8 year old boy wants to change with the girls

[FairytaleofBykerGrove]

I’ve been informed that a boy in my daughters class ‘feels like a girl’. He’s been wearing dresses to school for a while (fine) and now wants to change with the girls for swimming. Apparently the children will all accept it no problem and they’d like the parents to do the same. He will be under a poncho towel so we don’t have to worry about his privacy(?) I am really very unhappy with this. Which is why I’m up at 3 in the morning. The other parents I’ve spoken to don’t seem to care either way. I can’t understand it at all. Do you have any advice for me?

Gaslighting involves a person, or a group of persons, the victimiser, and a second person, the victim. It can be either conscious or unconscious, and is carried out covertly such that the resulting emotional abuse is not overtly abusive.

Gaslighting depends on "first convincing the victim that his thinking is distorted and secondly persuading him that the victimiser's ideas are the correct and true ones".Gaslighting induces cognitive dissonance in the victim, "often quite emotionally charged cognitive dissonance" and makes the victim question their own thinking, perception and reality.

When a group of people acts as the victimiser, gaslighting does its damage through the group members' "small, often invisible actions that have power through their accumulation and reinforcement".

How long will it be before a girl or a women has no rights lefts to anything because transgender rights are more important.
Will the word women/ girl/ lady be removed from the English language all together?
If the boy in uncomfortable then I suggest he changes on his own in a cubicle or toilet.
Or that the school provide ponchos for all the girls to respect their privacy as well.
Yes there is a chance this boy will transition when he's older, there's also a chance this is a phase he's going through but at the moment he has no place in the girls changing rooms. A class full of girls should not lose the right to privacy for one child.

The children have been told to be extra kind to this boy so no wonder that the girls appear to be fine with this at school.
I am sure that there will be plenty of girls expressing a different opinion at home.

My DD wouldn't have been happy with this and neither would I.

Completely agree with this
Can we stop telling girls that having boundaries and saying no is “unkind”. What a truly appalling message to give young impressionable girls

Children will not understand or have boundaries unless they are taught them. I think that Socalm is suggesting that the boundaries are unimportant and should not be taught, or they might be suggesting that boundaries should evolve naturally. I would be interested to know what the actual arguments are against promoting appropriate boundaries to children.

If safeguarding and gatekeeping is left to children, its a safeguarding issue.
Its up to the adults to enforce the rules. If they can't do their job they should do something else.

I don’t know where you are but this Surrey council guidance might be useful:

www.surreycc.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/136008/Best-practice-for-PE-changing-NSPCC-advice.pdf

It states sex separate changing from year 2, and these children are year 3, right?

Plus, same sex teachers cannot supervise swim changing if the children in the room are mixed sex!

There will no doubt be some girls that then make excuses to not go swimming so they miss out on their sport as they have been told to be kind to 1 boy. Why can't the boy be kind and respect why it's not fair on all the girls.

If the boy needs a poncho to change amongst the girls he himself is clearly uncomfortable being there.

This is a steady drip, drip, drip, starting at an early age to coerce girls (never seems to happen the other way) into accepting male bodies into what were previously, safe, female spaces.
The children are being brainwashed into accepting this, they are not being asked at all, but if they were to be asked then they would be shamed into acceptance.
This is an awful situation, it cannot be allowed to continue.

I work in a small school so when we have swimming we have mixed year groups so there is no way this would be acceptable to parents. Some year three girls are developing or are simply very self-conscious as are boys. How we’ve managed for the self-conscious is for them to use the disabled/family unit within group changing. Under a poncho towel, that won’t happen for long with the excitement of swimming. How would it work if it were the other way around and it was a girl who felt she was a boy? With male helpers in the changing room this would certainly raise eyebrows and put the adult in a difficult position. Poor kid, I feel for them but I would think changing with boys and just putting on a swimsuit rather than trunks would attract less attention after the second week.

All kids in our school have separate toilets and changing rooms (primary school). Puberty is sometimes a thing for some girls from about 8 years. Privacy is a thing for all kids from any age.

Given so many grown women, who are mothers, seem unable to say "No, that is unacceptable, I will not allow my child to be involved in that." How on earth are the children themselves ever going to be able to dissent?

All kids in our school have separate toilets and changing rooms (primary school).

Interesting, I've never seen it start from Infants. R-Y2 all got changed in the same classroom we had our lessons in. Didn't start changing in changing rooms until Juniors.

Given so many grown women, who are mothers, seem unable to say "No, that is unacceptable, I will not allow my child to be involved in that." How on earth are the children themselves ever going to be able to dissent?

^ this

I can’t understand why mums allow this to happen to their daughters. Do they not see how this is affecting their daughter’s rights? I would be seriously pissed of if I had a daughter and the school was trying to do this to her and her female classmates. I remember some schoolmate from primary school developing early and being teased about it by another girl in class. She left for lunchbreak in tears. Her mum was waiting for her at the schoolgate and marched right back into the school to scold the teasing girl in front of the rest of us who were still in the classroom. Back then it felt strange but now I admire this woman.

It's a very new built school. Very well designed and works brilliantly. I accept many schools have to work with sometimes less than ideal accommodation.

Given so many grown women, who are mothers, seem unable to say "No, that is unacceptable, I will not allow my child to be involved in that." How on earth are the children themselves ever going to be able to dissent?

Yes, TinselAngel, this is what’s so worrying about this scenario and others like it. And also, if all or most of the other parents were saying no way to this, it would be a much easier battle to fight with the school. The fact that you’re on your own here, FairytaleofBykerGrove, is horrifying, for so many reasons.

Sorry OP , i haven't read all the posts but i noticed you are in Ireland like me. Boy in my daughters class has been dressing like a girl for a number of years.

Recently it came up that the school are considering swimming lessons. I had a meeting with the principal and teacher regarding this. I do not want him changing or using the girls toilets going forward as they are all 8/9 years old now. I feel its unacceptable. Our daughters have the right to privacy, especially coming into puberty.

I quoted the Gender Recognition Act 2015, a gender rec. cert is only given for people aged 18+ or 16+ by court order. Therefore this child is legally a boy. I am awaiting a reply from the school board.

Please dont let this drop. I am certainly not going to, i have empathy for this child but my daughter and every other girl in that class has the right to privacy from males regardless of how he feels/dresses.

Why can't the boy be kind and respect why it's not fair on all the girls

Indeed he should be taught this to prepare him for being a decent adult human male. In the meantime schools and other professionals need to adhere to the rights of girls and implement their legal safeguarding responsibilities. If they are unable to step up and carry out their legal obligations then get out of education and stop working with vulnerable children. There's no role for them there.

I can’t believe the cheeky fuckery of the parents in requesting this.

We separate for changing on the basis of bodies, not feelings. This boy and his parents have acknowledged he has a boy’s body with the suggestion of the poncho.

OP, do you know anything about the parents of this boy? Are they the sort who might be homophobic perhaps?

Asking for a friend.

I wonder if the parents have any daughters.

It's wrong. My DD is 9 and has a very strong sense of privacy and bodily autonomy (and some age-related "embarrassment") she doesn't even like getting changed in front of other girls. Never mind a boy who feels like a girl.

Take a list of the points to the school. Our role as parents is to do the right thing by our child...and then children in a wider sense.

So look after the needs of your DD first while acknowledging this other child needs support.

If they've decided affirmation is the way (which I don't agree with, but starting at that point), then they need to make reasonable accommodations that suit everyone, and maintain safeguarding/the law.

Reasonable accommodation would be a separate cubicle, or perhaps changing last or some way that maintains everyone's privacy.

For example, my youngest, when in kindergarten, they all went to the toilet before break. All trooped in and out of the classroom-attached toilet, generally 2 or three of them in there at a time (1 washing hands, one weeing, one queuing - for speed). DS2 didn't like that, so the teacher always put him at the beginning or the end of the line, so he didn't cause delay or disruption by wanting to pee un-observed. Easy to do, reasonable accommodation for his special request.

Thank you for the support - it really helps me feel more in control. Especially Disneydoll12. I wish you luck in your own fight.

The parents have another son and an older daughter. I’ve only met the mother and she always seemed quite quiet. I don’t really blame them for trying to support their son, I’m sure they just want him to be happy. I do blame the school for going along with it without question.

And the girls will be told -

don't question
don't ask why
don't say 'boy'
act as normal
don't cover up or you will make his feel sad
act as if...
pretend this is all every day (better get used to it girls...)
Your feelings don't matter

My goodness, the tension in that changing room. I would have been one of the girls sick in my tummy. But then my mum would have been down there asking a lot of questions.