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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

8 year old boy wants to change with the girls

749 replies

FairytaleofBykerGrove · 06/03/2020 02:45

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?

OP posts:
andyoldlabour · 08/03/2020 09:55

LaBelleDameSansPatience

Call me old fashioned, but when I was in primary school boys and girls NEVER changed together. That included swimming at the local council run baths.

ScapaFlo · 08/03/2020 09:56

Perhaps if they absolutely insist that the boy changes in with the girls, suggest all the girls are given ponchos to preserve their privacy and he changes without, so all the girls can see his body but he can't see theirs. See if that would be thought to be appropriate. Perhaps that would surely illustrate the lunacy of this proposed situation.

Justhadathought · 08/03/2020 10:00

For anyone confused or uncertain as to why boundaries ( for children; and for everyone) are entirely appropriate - please read chickenonamug's account of her own experiences.

Boundaries are the necessary and natural defence mechanism of a healthy organism. Life is scary for children without boundaries, and that goes for a boy being told it is possible for him to become a girl, as well.

Awning10 · 08/03/2020 10:13

Another risk with this and with mixed sexed loos is the possibility that the boy could very easily be falsely/mistakenly accused of behaving inappropriately.... staring, spying, etc.

StealthPolarBear · 08/03/2020 10:27

Exactly. Even by girls being silly rather than malicious.

StealthPolarBear · 08/03/2020 10:28

Although he wouldn't need to spy. Naked girls would be displayed to him.

SarahTancredi · 08/03/2020 10:30

Even by girls being silly rather than malicious

I think we need to be careful about teaching girls they are being silly if they do complain about someone looking at them. This is another subtle way in which girls are gaslighted and boys and men get away with being inappropriate.

StealthPolarBear · 08/03/2020 10:32

Yes that's a very very good point and that's not what I meant at all, sorry. I remember as a teenage girl teasing my friends and the boys over who fancied who, who had looked at who etc. Clearly in those situations no one was naked. Had they been, our innocent teasing might have been more sinister.

SarahTancredi · 08/03/2020 10:36

These things have little to do with "fancying" though. Harassment and the escalating scale of actions that it leads to are never about attraction or fancying. It's about power.

And when girls are told to stop being silly he doesn't fancy you or hes gay so he cant/wont be looking at you etc it forces them again to override their boundaries and their gut instincts

SarahTancredi · 08/03/2020 10:38

Or even that hes 5/6/7/8 etc. And wont be looking.

I remember buys peeping through the holes in the swim sheds that we changed in at school. How they laughed at exposed pants whilst doing handstand. And the overwhelmingly popular reaction of teachers telling the girls to stop being silly Hmm

StealthPolarBear · 08/03/2020 10:39

You're twisting my words. One girls teasing another that a boy is looking at her or fancies her, could be much more sinister if the girl in question is regularly naked around the boy. I wish I hadn't posted that now. I'm not suggesting that girls who say boys are harassing them are being silly.

Awning10 · 08/03/2020 10:51

My DS was mortified, when his friend's sister and her friends walked in on him in the loo and saw his privates. He was in tears. They were all laughing at him.

StealthPolarBear · 08/03/2020 10:53

:(
I walked in on fil and was mortified. Luckily as we're adults we can laugh it off but it's embarrassing even as an adult.
I think he's a bit more cautious about door locking now!

thirdfiddle · 08/03/2020 10:59

DD's class go swimming in y3 (7-8) and definitely separate changing. Even if some schools have mixed changing at this age, which for swimming seems unlikely, it would be at the absolute upper end of what would be considered acceptable. Whereas allowing a boy in because he's crossdressing (even writing that seems absurd, but that is what OP said) is starting a precedent. It would be very hard to then tell him a year later "oh actually you can't" and seems to me to make his situation worse than if they hadn't changed the policy in the first place.

SarahTancredi · 08/03/2020 11:01

I think any talk of "fancying" would likely cease the second he was granted admission to the girls changing room.

Would take him straight from crush to creep.

Awning10 · 08/03/2020 11:10

I walked into friend's bathroom when her DH was in the bath!!!!! Shock

SarahTancredi · 08/03/2020 11:23

What is it about men/boys that means they never remember it care enough to shut or lock a bloody door.

Thisismytimetoshine · 08/03/2020 11:27

Why is this nonsense being indulged these days? He’s a boy, he doesn’t go into the girls changing room. There was a time he would be told this fairly robustly, and there’d be no more to be said on the matter.
No hand wringing and wondering were you doing the right thing?
No wonder kids are so confused these days, when literally everything is available to them, if they could only choose...

DuLANGMondeFOREVER · 08/03/2020 11:57

Loads of the girls at my littlest DD’s school wear trousers. Doesn’t mean they change with the boys.

The request is absurd, really.

R0wantrees · 08/03/2020 11:59

current relevent thread:

Layla Moran MP (former science teacher) is to run as leader of LibDems.

November 2018 parliamentary debate about dangers of housing males convicted of rape & violence against women & children in the female prison estate discussed by James Kirkup in The Spectator:

(extract)
"Ms Moran has said she believes trans women are women. Mr Davies has said he believes that a person with a penis cannot be a woman.

Their exchange is here:

David T. C. Davies:

'I hear what the hon. Lady is saying. May I bluntly ask her whether she would be happy sharing a changing room with somebody who was born male and had a male body?'

Layla Moran:

'I believe that women are women, so if that person was a trans woman, I absolutely would. I just do not see the issue. As for whether they have a beard, which was one of the hon. Gentleman’s earlier comments, I dare say that some women have beards. There are all sorts of reasons why our bodies react differently to hormones. There are many forms of the human body. I see someone in their soul and as a person. I do not really care whether they have a male body.' (continues)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3842434-Layla-Moran-to-run-for-Lib-Dem-leader

StealthPolarBear · 08/03/2020 12:28

It's a good skill that, being able to see into someone's soul.

R0wantrees · 08/03/2020 12:50

It could be a mixed blessing, rather burdensome at times.

Beansandcoffee · 08/03/2020 15:29

Why not let men get changed with the 8 year old girls too? Let’s just ignore all safeguarding.

Thisismytimetoshine · 08/03/2020 15:31

Some women have beards... She argues at the level of a 5 year old.