Transgender child at DD’s school. Please help me write to the head?

[Comeymemo]

DD attends an independent co-Ed British international school. We are in a jurisdiction that provides for protection against sex discrimination, including in education. This country has no protection against discrimination on the basis of gender, and only recognises transgender persons when the person has undergone full reassignment surgery (including sterilisation). In other words, there is no right to self gender identification where we live.

The school is split in houses, all of which are either all boys or all girls. The school has a mix of boarders and non boarders.

We recently received a letter from the head, saying that a male pupil will be moving to a girl’s house after half term as the pupil is transgender. The letter states that the pupil will use the unisex accessible toilet including to undress (eg for sports). The letter does not state if the pupil is a boarder.

I want to write to the school outlining my concerns and would welcome any help.

The areas where I would like to get reassurance are:

• confirmation that the pupil will not be allowed to compete against girls or to be in girls’ teams for any sports
• confirmation that the pupil will not be allowed to play female parts in any dramatic productions (DD is into sports and drama and I don’t think it fair that female roles should be given to boys, as male parts are never available to girls)
• confirmation that the school will never allow the pupil to board in a girls’ house or to have access to girls’ boarding houses
• confirmation that girls will never be allowed or expected to share a bedroom with the pupil on any overnight trip
• confirmation that the school are not altering their records to reflect the pupil’s so-called self-ID, so that the pupil remains listed as male
• confirmation that the pupil is not taking the place of any girl on any awards or recognition list, such as for school prefect, scholarships or prizes that are only available to girls.
• would it be reasonable to request that DD is not in the same house as that pupil?

At this stage I don’t want to engage into a broader debate with the school over human rights, feminist theory or GC theory, so I’m trying to stay as down to earth as possible and seek clarification on practical areas.

Is there anything else you can think of that would be relevant in this context? Please feel free to direct me to other threads if this has been done before.

Many thanks 🙏

Is that what we do now, assume every man is a threat?

I would focus clearly not on the specifics of this child, but on overall policies that will affect future trans-identifying children as well as the other children enrolled in the school.

I like the idea or challenging some of the existing limitations regarding activities like drama - all parts should be open to all potential actors regardless of sex/gender expression. It might also be good to have some mixed sex sports activities - tennis or basketball or ten pin bowling or uniclying.

Mostly (because you don’t want to be bogged down in conversations about how nice you are not) ask for clarification around how they intend to handle the various sex-segregated activities from overnight camps, sex ed, sports, prizes, scholarships and so forth.

Definitely confirm whether the school will police pronouns, names and so forth.

I’d want to know what they intend to explain to the rest of the children and how. Ask where they are getting their curricula and recommend transgender trend if you can.

I’d also encourage the school to keep open the possibility that this child may desist and to have plans in place to support him if this does happen.

And yes to safeguarding issues around ROGD and being especially mindful of the autistic girls who are most at risk.

Yes, actually, when it comes to safeguarding children that’s precisely what we are doing, or attempting to do: eliminate risk of harm to a child. When it comes to sex separation, we are minimising risk to women and girls by treating all of the more physically dominant class as possible predators. Anything else would be unfair. When it comes to sleeping arrangements in particular, extra safeguarding applies for what I would imagine are fairly obvious reasons.

Do you not believe in sex separated spaces at all then?

why do you assume that this child will want to overpower a girl?

:-)

Have you ever heard of opportunistic rape? [the most common type]

Males rape, because they can, because they know the average women is not going to be able to stop them physically and also, because, she will be so traumatised that she will forever keep the rape secret, this likelihood is higher in young children/teenage girls.

The point is they have the physical capacity to do so, and the girl does not have the physical capacity to stop it.

Wow

Do you believe every man is a rapist?

Obviously not pepper stop being obtuse.
Every man has the potential to be which is why there is safeguarding. Well there was until all this.

Hi Pepper,

Nope, I dont believe every man is a rapist and am very fortunate to have many wonderful, kind and upstanding men in my life.

I am also aware of men who have happily used their physical strength against me in the past.

Is that what we do now, assume every man is a threat?

What, so we should have no sex segregated spaces? Just have mixed sex changing rooms, prisons, rooms on Guide Camps? Male doctors intimately examining women with no chaperone and a woman not allowed to ask specifically for a female?

What could go wrong?

Do you get shitty if you need to have a DBS check done because you obviously aren't a threat?

MNHQ have come back to me with a gentle ticking off for trollhunting and confirmation that the OP is genuine.

I guess when you feel angry and protective you make mistakes.

I remember the attitude towards people with aids in the 80s.your post reminded me of that..you act like your child will catch something from this child.
Have you stopped for a second to think how this child may be feeling??? Utterly terrified they will be regected and ridiculed..they are really not trying to make your life difficult,just trying to get on with their own .

The comparison with aids patients is both offensive and spectacularly missing the point.

The fear that a male child might have doesn't mean that the safeguarding for a female child must be disregarded.

Do you get shitty if you need to have a DBS check done because you obviously aren't a threat?

Quite a lot of people do.

I remember the attitude towards people with aids in the 80s.your post reminded me of that..you act like your child will catch something from this child.

Yes. Females wanting to assert their boundaries when it comes to males, and encouraging their daughters to do the same is EXACTLY like the attitudes towards people with AIDS.

Honestly, listen to yourself.

Amazing how a pro-girl stance upsets people, isn't it? Not that we live in a sexist society or owt, eh?

In the intense atmosphere of a boarding school, I would also be concerned that the school was taking safeguarding measures to prevent social contagion.

OP I think your concerns are valid and reasonable.

Agree with other posters who have said you need to approach this from a policy point of view because as evidenced over the last few years trans is now an umbrella term that encompasses the whole scale from predatory opportunists to individuals suffering dysphoric feelings.

You have no idea where this child fits on that scale in terms of behaviour and nor will you or any other parent be privy to private or medical information.

So going forward I would be asking the school whether they have done an impact assessment for female pupils based on their current policy also taking into consideration what that would look like if in future they had several pupils identifying as trans because there is some evidence that it often happens in clusters at schools.

There are many things the school does that I think are sexist - from boys being depicted as superheroes and girls as princesses in the first grade, to girls doing netball while boys do rugby, and the school using James Bond to teach in the primary school years

Blimey. So it's not just drama roles. There's all this other sexism going on at your DD's school and yet a transgender pupil is the hill on which you're willing to die for your feminist principles?

I find it hard to understand your priorities.

Blimey, it's no wonder Twitter keeps shouting about MN as a hotbed of transphobia. I didn't get it before but I do now.

Suggesting a child gets equal access to the opportunity for reward and recognition in school is not prioritising male over female. Its saying all children should have the same access. If they are excluded from rewards in the house they are in (as the houses are gender selective) then you are condeming them to never getting any. How is that a reasonable thing to do to a child?

Pp said that it's the trans ideology taking this child's opportunity away (or words to that effect) which is true imo - but you can't punish or seek to punish an individual child because of a fucked up movement.

If this were on the secondary education board, I think the responses would be on the lines of:

Independent schools tend not to listen to parents. You can probably only have one bust up before you get labelled as "that parent" so keep your powder dry. Only have the fight on things that are sufficiently important that you would leave the school if the issue were not resolved.

And that with any child who other parents worry about, there is probably a back story which the school knows, but parents probably don't.

You are entitled to ask constructvely about your child. Do it in the context of faith in the school and that teachers are doing their best and applying common sense. My guess is that there has been a lot of discussion with the parents of the child. Indeed they may be as unhappy and worried as you might be in the same situation. If both you and your child are kind this may be really appreciated.

But not at the expense of your childs welfare and safety. Do ask about how this is going to be presented to the pupil body, and ask about the guidance they are using - and if need be go back quoting recent concerns about some providers written about in The Times. Schools dont always know, and an approach which involves unquestioning affirmation is probably less preferable to "watch and wait". Plus anything that might affect your child directly, like overnight trips. Aim to come out of this as the concerned but constructive parent.

(And do ignore the noise on this thread. You asked a question. You are clearly thinking it through. Yes your OP was a bit awkward, but it is difficult to get concerns down accurately. I wonder if the very perfect people who are happy to take your OP apart have school aged children.)

Including access to female dormitories?

I'm not being obtuse.
I've wandered on to the feminist board, that's how this all reads to me.
I'm trying to understand why the child would automatically be a threat because he's physically male.
I'm astounded actually. Maybe because I know a child that is doing this and the heartache that it is causing.
Can't anyone think what they would do if it was their own child.
Why does everyone think it's a threat. It's like you believe they do it on purpose to get into women only spaces.

And why do you think we have women’s only spaces! I can only assume you are being deliberately annoying.

why the child would automatically be a threat because he's physically male.
So you'd be happy with all changing and sleeping facilities being entirely mixed sex?
And all girls should be happy with that too?
And if they aren't, tough?

pepper peer-on-peer abuse accounts for a third of all child sex abuse cases, predominantly boy-on-girl.

Why should that fact be ignored in a mixed-sex boarding school?