Girls and boys tend to hang around in single sex groups, so this happens quite a lot.

Fifthly sex ed should not have gendered content
Sixthly there should be no organising of classes with reference to sex except for sex ed

Whilst I agree young people need to know all of it, why can't have it together if they're not allowed to think of themselves as gendered for the rest of the day pr why would you not have different information if we accept that their are differences?