Child in my class is trans

[theresheis]

Looking for some advice. I'm a long time lurker and whilst I have read lots of the posts surrounding the issues of trans rights and consider myself firmly in the gender critical camp I am not fully up to speed with the current legal situation surrounding the trans debate.

I am a primary school teacher and I teach eight-year-olds. I have a boy in my class who at home is going by a girl's name, using female pronouns and wearing girl's clothes. This has not happened at all in school and he has not spoken to his peers about this. His mum spoke to me recently and said she had taken him to the GP. She is supporting him but seems to be not overly pushing it. She is a single mum and she is somebody who I would describe as vulnerable.

His mum now has another GP appointment next week without the boy. I am wondering whether the GP is likely to signpost a charity which will advocate a transition?

I would like to know where I stand as his class teacher if it comes to it am I required to call him she/her etc?

I would say that none of the staff in the school would be aware that all of these issues and broadly would support his transition.

I have told the head that I am not prepared to tell the rest of the class that he has become a girl or ever was a girl. He looked pretty shocked and said he would go away and research this issue. Where could I suggest he looks?

Sorry quite a long post! Hope I've posted in relevant section.

Nice one lang

This is a book for teachers. The last chapter is specifically about how to work with a transgender student

The book linked is by by Dr Elly Barnes MBE and Dr Anna Carlile, 'How to Transform Your School into an LGBT+ Friendly Place: A Practical Guide for Nursery, Primary and Secondary Teachers'

I do remember some discussion about aspects of this book earlier in the year.

December 2017 article by Sian Griffiths, Education Editor The Times:

'Gather round, class. Thomas the teddy wants to be a girl
Stories about gender identity are on nursery and school reading lists, but there are fears they may be damaging'
(extract)
Educate and Celebrate, an organisation funded by the Department for Education (DfE) to help schools prevent homophobia and transphobia. The charity has already supported dozens of primary and secondary schools to adopt gender-neutral lavatories and uniforms.

The books include one for young children called Introducing Teddy, published by Bloomsbury. It features Thomas, a teddy bear, who tells his friend Errol: “I need to be myself, Errol. In my heart, I’ve always known that I am a girl teddy, not a boy teddy. I wish my name was Tilly, not Thomas.”

Another picture book is called Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?, in which the book’s central character, called Tiny, queries their gender identity. Questions for discussion at the back of the book include: “Does it matter if Tiny is a boy or a girl?” and “Should Tiny be allowed to play football and dress up as a fairy?”

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: “I do not question the intentions of the people using and promoting this material, but it is misguided. They are inflicting adult neuroses about gender onto children who are not interested in gender. Children do not have issues about their gender in 99.9% of cases.

“Adults need to stop thinking children see the world the way they do. They do not. They may play at being a goblin one day, a dragon the next. They do not see the world in the way adults do and inflicting adult neuroses about gender onto children is damaging and cruel.” (continues)

Educate and Celebrate says it is “expert in transforming schools and organisations into LGBT-friendly places” and that it is supported by the DfE.

The organisation supplies lesson plans and book lists to nurseries and primary and secondary schools, which can buy them from its website, and sends trainers into schools to work with teachers.

Elly Barnes, the music teacher who set up Educate and Celebrate, said schools needed more diversity in children’s books. “The book collections we have sourced for schools are much needed to break the heteronormative model to reflect real-life families, which come in all different shapes and sizes,” she said." (continues)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gather-round-class-thomas-the-teddy-wants-to-be-a-girl-jlrzjn27k?shareToken=8d0af6f99759953f1414d91e5d516019

Thanks for that information, rowan.

I’m in conversation with the PSHE Association and our LA’s safeguarding trainers about the materials being recommended to school. That article is going to prove very useful!

what about the safeguarding failures in the Allsorts pack? Could you, specifically, turn your attention to:

confidential disclosures
parental alienation
undermining PR
multi agency working

How do you think this pack should be amended so that it is Working Together compliant? Or do you think placing gender-questioning children outside the protections offered to other children is the right way to go?

LangCleg's questions are the key ones here.

SuburbanRhonda
May be worth contacting Transgender Trend as I think they are reviewing nursery and school books.

Thanks, rowan - I will.

This trangender tread resource pack is not an offical document, it is criticised by a lot of offical bodies, im a teacher i have read parts, it is clearly made with an agenda and should not be viewed by teachers who are looking gor a balanced view. I think its very telling a teacher has posted on the feminist chat about a transgender child and not the staff room or a general board. I think that tells you everything you need to knoe about the advice she/he is looking for.

What do you think about the multiple and significant safeguarding failures in the Allsorts pack, chicken2015? Please explain why these are of no interest to you.

Im not sure what you mean the allsorts pack, i am talking about the trangender trend resources pack, isnt that just a whataboutism?

Under the 2010 Equality Act, it is unlawful for schools to treat pupils less favourably on grounds of gender reassignment

But let's look at 'gender reassignment.' You have to be 18 at least, and the Equalities Act protects you as you undergo gender reassignment, which is a process which takes a minimum of 2 years.

So we are talking about 18 to 20 year olds at the very youngest . Not 8 or 10 year olds.

Chicken2015, I don't think this thread was originally posted in feminism chat, I think it got moved? I'm also a teacher, I think a decent teacher would read multiple publications in order to get their head around what is a very complex issue. I've read quite a few different teacher guides. I'm not always comfortable with the advice given in any of them.

It's useful to read things to then think 'that wouldn't work with my class', or 'ok, maybe we could adapt this idea to suit this child'. I'm wary of any one publication being seen as the 'bible' on this.

I mean that you seem very keen to denounce the guidance provided by a GC lobby group (without, I might add, making any specific point about specific guidance it contains) but ignore posts on this thread about guidance provided by a trans lobby group (which, I might add, have had specific objections enumerated).

Find me some specifics from the TT pack that you object to, please.

You'll see specific points about the Allsorts pack in my earlier posts.

should not be viewed by teachers who are looking gor a balanced view.

Teachers are professionals and are able to consider and critically evaluate resources.
As a teacher, you should be aware of this and able to do the same.

I think its very telling a teacher has posted on the feminist chat about a transgender child and not the staff room or a general board.

There are many women here with professional expertise and experience in education and social care.

chicken2015 Have you watched Professor Michelle Moore's recent speech?
2Professor Michele Moore is an expert in Inclusive Education and Disability Studies. She leads human rights projects across the world to support children, their families and those who work with them. She is the Co-Editor of the ground-breaking book Transgender Children and Young People, Born in Your Own Body from Cambridge Scholars. Michele will be discussing ideas from the book – the implications of self-declaration of gender for children and young people, including disabled children"

**There are many women here with professional expertise and experience in education and social care.

And also with very one sided view on views of transgender people

**Teachers are professionals and are able to consider and critically evaluate resources.
As a teacher, you should be aware of this and able to do the same.

If i viewed a document that was very one sided and had a clear agenda i probably dismiss on bias and not guidence i would be looking for.

chicken2015

Its a shame that you view things this way.

Are you a teacher, chicken2015? Can I suggest SPaG might be a more urgent issue?

HAve you listened to Prof Michelle Moore or considered LangCleg's questions?

I take it you’re not an English teacher, chicken?

Are you a teacher,chicken2015? Can I suggest SPaG might be a more urgent issue?
Yes i am, how condescending

Do we have a definition of teacher?

No English and im dyslexic

*No im not a English teacher

If i viewed a document that was very one sided and had a clear agenda i probably dismiss on bias and not guidence i would be looking for.

Is viewing a document the same as reading it, chicken? If not, would you dismiss a document without even reading it?

No im not a English teacher

Thank goodness for that.

It's important to remember what's at issue here.

Being trans is significantly different from being gay because deciding one is and then acting on that decision of being trans involves significant, irreversible changes to one's body and life-long medication.

What we know:
Left to their own devices all children will play with all toys, according to personality.

Some children go through phases of imaginative play - being the opposite sex, being a unicorn, being a tiger, being a superhero. This does not mean that they actually are these things - just that they are exercising their imagination.

Some children go through prolonged phases not merely of imaginative play, but of acting as if they genuinely wanted to be the same sex (I did, for well over a year). However, it is important for adults not to project a simple "persistent, insistent, this means they're trans" model. It could be that this is the first indication that the child is trans. It could also be other things at play (particularly with girls, reaching an age where they recognise that the world is stacked against women, but don't yet have the cognitive resources to say "the world is wrong here" and instead reach for the more simple childish fix of "well the problem would go away for me if I was a boy" - I'm pretty sure that's what was behind my "tomboy" phase).

We know that some, in fact most, children going through such a phase will, if left to their own devices, grow out of it ("desist").

Knowing all this, and knowing that cross sex hormones and drugs are immensely damaging, it should be a no-brainer that "watch, wait, support with non-directive counselling" is the correct approach.

All those books about transgender teddies should also be issued with compulsory training for the adults around the children, including looking at pictures of the graft sites for phalloplasty, the atrophy of female reproductive systems, etc. attendant on taking testosterone.

"Affirmation" only makes sense if (a) you stick your head in the sand when faced with the actual reality of "gender reassignment" surgery and (b) you terrify parents into thinking (through grossly exagerating and misrepresenting the suicide stats) that the alternative - a child who commits suicide - is even worse.

Those are the stakes we're playing for here, not harmlessly insisting that it would be "kind" to call little Joey Josephine and refer to them as "she" rather than "he", which all sounds bland and unthreatening and like a game of make-believe the grownups are kindly joining in with.