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 🙏

@ Hamster00 Excellent point!

the safeguarding issue with regard to the girls (especially if they are split into male and female houses) is paramount - as others have articulated, for all the reasons given. The needs of one child who is self-identifying does not outweigh the needs of girls who, at that age, need single sex spaces as they develop.

Seems to me that the OP is ... just putting the needs of girls/women first. It's the school's duty to deal with safeguarding - end of.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3438714-Bunbury-s-Public-Service-Announcement-2

but anyway, the point is that policy etc is done on the basis of objective reality, not feelings. This child is male, however they feel or identify, and as such in a residential setting should not be in with girls.

This is surely the kind of reality that anyone who actually gives a damn about this child knows and takes into account - rather than thinking that the rest of the world will alter to suit them.

There is no such thing as being born in the wrong body

^^ This.
It is not possible to be born in the wrong body.
Can't be said often enough or loudly enough.

It's nonsense.

Can't happen.

Impossible.

Posted too soon. Thats why people don't engage. It's pathetic.

Glitter you still haven't explained how one can feel female. You also haven't explained how a human who isn't female can feel female. I don't know what it feels like to be male, anymore than I know what it feels like to be a cat. How can I possibly?

Substitute the word ‘black’ for transgender.

Now write it

It's nonsense
Can't happen
Impossible

Yikes, that even reads like you've got your fingers firmly in your ears "la la la not listening to anyone else, la LA LAAA"

Substitute the word ‘black’ for transgender.

But we don't segregate people by the colour of their skin.

We do segregate by sex.

Next.

Hamster00 - welcome back! You're going to be invalidated left, right and centre by the influx of virtue signalling on this thread, aintcha?!

Substitute the word ‘black’ for transgender.

Why should anyone do that? A child who happens to be black doesn't make any difference to the other children in a sex-segregated space. A male child in a female space will make a difference. It's about privacy and dignity.

Little girls really are at the bottom of the heap, their feelings don't matter.

Also, if you want to go down that road, Bunnyfuller, can I, as a white woman, 'identify' as a black woman?

Next

Crikey. To the person on the receiving end of that, do you feel the need to do a salute too?

Substitute the word ‘black’ for transgender

Why? Race is something you are born with like sex.

Gender is something thought up in academia a couple of decades ago. Give it another couple of decades and current theories will seem as dated as, say, Freud does now. Only there were be a number of damaged/mutiated people left as testimony to the madness.

Yikes, that even reads like you've got your fingers firmly in your ears "la la la not listening to anyone else, la LA LAAA"

I would say the same thing to someone trying to persuade me that the earth was created 6,000 years ago or the earth is flat.

'In the wrong body' - to me, anyway - isn't about the realities of biology and sex. It's about social constructs. It's shorthand for feeling that you want to be what society stereotypes as 'being a woman' and which society largely decrees is only acceptable if you have a female looking (not actually female) body, in outwardly sexual and other physical attributes.

I'm appalled at self ID, I think it's dangerous to women. I'm not a TRA or a rad-fem. But when I read 'in the wrong body' I don't rush to the biology textbooks to prove to myself that it's impossible.

Why should anyone do that?

Because it seems it's fair game to discriminate against trans people, but against any other groups it quite rightly gets called out.
Even though (from some) it's exactly the same behaviour.
They think transphobia doesn't exist though so don't see it.
Discrimination bad! Not my type of discrimination though. Or something like that.

Substitute the word ‘black’ for transgender

OK, here's a substitution:

There is a white boy in the school who feels that he is really black. What adjustments should the school make to facilitate his sense of being black.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't hamster trans? Or am I thinking of someone else?

Assuming I am correct then I think GlitterStick's post at 14:35 was a bit out of order tbh.

waves to Lang. Oh I never went away - just a bit of lurking while I moved house and "life stuff" got in the way . And yes, I did notice that, but hey ho.

I'm just sitting here with my bingo card. With "race" being bought into it, I'm nearly at a full-house....

There is no hope. If posters dont know why you would not put a male bodied person in a dormitory full of girls...

Hang on a moment the Girl Guides, following advice from Pips Bunce and others, don't get it either. Does anyone care about girls?

Crikey. To the person on the receiving end of that, do you feel the need to do a salute too?

It just gets a bit tedious hearing the same void-of-any-critical-thinking-whatsoever arguments over and over again, telling me how 'bigoted' I am because I don't believe that females should have to share certain spaces with males.

it the cult of inclusivity.

Hamster00 - none so blind as those who won't see! Let's find some humour while we can, eh?!

Because it seems it's fair game to discriminate against trans people, but against any other groups it quite rightly gets called out.

I don't discriminate against people who are anoerexic, but I recognise that their view of their body is unhealthy. I don't discriminate against trans people, but I recognise that their view of their body is unhealthy, and society should not be encouraging children to think it will make them feel happier.