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?

Oh god

Not ph god

Stupid ipad

I know quite a few men who were very quiet, gentle boys, and that's why I worry what might be happening to their younger counterparts now. What was the percentage of kids with childhood dysphoria who if left alone change their minds? 80%? 90%? It was a clear majority anyway.

kittens

Ds1 was called a girl all the time

Which is weird cos he isnt ‘girly’ (stereotypically) in the slightest

My y5 DD would be mortified... there’d be tummy aches and sleepless nights the night before PE, even if on the day she trotted in like a sad little sheep because she’d be even more afraid of being told off by the teacher.

Yeah durgasarrow

If he thinks he is a girl he doesn’t need the poncho. If he needs a poncho then all the girls need ponchos as girls need ponchos 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

It’s completely fucking bonkers

Ultimately that's an expression of the belief that having to see unwanted penis is wrong but being seen when naked if you don't want to be is fine, isn't it? It's a clear indication that the people making that decision don't think it harms girls to have their naked bodies seen when they don't want that to happen.

I presume that they'll be inviting Spearmint Rhino to set up a table at their next careers day, then. That's basically what they're grooming the girls for.

It is kittens

It’s some strange thinking there that a boy has to get changed under a poncho when the girls have to get naked in front of the poncho wearer cos this is what this boils down to

And where the heck has the school safeguarding gone when they think this is a good descion

I mean seriously total breakdown of safeguarding

That girls have to get naked in front of any poncho wearing boy

Ultimately that's an expression of the belief that having to see unwanted penis is wrong but being seen when naked if you don't want to be is fine, isn't it?

It's fucked up,it's backwards either way it's put. Why does he need a poncho if he is a girl?

No, he's male. He changes with the boys. It's not about feelings, it's about establishing boundaries and enforcing rights.

This is a boy problem, a male problem. The school should be leaving the girls undisturbed in girls' single-sex space.

The school should be teaching the boys to "Be Kind" to other boys, to accept that males have very many different varieties and personalities.

The bandwidth of being male must surely be expanded to include all males, not just those males who correspond to turgid old male sex stereotypes for male.

And girl is a child human female; a woman is an adult human female.

Boys and men have their problems yes; and I hope that we as a society can try to help them with their problems.

But NOT by robbing women and girls of their own rights; NOT by forcing girls to give up their own boundaries, their own autonomy, dignity, privacy, safety. NO.

XY can never, ever be XX. It is cruel, to everyone, to try to pretend that that humans can change sex. Because we can't.

What's the point of single sex facilities.
What's the point of swimming costumes or even clothes?

Fairytale

I'm in Ireland too, you are not alone.

There is more of us than they think

Are

This is why I will be sending my DC to the local faith school of my religion. I've thought long and hard about it, as Orthodox Judaism is pretty strict on the separation of the sexes, but at least I know there will be boundaries in place.

Out of interest Fairy is it an ET School? You obviously don't have to answer. I'm just curious.

I echo the points made already, this is an outrageous situation.

As a teacher, can I also add that the school I work in is always concerned about "setting a precedent". That is to say, if something is done once, it's never just a trial to see if it's a good idea, rather a precedent will have been set and the parents will be expecting it. For anything - PT meetings in October or a Christmas play or a school tour twice a year. Whatever.

So if this school is like my school it's very important to stop them from setting a precedent.

Why are we teaching children that feelings alter material reality?

BickerinBrattle

I don't know, but there will come a period in the future when this will be looked back at with astonishment and condemnation

Maybe because they have just given up trying to teach kids that girls are very but as good as boys and can do almost everything they can (excl acceptably peeing standing up)

Why doesn't the child want to change with the boys? Why does he want to change with the girls? If the boys are being mean or teasing him, the school needs to focus on making them understand the need to be kind, not taking advantage of the fact that the girls mostly are kind already.

It sounds like a case of being asked to set yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm. Once we act so as to prioritise one person's rights over those of a whole group it's a slippery slope.

It sounds like a case of being asked to set yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm love the expression. But surely in this case it’s set everyone else on fire to keep yourself warm?

I seem to remember writing similar to this in utter frustration on one of the Labour hopeful threads
This all comes down to, for me
WHAT ABOUT THE GIRLS?

FWIW, I was out all day with 60 7/8 yo children this week and while we had a whale of a time and got thoroughly exhausted, there wasn't one of them we trusted to cross a busy road unaided. If our Safeguarding doesn't allow them to make that decision independently, why are we asking the girls, particularly, to make the decision to compromise boundaries they aren't yet capable of grasping the significance of?

They were just so little... so guileless... so in need of protection!

Well I’ve put my head above the parapet. Emailed the head teacher, emailed all the parents of the girls and now put a note on Facebook. I’ve had three replies from parents (out of about 15) One father saying “we no problem with it because we are understanding”. Of the boy’s feelings presumably, rather than their own daughter. FML.

And to my great relief one from another mother who said she was glad I’d written because she and her husband felt alone in their thoughts. Now she has sent an email too raising her concerns (can’t understand at all why she wouldn’t do this anyway).

A third parent said she felt the same as me and asked if I would write. She is new to the school with English as a second language and doesn’t want to draw attention to herself.

No other replies. These parents are not my friends to be fair, I don’t know most of them well. God I hope they are thinking carefully about it.