Gender on School Form

[ItsSnowJokes]

My daughter starts school in September, today we received the enrollment form and on it it has gender instead of sex. My husband has said I will be "that parent" if I cross it out and put sex. He is worried that she will be there for 7 years of primary and they will always remember what we did on the form.

What would you do?

I do this on every form, every time for Al of my children.

You will not be alone

Do it!!!

I see you already have, well done!

My children are at primary school and we recently got sent a link to a survey from either the county or borough council about how children travel to school. It asked for gender identity. Luckily there was an 'other' box that you could fill in. I was THAT parent. My response was something along the lines of, 'My child does not have a gender identity, they have a sex which is male. You are not being very inclusive, when you assume that everyone has a gender identity.'

To be fair though, the survey was fairly anonymous, it only asked the school and year group of my child.

@ItsSnowJokes

My daughter starts school in September, today we received the enrollment form and on it it has gender instead of sex. My husband has said I will be "that parent" if I cross it out and put sex. He is worried that she will be there for 7 years of primary and they will always remember what we did on the form.

What would you do?

I've been crossing out gender and writing sex on school forms for years. My response btw to the question why has always been that I obviously know my child's sex but wouldn't assume to know their gender. Outwoke them.

Anyway, it's not led to issues. To be fair, not even my forthright interactions with teachers on other matters have resulted in that.

My kids attend(ed) large schools and we have a high number of children from deprived areas, so my opinions on this debate are far less important to the staff and teachers than the serious issues many of those children and their parents are struggling with. And that's as it should be. Politics should always take a back seat to individual pupil support.

So I say if you cross it out, you really don't need to worry about it.

I do it on every form and email about it.
But thank you you just reminded me to go fill in my daughter's electronic form for year 7 which I was late with.
We had three questions.
What is your child's sex? choices male or female. So that was good.

Next question what is your child's gender? Male, female, non binary, prefer not to say.
So I had to click prefer not to say.

Third question does gender identity match assigned at birth. Yes, no, prefer not to say!

I wrote to them two years ago when my other child joined and it was worse then but this is still not satisfactory. I want to be able to answer the other two questions with none or not applicable. Prefer not to say implies it is secret.

@ItsSnowJokes

Its done. Husband is muttering but I have to do it.

Yes well done to being that mum. Always, always sex not gender.

Not being sarcastic. Please can someone explain to me. Tia x

@FemaleAndLearning genuine question and looking to understand - is that not the school trying to be inclusive and to make themselves aware of any children who are potentially/already transitioning? I understand the difference between sex and gender. But don't schools also need to be aware of things their pupils may need extra pastoral support with?

DS's school are determined under no circumstances to utter the word sex. They even said no mixed gender rooms on recent school trip. What's wrong with kids of different genders sharing a room, as long as they're the same sex? Isn't it some kind of transphobic to say a trans boy is a risk to girls? Still, if anyone fancies a single room zey just need to declare zemselves unicorngender.

You did the right thing OP.

I did the same on a form from DCs primary the other day. In red pen

As for being "that parent", what does your DH mean?? That parent that knows the difference between sex and gender? I'm VERY happy to be that parent

Choclover89 didn't the OP say it was for reception starting?! Are you seriously suggesting there are transgender 4 year old out there

@Randomo

Why make a mountain out of a mole hill. Just answer the question on the form.

Because the OP can’t answer the question on the form as it is written, she knows her child’s sex, but it is very unlikely that a four year old has expressed a preference as to gender.

[quote Choclover89]@FemaleAndLearning genuine question and looking to understand - is that not the school trying to be inclusive and to make themselves aware of any children who are potentially/already transitioning? I understand the difference between sex and gender. But don't schools also need to be aware of things their pupils may need extra pastoral support with?[/quote]
In the very remote possibility that a reception child was transitioning I have a feeling that the parents would let the school know directly rather than the school using its spidey senses to decide which of the ticked “gender” boxes was declaring a transitioning child in need and which was accidentally recording the child’s sex.

Bloody hell be ‘that’ parent, I would.

The one thing I’m very worried about is children and safeguarding. I don’t care what the reason is, religion, sexuality, beliefs, wokeness, snobbery whatever.

No one crosses the children safeguarding line! And asking for gender instead of sex crosses that safeguarding line.

The school absolutely have a duty of care and responsibility to both know, monitor and safeguard the sex of the children in it’s care.

[quote Choclover89]@FemaleAndLearning genuine question and looking to understand - is that not the school trying to be inclusive and to make themselves aware of any children who are potentially/already transitioning? I understand the difference between sex and gender. But don't schools also need to be aware of things their pupils may need extra pastoral support with?[/quote]
Would a school ask if a child was gay? No. There’s a reason for that!

I was replying directly to another poster's comment about their secondary school form (I did tag the user's name). I think there are more secondary children making decisions about their gender identity now? Just thought the school were trying to be aware is a good way?
I am genuinely interested to learn about these issues and it's disheartening how unpleasant the tone can be in some of your responses

@Rejoiningperson good point hadn't thought of it like that!

@Choclover89 I know to be honest if I hadn’t educated myself about good safeguarding practice in schools and with children, I also would have just thought the same, oh the school are just trying to be inclusive. It’s only when I realised the implications that I got seriously worried.

Some of the well meaning stuff about gender in schools has got seriously out of hand. I could go into it but it’s better if you have a look yourself and see what the worrying issues are.

@Choclover89

I was replying directly to another poster's comment about their secondary school form (I did tag the user's name). I think there are more secondary children making decisions about their gender identity now? Just thought the school were trying to be aware is a good way? I am genuinely interested to learn about these issues and it's disheartening how unpleasant the tone can be in some of your responses

This section of mumsnet attracts a lot of trolls and most of the regulars here have been fighting this battle for years. Sometimes it’s easy to become cynical about someone coming on and asking questions—hard to know whether it’s genuine or not.

To answer your point about secondary schools, yea schools might want to have support in place for students questioning a gender identity, but other than keeping them safe (which they’re supposed to do for all students anyway) I’m not sure what other pastoral care they need to be offering.

The form is annoying because it uses gender instead of sex. And I had more to say but just realised the time and have done a massive yawn and must get some sleep.

If you’re really interested, there’s a thread called Break It Down For Me (from memory) that’s worth a read about sex and gender and the whole she bang.

Another “that parent” here.

I also made a complaint about them collecting gender (not sex) for the Covid testing.

Here is my thread/letter in case anyone wants to crib from it:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4181917-GDPR-right-to-rectification-SEX-not-gender-on-eg-patient-records

Well I moved on to a different part of the form last night for emergency contacts and it asked "gender" on all of those as well. There is a lot of crossing out on this form 😂

[quote Choclover89]@FemaleAndLearning genuine question and looking to understand - is that not the school trying to be inclusive and to make themselves aware of any children who are potentially/already transitioning? I understand the difference between sex and gender. But don't schools also need to be aware of things their pupils may need extra pastoral support with?[/quote]
I agree and last time I wrote I said there should be two questions. However female and male are not genders. If they had used boy and girl along with non binary or given an other option I would be okay with it as I could have said none.

It is the assumption we all have a gender that bothers me. Gender is based on sexist stereotypes.
We wouldn't assume everyone has a religion. There was a question on religion that was free text and I just wrote none.

So there should be a none option. I'm not being pedantic I just believe the wording needs to be right.
Then those with gender diverse issues will still come under the radar. It suits everyone.

Is it asking the gender of your emergency contacts? Never had that!

What would you do?
Always be "that person". Reality and truth matter.

@FemaleAndLearning

Is it asking the gender of your emergency contacts? Never had that!

I was very surprised when I say it asked for "gender". I have crossed them out and put sex after asking the emergency contacts if they had a gender preference first 🤣 the 2 I have asked wondered if I had gone barking and asked for it to say sex not gender so whoop!