Advice: schools socially transitioning children without parental knowledge or consent.

[Libby55]

Hi,

The school I work in is socially transitioning children by changing their names and pronouns without informing parents. Adults working in school are supposed to keep this a secret when communicating with parents. I believe this is a safeguarding issue and that the school is harming children. This is something I know little about and I'm asking for help because I'm looking for an organisation that specifically campaigns against schools harming children in this way. My colleagues share my concerns but are afraid to raise their concerns. My union seems to have adopted gender identity politics. I have to do something: I can see children being harmed. If any of you know of a teacher's group that is lobbying against the practice of socially transitioning children without parents' knowledge or consent, please let me know. I would like to get involved.

I do think that people think they know better than teachers as shown by certain posters in the thread because everyone has been to school. They seem to think this makes them an expert. They then think they're misinformed opinion is as valid as tried and tested protocol that's been in place for decades and the individuals upholding them.

They also think we get the whole summer off and finish at 3. (We don't!)

Their not they're agghh autocorrect.

@rogdmum the guidance hasn’t been updated yet as I found when I went looking for it. I’m meeting my MSP to discuss it.

Jelly The last letter I had from ScotGov said that they would be implementing it ASAP in the next Parliamentary session (I.e. after the summer break). Not holding my breath.

@rogdmum

Jelly The last letter I had from ScotGov said that they would be implementing it ASAP in the next Parliamentary session (I.e. after the summer break). Not holding my breath.

Me neither. Especially since we know from FOIs that the same people who wrote the LGBT Youth Scotland Guidance were involved in drafting this new guidance. Without any input being sought or accepted from the people who pointed out the flaws in the former.

Why is this being compared to teachers being told by a child they are gay? This isn't a teacher keeping confidence something they gave been told - though that would breach safeguarding. This is a whole school implimenting actionsand then conspiring to hide these actions from parents

This is about schools socially transitioning children against professional recommendations. An action that can cement a child in a medical pathway that leads to physical and paychological harms.

This is about teachers way overstepping their professional knowledge.

This is about children being encouraged to lie to their parents by teachers.

This is about their siblings being coerced to join in that lie.

This is about teachers knowingly overseeing/encouraging selfharm.

This is about schools lying to parents.

This is about schools putting children at risk.

This is about schools colluding to prevent parents instigating investigation and support for mental health issues.

This is about schools preventing a child from potentially revealing abuse.

@Tibtom

Why is this being compared to teachers being told by a child they are gay? This isn't a teacher keeping confidence something they gave been told - though that would breach safeguarding. This is a whole school implimenting actionsand then conspiring to hide these actions from parents

This is about schools socially transitioning children against professional recommendations. An action that can cement a child in a medical pathway that leads to physical and paychological harms.

This is about teachers way overstepping their professional knowledge.

This is about children being encouraged to lie to their parents by teachers.

This is about their siblings being coerced to join in that lie.

This is about teachers knowingly overseeing/encouraging selfharm.

This is about schools lying to parents.

This is about schools putting children at risk.

This is about schools colluding to prevent parents instigating investigation and support for mental health issues.

This is about schools preventing a child from potentially revealing abuse.

Very well put @Tibtom!

Thank you again for all the posters sharing their safeguarding knowledge. I appreciate the patience that you all show in carefully explaining how it worlds.

Even when faced with posters who obviously wish to dismiss the fact that so many of you have clearly stated that the first people to tell after a student discloses is the safeguarding team /lead. Not directly to the parents.

[quote EyeEdinburgh]@OldCrone "People have repeatedly told you that these guidelines should be followed."

Yes. And I agree. what none of the people on this thread have managed to explain is why they think that because Dennis tells the class teacher "I want you to call me Gloria and use she/her pronouns" this means the child's welfare is at risk. Providing the school has stout and effective anti-bullying policies, the class ought to follow the teacher's lead and call Gloria, Gloria. Maybe the child is a trans girl. Maybe not.[/quote]
Since you keep asking why a child identifying as trans is a safeguarding issue, I'd like to just quote a (very long) comment I wrote on this issue elsewhere that explores some of the reasons why it is:

An example: LGBT Youth Guidance in Scotland recommends that parents should as a matter of general principle never be informed if a child identifies as trans at school and does not wish the parents to know this. However, one of Scotland’s safeguarding frameworks, called “Getting It Right For Every Child” or GIRFEC for short, stipulates that no information should ever be withheld from those with legal parenthood/parental responsibility unless there are very serious concerns about the parents/carers. This cannot be a mere vague concern, it requires an actual case conference, with all the usual documentation of incidents that give rise to these concerns and so on.

However, in the case of a child who identifies as trans, information is to be withheld even from parents/carers who are not considered to be a concern at all – perfectly fit, loving, capable parents are to have such a vital piece of information withheld for no other reason than it serves a narrative of “being trans is not a safeguarding concern”. Actually it is. The reasons are as follows:

Children who identify as trans because they suffer from gender dysphoria urgently need support. LGBT Youth’s very own guidance outlines that these children actually fare much better if they are supported by their parents.

Also, when the school withholds this information, it violates the human rights of the child. Specifically:

There's Article 3, which stipulates that the child’s best interests must be paramount in any decisions made about that child. It is not in the child’s best interests to prevent parents from having important information that has an effect on the mental and emotional wellbeing of their child which in turn prevents them from taking action to protect and/or support the child.

There's Article 5, which stipulates that children have the right to have parental support to aid them in exercising their rights, and to have their evolving capacities taken into account.

LGBT Youth Guidance (as is typical for all other types of guidance on how to accommodate and deal with children who identify as trans) does not differentiate between a 4-year-old in Primary 1 and a 17-year-old in Secondary 6 in Scotland, despite the fact that each child would have vastly different capacity of understanding and maturity. The latter may be able to access needed support independently, the former most certainly is not.

But even in the case of a teen, take this scenario:

If a school is fine with not sharing information with the parents of a teen who identifies as trans, but not so good with making alternative arrangements for changing rooms (such as offering a staff changing room instead of insisting on the child sharing a changing room with other children of its biological sex), the teen may feel very uncomfortable or even distressed at undressing in front of the other children. The teen would in most cases be far better off if the parents were informed and could then navigate school procedures to ensure their child’s needs are met.

There's Article 6, which stipulates that States have to “ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child” which refers to ALL matters of development and health.

Many female children who have gender dysphoria bind their breasts. The vast majority have no knowledge of the serious risks to their health (for instance a study by a pro-binding organisation showed that amongst females who bind their breasts, 97% reported at least one negative health outcome). They recommend that doctors treating such females should counsel and educate them carefully to help them manage either without breast binding or by doing so in the least harmful way possible.

However, if a child discloses a practice of breast binding to a teacher in a school which follows LGBT Youth Guidance, this teacher is advised to respond in a manner which also violates established safeguarding practices around self-harm (which breast binding falls under because of its serious risks of irreversible damage to the developing child). Paramount of these practices is to ensure that the child receives help and support in minimising risk to themselves. This necessitates working closely with the parents/carers of the child. Which would mean informing the parents, which these schools don’t do.

Moreover, because trans guidance talks down, glosses over or completely fails to mention known risks, these schools often don’t even understand the risks properly. (Teachers could of course seek to educate themselves, but they have many other children with many other issues to worry about. Unlike parents/carers who typically look after far fewer children.)

Furthermore, children with gender dysphoria benefit from seeing a specialist. They cannot access a specialist without a parent arranging this. But the parent wouldn’t know. As trans advocates keep stressing, the increasing delays in accessing specialist support are putting children with gender dysphoria at risk. This hasn’t stopped these organisations from also recommending cutting off the children’s best chance to be supported to access help. There is no other wellbeing issue where creating such unnecessary delays would be deemed acceptable.

And Article 18 stipulates that children have the right for their parents to take responsibility for ensuring their needs are met in a way that is in their best interests. As I have outlined above, abandoning existing safeguarding frameworks means that this isn’t happening.
—

There are any number of other issues we could look at. For instance, that every single child I know who is trans has underlying issues like trauma, bereavement or abuse and/or pre-existing conditions like anorexia, depression or neuro diversity which may be and often are the root cause for the child identifying as trans.

In any other context, these underlying causes would be explored to their fullest and if at all possible we would help the child to work through them in order to limit the impact of these issues, and in the case of gender dysphoria to help the child to reconcile with its body. So that the child can thrive. However, the Memorandum of Understanding as signed by health professionals and counsellors actually classifies all such attempts as conversion therapy. This seriously interferes with how effectively such a child can be helped if it is in distress.

Or take the fact that the Dutch clinic which pioneered the use of puberty blockers in such children used these only in connection with an extensive and thorough counselling program. That’s because desistance rates among children continue to be high but the previous best practice of watchful waiting did not lead to the most ideal outcomes for children who persisted into adulthood. So the Dutch doctors came up with a program they believed would harm neither desisters nor persisters, because it would temporarily halt their physical development while underlying causes would be explored and if possible resolved or at the very least managed and for those who desisted, puberty could then be allowed to proceed.

There is as of yet no longitudinal study providing any evidence that this approach is any more beneficial to these children than the previous best practice of watchful waiting. However, what we do know from many other medical areas is that if you remove a vital and intrinsic part of a treatment regimen, of any kind of medical therapy it leads to worse outcomes (cf anorexic children for instance, where merely keeping them fed does not increase survival rates while feeding plus therapy using a number of different approaches does).

Nonetheless, the current treatment model puts children with gender dysphoria on a medical pathway that no longer includes counselling as a major part of the treatment approach. On the contrary, many patients and their parents report that not even obvious issues are explored.

And the medical pathway itself presents another deviation from established safeguarding principles. When health care professionals treat children, the child’s right to an open future is a consideration that is first and foremost in the minds of those deciding which treatment options to pursue. This “right to an open future” refers to the fact that children are in the unique position that they have rights that all human beings have (by dint of being human) but that they cannot yet exercise. Many of those rights they can only exercise when they reach maturity – legal, physiological or mental.

The ethical approach, applied in paediatrics, is that neither parents nor doctors nor anyone else has the right to decide for the child to forego any of the rights it can only exercise in the future. Not unless the child is in mortal danger. And for much of its childhood the child itself is not deemed to be mature enough to understand the gravity and longterm consequences of foregoing these future rights either. Which is why parents don’t just have the right but also the responsibility to act in the best interests of their child, considering for the child the impact of the loss of future rights that they themselves have been able to exercise as adults.

So, to come back to children with gender dysphoria and the medical pathway. Any other medical approach adheres to the principle of the right of the child to an open future. Treatment options that will irreversibly alter the child, but most importantly treatment options that will prevent the child from ever exercising its future rights, ie options that close its future are avoided until they are the very last option.

The child who identifies as trans on the current medical pathway however has one open future treatment option all but denied from the outset (counselling aiming to explore reasons for dysphoria and any attempt to reconcile the child with its body – which represents the most open future), and instead faces a long road of treatments leading to irreversible changes to its body.

Puberty blockers – serious adverse side effects and unfortunately irreversible damage to health and mental capacity.

Puberty blockers plus cross-sex hormones – adds high risk of never reaching sexual maturity, loss of fertility, arrested brain development, permanently altered voice and hair growth, vaginal atrophy, menopause (and that has life-limiting effects for one in three menopausal women).

PB+CSH+surgery – adds the irreversible loss of healthy organs and tissue (breast amputation, castration, hysterectomy, penectomy).

So, definitely not an open future when it may leave a child infertile without sexual function and any number of irreversible body modifications.

Under normal circumstances then this medical pathway would not be entered upon unless as a last resort. The right of the child to an open future is not a principle that’s been abandoned. It still applies to all other children. Just not to the child with gender dysphoria.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but I hope I have managed to give you some idea of the issues involved.

If you look at what Sonia Appleby has done at GIDS. I believe she made protected disclosures about safeguarding. Your employer cannot just kick you out of your job without reason and following due process - that would be unfair dismissal. They won’t have a leg to stand on at an employment tribunal. Proper procedures have to be followed and I think SSA will advise the same. Just as with a grievance procedure, the issue has to be tried to be resolved internally following the proper procedures set out in the schools own policies, Keep a record of EVERYTHING. Any meetings, request a note taker or colleague and personally I have also recorded meetings on my phone.. Ideally you are supposed to tell them if you are recording the meeting but if you’re too nervous to do it openly then just do it from the point of view of assisting with writing up personal notes. A recording also helps with checking any meeting notes produced by the other side - it’s very difficult to spot something that isn’t there if they’ve omitted something important. This is a brave thing you are thinking of doing and it’s not for the faint hearted if you’ve never done anything like it before. Wishing you good luck and strength.

@CandyLeBonBon "That no [teachers], who seem warm and caring and welcoming are not paedophiles/drug dealers/sex traffickers? "

I may be idealistic, Candy, but we are discussing a schoolchild talking to a teacher at their own school. You may feel that teachers could be paedophiles / drug dealers / sex traffickers and therefore no schoolchild should trust a teacher, ever, but the same might just as readly be said of parents: paedophiles / drug dealers / sex traffickers may have children of their own, too.

I do think your irrational fear that a child who confides in teacher is confiding in an intrinsically untrustworthy person is a bit of a slur on teachers.

Safeguarding protect teachers FFS. It protects them from having inappropriate relationships, which means secrets only they and the child know about, it doesn’t have to be criminal. It’s for appropriate child protection services to make the call as to whether the child is at risk or not.

It’s not about whether the teacher the child is confiding in is untrustworthy. But any teacher who sets themselves up to be the keeper of secrets for a child regardless of what they may be is clearly does not understand their responsibilities, regardless of whether they’re a paedophile or a drug dealer or a sex trafficker on the side.

Put another way:

Child A tells nice, lovely caring teacher about their life-altering decision to transition, safeguarding concerns raised, teacher promises to keep it a secret, doesn’t follow safeguarding protocols: inappropriate.

Child B tells secret evil paedophile, drug dealing sex trafficking teacher about their life altering decision to transition, safeguarding concerns raised, teacher promises to keep it a secret, doesn’t follow safeguarding protocols: inappropriate.

Child C tells nice, lovely caring teacher about their life-altering decision to transition, safeguarding concerns raised, teacher follows safeguarding protocols: appropriate.

Child D tells secret evil paedophile, drug dealing sex trafficking teacher about their life altering decision to transition, safeguarding concerns raised, teacher follows safeguarding protocols: appropriate.

It doesn’t matter that child B might be at greater risk of exploitation by the evil teacher compared to child A, both teachers have failed their duty. It also doesn’t matter that child D came close to being at greater risk of exploitation by their brush with an evil teacher, because the safeguarding protocols have kicked in and protected the child.

Only in scenarios C and D is the risk to the child being assessed properly. Harm can still be done to child A. We are always being told that these children are on the verge of suicide as a starter. All the good will in the world doesn’t make scenario for child A okay.

I do think your irrational fear that a child who confides in teacher is confiding in an intrinsically untrustworthy person is a bit of a slur on teachers

This, more than anything else you have written, shows you have no idea what safeguarding is or what safeguarding means. Lots of individuals said concerns about Jimmy Saville was a slur on a nice man.

The whole point or safeguarding is to assume the worst of everyone, to consider if any teacher was to be a sex trafficking sadistic paedophile drug dealer then what measures need to be put in place to stop them. Any teacher who thinks this is a slur has no right to be in that profession.

The whole point or safeguarding is to assume the worst of everyone, to consider if any teacher was to be a sex trafficking sadistic paedophile drug dealer then what measures need to be put in place to stop them. Any teacher who thinks this is a slur has no right to be in that profession.

Yes, but the whole slur on trans people seems to be leaning on they're male and therefore dangerous.
Exact same argument you just put forth.
Do you think that to EVERY teacher? Or just the ones who are male?

Sorry pressed too soon, when you say presume the worst of everyone do you actually mean everyone or just trans women or male teachers

Eye I second another poster's view that you were clearly not best served by your parents and I'm also sorry to hear that. Many of us also had abusive parents as children, and many of us have had to work through the feelings and attitudes that this upbringing has left us with. Do you have any insight into why, despite all of the safeguarding experts patiently explaining what the process actually is, you keep asserting something that isn't true? You are insistent that the school has a simple binary option of either 1) mass collusion of all staff and learners to socially transition a child whilst actively obscuring this from the parents or 2) immediately informing the parents without the child being aware or prepared for this. This scenario is not possible. Simply put, it just doesn't work like this. I, as an adult who understands from first hand experience how awful it is when parents are abusers, am really heartened by the constant calm assurances by the experts on this board about how the child will be supported by experts with the child's safety as paramount. Why aren't you?

@Quaggars

Sorry pressed too soon, when you say presume the worst of everyone do you actually mean everyone or just trans women or male teachers

There has been no mention of transwomen here. But when I say everyone I mean male teachers (which includes transwomen teachers), female teachers, office staff, dinner ladies, janitors, cleaners, visitors to the school, pupils, management - everybody.

And those teachers who understand this know that it is no reflection on them personally, it’s about how the protection structure is more important than their own egos. Just like most males have no issues with males as a sex class being considered a danger overall, because they know it’s not a reflection on them personally, but a reflection that the protection structure is more important than their own egos.

Teachers, males, or anyone who wants to throw out overall protections to cater for the need to not offend fragile individuals raise huge red flags 🚩 for me.

This is how it looks:

13 year old ASD anime/deviantArt and kpop loving Child, having immersed themselves on the Internet and without seeing a doctor, self diagnoses as having gender dysphoria/being trans.

Child, one day, says she wants teachers to change her name to a boys' name on the register and use he/him pronouns.

(Child quite possibly says that they wish to be known by a different boys' name 8 months later...)

Child's view of self as now 'male' - and no longer female - is constantly reinforced in school by trusted adults referring to them as a boy.

Teachers - who are in no way qualified health professionals nor have any clue about how to treat (rather than reinforce) dysphoria - assume that this psychological experiment is ok. Obviously, they would never dream of calling an anorexic child 'fat' or a self harming child 'ugly' but somehow calling a girl a 'boy' seems currently culturally ok, yes??

Child seems more miserable and withdrawn than they were before. Alternatively, but more rarely, child adopts new larger than life/class clown personality.

What name are certificates to be awarded in?

Child's grades start to suffer as they ruminate on gender not geography.

Child wants to take part in boys PE.

Child binds breasts.

Child struggles to breathe in PE lessons.

That there are people on this thread who think that "safeguarding" just for this one group of kids means the school should not tell the parents of this child , who has lost 3 school jumpers this year, who the parents would still get a babysitter for and who asked for Lego for their last birthday, their concerns about what is going on at school...

🤯

It just shows you don't understand kids, parents, teachers, dysphoria, the law or even the basics of safeguarding frameworks.

And that's a dangerous position to be in.

It's eye opening when you read a thread where ideology conflicts so starkly with child safety.

The laws, the reasons for the laws, the way they are woven together to create water tight protection, remain wilfully unaddressed in favour of personal feelings.

You really couldn’t hope for more of a field full of straw men from some of the posters on this thread. No matter how wild, inaccurate and downright silly they are, though, they do give knowledgable posters the opportunity to use them as a springboard to explain what child safeguarding is and crucially why it MUST apply to gender questioning children every bit as much as to every other child.

Thanks to jellycatspyjamas, charlieparley, candylebonbon, rogdmum, mrsovertonswindow and others for your patient explanatory posts.

I will continue to be boggled by the apparent expectation from trans allies that the best way to deal with trans children who we are told are uniquely vulnerable to suicide and self harm is to encourage teachers with no specialist knowledge to affirm them in their self diagnosis with no further input. And further than that, to presume that the teacher is better able to offer support and assistance with all of this suicidality and suffering than the child’s own parents. It’s dangerous nonsense.

You can’t play that both ways, as was said upthread. This slipping and sliding between “it’s an identity, it’s like adopting a nickname, no big deal, teachers can accommodate no harm done” and “it’s a source of significant and lasting trauma, with complex requirements and needs specialist medical support” is so dishonest.

This slipping and sliding between “it’s an identity, it’s like adopting a nickname, no big deal, teachers can accommodate no harm done” and “it’s a source of significant and lasting trauma, with complex requirements and needs specialist medical support” is so dishonest.

Yep. Dodgy as hell.

Surely not, Hecates!

They have such a high opinion of teachers, too! They are part time clinical psychologists and gender specialists now. They should get a raise, I hope those posters are campaigning for that.

I’m now wondering what would happen if they shoe was on the other foot and the parent wanted to socially transition a child and the teacher didn’t agree because they didn’t think the child was trans. Would they be the experts then?