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 🙏

Megan how does one feel female inside? The only female thing inside me is my female reproductive system, which a man or boy can never have and can have no idea how it feels to have one.

If you live in a place where you need full surgery to be recognised then has this not taken place in order for the school to take this stance? If so then it is none of your business. This child has been born in the wrong body and has been corrected. It is completely different to changing ‘on a whim’ if they’ve had surgery or whatever

It seems to me, its not just your concern with your DDs safety that is at the heart of your feelings, its more about you don't like the idea of your daughter being around boys who present as female and dress accordingly.

I often wear what you might term 'men's clothes', because they're more practical and comfortable. If a boy or a man wants to wear dresses, heels and makeup, why shouldn't they? If I have the choice, why shouldn't they?

Boys and men who 'present as female' are not the problem. The problem is the people who think presenting as female actually turns them into girls and women.

So he strongly feels female inside, dresses & wishes to live accordingly, living his life as a more happy and authentic person with a wish to be accepted by people as just that.

Can you explain what it means to 'feel female inside'? A lot of us here have a problem with understanding that concept.

This child has been born in the wrong body and has been corrected.

Nobody is 'born in the wrong body'.

Being ‘nice’ has nothing to do with either safeguarding of children, or protection of women.

This!

This child has been born in the wrong body and has been corrected.

Corrected.

Sweet Jaysus!!!

Where’s the wrong body gone
Has somebody nicked it

This child has been born in the wrong body and has been corrected.

That's some good nominative determinism.

Well the policies will obviously be that the child will be included in whatever she wants. Don't think the asnwers feom the school to your letter is going to "reassure" you in the way you want.

This child has been born in the wrong body and has been corrected.

As oldcrone says:

1- You cant be 'born in the wrong body', that is some strange folksy description of gender dysphoria which does not do the severe psychological distress associated with the condition justice.

2- Your body cannot be 'corrected', as for dysphorics there was nothing wrong with it in the first place. In fact this is the saddest part for me, that people argue that a perfectly healthy body must be sacrificed for psychological comfort, yet that psychological comfort in most cases continues to be illusive even after extensive and non-reversible surgery.

corrected

yes, because children who don't conform to gender stereotypes must be corrected, mustn't them?

Jesus Christ.

Coming out as transgender is the coming out as homosexual of 70 or so years ago. If you're 'normal', 'straight', or whatever the terminology is it's impossible to imagine being anything else. The only way I can think of is to ask you how you would feel if you woke up tomorrow morning and found your body was of the opposite sex? Everything else, ie what makes you 'you' stays the same.
I know I'd hate it and would be very depressed and stressed.

I find it faintly disturbing how a phrasing used by transsexuals to help explain their dysphoria - ' it feels as if I've been born in the wrong body' - has somehow been twisted into the idea that people can literally be born in the wrong body.

What, then, is being born into this body? A soul?

The only way I can think of is to ask you how you would feel if you woke up tomorrow morning and found your body was of the opposite sex? Everything else, ie what makes you 'you' stays the same.

I'd find this alarming because it's a bad sci-fi plot. I'd also be alarmed if I woke up and my hair was suddenly short and red instead of long and brown - does that mean I have some special internal 'hair identity'?

Also, in the hypothetical situation that I woke up tomorrow and was magically male, I wouldn't start demanding access to women's spaces because of how I felt. Because I'd know that whatever I thought of myself, the women there would look at me and see a man, and it's common decency to think of others.

The only way I can think of is to ask you how you would feel if you woke up tomorrow morning and found your body was of the opposite sex?

What if I turned into a unicorn?

People don't change sex. Except in books like Orlando.

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

This thread really does show it up for what it is on here, doesn't it?
One "good" thing about this thread at least.
Not exactly sure what making sure the child is not allowed to play any female parts in drama has to do with her being trans, or to never be allowed to mix with the girls house wise and excluded has to do with anything.
This is a child. That parents are wanting their kids kept away from.
"Once you see you can't unsee" - so true, it's rampant just some threads are more blatant than others.

ClaraMatilda sadly it's not a weird sci-fi plot.
Many children realise they're transgender as they approach or start puberty. They can't make sense of their feelings and lots of them self-harm.
You have absolutely no idea of the hell it is to have a transgender child in your close or extended family until it happens. It's traumatic for everyone and your love and concern for that child overrides everything else.
I'm leaving this thread now as so many of you are too stupid to understand and too insensitive to try.

I'm not saying their aren't common sense safeguarding precautions/issues to be discussed but the whole tone of the OP makes my heart ache for the kid in question. Having seen what a trans young person goes through when they come out with my own eyes I honestly don't know how they cope.

I hope something can be worked out and your DD and her friends and the trans child all end up being terrific pals and support one another.

how you would feel if you woke up tomorrow morning and found your body was of the opposite sex?

But I already have the experience of living in a woman's body. So that's nothing like what you are saying, and having a woman's body IS WHAT MAKES ME, ME.

It could however be seen as similar to a child waking up one morning and discovering that their body has changed in odd and inexplicable ways. Lumps growing here, hair there, and squeaky sounds where their nice voice used to be.
Not surprisingly, it makes a very large number of children quite unhappy - but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with their body.

Yes word exactly puberty confusing

Glitter you are correct, this is a child. Why would anyone advocate lying in such a monstrous manner to a child? Because that's what this is - it is a huge, dreadful, shocking, monstrous LIE.

And if I object, I'm the hateful one, the bigot, the meanie.

JFC, just listen to yourselves.

Is some weird twist on a Freaky Friday plot supposed to make us all fall over in the epiphany that biology has been wrong all these centuries?

The only way I can think of is to ask you how you would feel if you woke up tomorrow morning and found your body was of the opposite sex?

Ha ha, this thread is being flagged up somewhere on Twitter isn't it?

Apart from the fact that the above scenario is literally impossible... Yes of course if I woke up tomorrow morning, found my breasts had disappeared and that I had meat and two veg instead of a vulva, I would most likely be a little bit more than slightly perturbed.

But that is because I have spent the last 30 odd years in a female body, so waking up with a man's body would obviously freak me the fuck out and feel weird. Not because I have a friggin 'lady brain'.

Christ on a bike.

But I already have the experience of living in a woman's body. So that's nothing like what you are saying, and having a woman's body IS WHAT MAKES ME, ME

Other women do have an inate sense of "being a woman" too, but nobody ever wants to listen to that, so before anyone asks me to define, no, as I've seen the snorts and lolz/personal attacks far too much on here if anyone does try to clarify and I'm not up to it today.
As we're bold shouting, FOR ME, AS A WOMAN, IT IS BOTH BIOLOGY AND A SENSE OF SELF. BOTH WOMAN AND BOTH MATCH UP.
I'm not so close minded that I'll dismiss others experiences like some, if it's like that for me it's not a stretch to think that it could be like that for transwomen too.