Has It Really Got This Bad in Schools?

[nickymanchester]

I was just reading another thread about the trend for silver hair as my DD who is currently at university is talking about dying her hair this colour:-

There are six women in the hairdressers and they all have dyed grey hair

Where one poster mentioned that young girls having short hair at school are often questioned as to their gender or if they are trans.

A couple of posters didn't believe that was true and then a number of others came back with examples.

My DD left school a couple of years ago and it didn't seem to be a thing then (or at least, she never mentioned it to me). Is this really so common that a random comment on a thread in _chat about silver hair can get people making these sorts of comments?

dd is regularly called a butch lesbian/asked if she’s a boy at school - nope - she just has a short haircut.

My dD has a Bob and she’s been asked several times if she’s trans or a boy!

DD year 7, has had several comments due to her pixie cut including"We thought you were a transgender boy because you had a skirt" "We didn't know if you were a girl.or a boy" "we thought you were a bit" and she gets called "young man"very often by teachers

DD 9 also gets asked or assumed that shes a boy all the time, as she has short hair, regardless if she is wearing a dress or not.

Yes. It has. It’s really bad in there at the moment for any girl who doesn’t conform exacting standards of long haired, instagrammableness that is needed to survive. I’ve no idea how it got that rigid that fast, but it makes me very cross that girls are relentlessnessly pigeonholed so young. It would be so lovely just to give them the space to pay about and experiment with make up, hair, clothing, without any labels. Or just to ignore it all and get on with more interesting things. There are massive amounts of societal and peer pressure to label themselves as something. And if they don’t their peer group will do it for them.

I'm the poster with the 9 year old, I do understand it in some instances, shes not developed puberty wise yet, and in trousers and school uniform, or in her everyday clothes (hates pink) often chooses her clothes from the 'blue' section so she does look a little boyish from the back but her face shape and voice are very feminine.

She is generally not bothered by it or so she says. The older generation is the worst for it and she says sometimes supply teachers will call her a boy all day despite her correcting them.

I am genuinely concerned about her deciding shes trans because of other peoples input though. Her class recently covered stereotypes and her teacher asked her if it was ok to use her as an example of girls not fitting stereotypes by having long hair (they did the same with a boy who chose to wear his hair long) etc.

Mine’s 14- all fine in primary (she chose clothes and shoes from the boy’s section from a very young age) - no one cared. Secondary has been an eye opener. Just beginning to see the light at the end.

Although my brother had shoulder length blonde ringlets as a preschooler and it was always assumed he was a girl so mum got his ringlets cut off when he started school and that was 1994.

My daughter is 4 and in nursery, she has a pixie cut. She’s now asked to grow her hair long so she can wear plaits for when she starts school in September.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she’s been told on a number of occasions by other children in her nursery that only boys have short hair. She has a pixie cut as that’s what she wanted when we first went to the hairdressers and I let her flick through pics on the internet of different girls hairstyles, it wasn’t foisted on her. She’s very active and hated getting her hair brushed so I was quite happy to let her wear her hair whatever way she wanted.

MANY people FREQUENTLY refer to her as a boy when we’re out and she was quite capable of saying ‘no my names X and I’m a girl’ BUT now that it’s her peers telling her she looks like a boy she’s changing her wishes.... I find it sad that’s shes being conditioned to confirm so early and not sure how to navigate it with her. I want to raise a resilient young woman confident in her own expression and happy to defend her choices but at the same time don’t want to force her to have to....

Yes.

My daughter is 17. She has a short back and sides haircut and wears everything from the mens section. Has never worn make up, nail polish, dresses etc. Studies sciences and maths at A Level. Hangs around with "the lads". Enjoys sport and is athletic.

Every single person she encounters assumes she is a boy. She gets referred to as "bud", "sir", "gentleman", "buddy", "little man" and "little dude". She's not bothered by it, but when she bothers to correct anyone they immediately assume she's a lesbian - which she isn't, she's straight.

When she first started sixth form there were questions and rumours of her being a boy, trans, non binary, lesbian etc. Even now people refuse to accept she is heterosexual or not trans - lots of "are you sure???".

Its madness.

HELLBENT my DD first had her pixie cut in reception she did it at the beginning of the summer hols and loved it and then people started making the 'boy comments' when she went back to school. After that she grew it again.

After taking up swimming club this year, swimming 5/7 days she decided to have it all cut off again because it was easier to wash and dry in the morning and doesnt get knotty if she doesnt wash it properly after training (showers at one pool are grim and we get back home fairly late). She decided practical benefits were more important to her then peoples comments so your Dd may well choose to follow her own path in a few years.

What also surprises me is the amount of DDs friends who say they would like short hair like DD but the mums say they'll never let their DDs cut their hair as the mums want them to have it long (then moan about how much work it is).

My 16 yr old DD had her hair cut short 2 years ago and has only had one comment.
Yesterday she had a buzz cut,1 cm all over.She wanted to try it as she can regrow during summer.
Apart from a rush of people stroking her head at school no comments about her gender.Lots of people like it and others think she's brave.
It's not a big school and one that f herfriends did trans 2 years ago and it has been dealt with well so maybe it is just the school.
It was not a good week to choose to loose hair though as it is so cold.

We had a variety of hair lengths ,from Dusty to Marianne ,without comment but for least the last ten years I've noticed that secondary girls ALL have long hair.
I have no idea how or why it began,my GD's have told me that short hair would be social death at school.
I wonder what time they have to get up to ensure the acceptable level of shine and straightness,so disappointing.
The lads as ever please themselves,infinite variety

My older DD chose a pixie cut for herself the summer before reception. (She hated all the combing, conditioning, and other faff involved with maintaining long straight locks.) One of her best mates in reception was a boy who wore his hair longer than the other boys, about to shoulder length.

By the end of reception, despite the efforts of both sets of parents to encourage & support the children's own inclinations, both kids asked the parents for more gender-conforming hairstyles. Several years later, DD is contemplating a pixie cut once more, but very conscious of the fact that if she goes for it, she will be literally the only girl in a cadre of several hundred in her year to wear her hair shorter than chin-length. I'm not in touch with the friend's parents any more, but would not be surprised to find that social pressure has been enough to keep his hair short, too.

Social pressures to conform to gender norms seem SO intense now, much more so than when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s...