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.

As I said before, you should not be stepping outside your role and area of expertise. If you identify a safeguarding issue, you refer it, you do not attempt to investigate it yourself and come to your own conclusions.

I work on the whole with adults, it is very much "safeguarding [investigation] is not your job, you simply take the information and pass it on."

Here are examples of why it is not OK for adults (particularly teachers) asking children to confide in them rather than their parents.

4thwavenow.com/2017/05/14/mtof-tells-trans-kids-to-dump-moms-on-mothers-day-and-join-the-glitter-queer-family-of-adult-trans-activists/

www.nationalreview.com/corner/transgender-activist-munroe-bergdorf-should-not-work-with-children/

[quote andyoldlabour]Here are examples of why it is not OK for adults (particularly teachers) asking children to confide in them rather than their parents.

4thwavenow.com/2017/05/14/mtof-tells-trans-kids-to-dump-moms-on-mothers-day-and-join-the-glitter-queer-family-of-adult-trans-activists/

www.nationalreview.com/corner/transgender-activist-munroe-bergdorf-should-not-work-with-children/[/quote]
Fucking hell that's all so incredibly concerning to read.

I've seen this before: calling people 'creepy' for carrying out basic safeguarding. It is, quite simply, an attempt to avoid scrutiny and the question we should immediately ask is "why do they want to avoid scrutiny?"

@Tibtom

I've seen this before: calling people 'creepy' for carrying out basic safeguarding. It is, quite simply, an attempt to avoid scrutiny and the question we should immediately ask is "why do they want to avoid scrutiny?"

Yup.

This is a very interesting thread. I think it's a very striking example of a common phenomenon among, er, non-regular posters here.

A lot of these posters are bullshitters with a certain personality type, the one-word description for which seems to be a deletion trigger (it's like playing a game of Taboo on here sometimes.) Anyway this particular variety of bullshitter tends to overestimate themselves massively and therefore assumes they can convincingly fake expertise in a subject they know nothing about.

I suspect this is more than usually true when the subject is safeguarding, because it's associated with female-dominated professions. So the bullshitters are literally incapable of believing that there's anything complex or non-obvious about the subject. They genuinely think their windbaggery is going to bamboozle people who are actual experts on safeguarding. Safeguarding is not a topic I know about myself - this thread has been very educational to me - but I know bullshit when I see it in action.

So to all the women here who are fighting to safeguard children from dangerous adults who do not have their best interests at heart, more power to your elbow. Thank you.

Yup. If you have something to hide... sounds like teachers who have had a bit of shiny new-dangled trendy trining and are keep to play therapist (or saviour?).

I have family in teaching and they have told me of times when they have genuinely feared for a child’s life and had to beg social services to interview quickly.

The difference between these two scenarios - one will potentially save a life and one potentially ruin one (many).

I find it very interesting that so many adults on this message board think it would be better for children who know their parents are transphobic, to have no one at all to confide in except their friends, since they know their teachers will promptly tell their parents.

Apparently it's better, in their view, for children to no trusted adults to confide in - and that's their interpretation of "safeguarding" the child.

Safeguarding is not a topic I know about myself - this thread has been very educational to me - but I know bullshit when I see it in action.

This.

Even people who know fuck all about safeguarding, because they haven't been trained, can see the obvious truth and authenticity to a statement that says you should not encourage children to have secrets from their parents with adults.

It's a self evident truism.

@HipTightOnions

it would be a criminal offence for someone who has been told that someone is trans in the course of their professional role to disclose this information without the consent of the student

It’s a shame you missed off the first part of that sentence, which clearly refers to adult (18+) students with GRCs.

The trouble is, it doesn't say it clearly. The full sentence reads:

Trans students may choose to apply for a gender recognition certificate once they reach the age of 18; it would be a criminal offence for someone who has been told that someone is trans in the course of their professional role to disclose this information without the consent of the student.

That semi-colon is doing a LOT of work.

Readers who are not already familiar with the law will not easily be able to tell whether the sentence means:

a) Trans students may choose to apply for a gender recognition certificate once they reach the age of 18 [and in these specific circumstances] it would be a criminal offence ...

or

b) Trans students may choose to apply for a gender recognition certificate once they reach the age of 18 [therefore] it would be a criminal offence ...

The paragraph continues with 'In all other cases ...' so it is possible that with a lot of effort, the reader could work out the correct meaning within the context of the whole paragraph. But those who are not already familiar with the law would have no reason to unpick the meaning, they'd just be scared off by 'criminal offence' from making any disclosure, even when they should. Even when they are legally obliged to.

It's incredibly misleading, as @ool0n's mistaken interpretation shows, and it looks deliberate.

At a quick glance, the rest of NEU's guidance looks terrible too. How do we get this changed?

neu.org.uk/advice/supporting-trans-and-gender-questioning-students

@CandyLeBonBon "where can you identify on this thread where people would not or are not supportive or helpful to their children?"

When parents react with anger to the fact that their child doesn't trust them to be supportive and helpful and kind, rather than express regret that they have not made themselves into parents their child would trust to be supportive and helpful and kind, and when they demand that a teacher or a doctor or a social worker or a psychologist that their child does trust should violate that trust on their behalf since they have been unable to earn their own child's trust and confidence, well: whether the situation is that the child is trans, or lesbian, or has had an abortion, or is on contraception, I expect the parents will not do anything but confirm to everyone that their child's judgement of their character was perfectly correct.

“Trusted adult”? Have you not seen the people on social media advising children to join their ‘new family’ (or random strangers online) and alienate them from their parents? There are people with nasty agendas. Some of us will remember scandals that involved children being taken into care on wild accusations.

Teachers aren’t therapists. Going on a course run by a lobby group isn’t the same as being a qualified child or family therapist. They don’t know the children really or their parents/family. They aren’t fit to judge on the basis of a child’s say-so to keep flipping secrets.

Someone I know had a teen was really unhappy and going through a rough time - for some reason (even she said she didn’t know why - she got carried away) she relayed a story to a teacher about how she was made to sleep on the floor in the attic (they didn’t even have one), in the cold and dark and barely fed. Absolutely wild imagination - but of course the school had to follow it up.

If anyone is in any doubt about the need for safeguarding, you only need to look at the US and coaching to find a mass of cases. Abusers find so many ways to silence their prey and parents innocently assume their children are protected. With most procedures, they become more lax with time as people forget why these safeguards are in place. That's when children are at their most vulnerable, when people have forgotten

@Datan "you should not encourage children to have secrets from their parents with adults."

No one does. The issue is, what if the child very much wants - despite their teacher telling them they need to talk to their parents - NOT to talk to their parents about the subject at hand? Shouldn't we be discussing why transphobic parents aren't working hard to be not-transphobic in front of their children, at least, so that if one of their children is trans, they'll feel able to tell their parents?

@Libby55

Thanks, I will contact the safer schools alliance. I hadn't thought of reporting it officially. This sounds like a good start. I think I can live with the target on my back. It's the kids and their families I'm concerned about.

Report the school to Ofsted - it is a safeguarding issue. There are forms on Ofsted's website (or there used to be).

@toffeebutterpopcorn "Have you not seen the people on social media advising children to join their ‘new family’ (or random strangers online) and alienate them from their parents?"

Wasn't this thread supposed to be discussing what a teacher should do if a child in their school says "Call me Gloria, use she/her pronouns, don't tell my parents, they think I'm Dennis" - not what your stranger-danger on the interner should do? Why are you trying to derail the discussion?

@MrsOvertonsWindow

I'm incredulous at the NEU attempting to write pastoral care "guidance" on trans issues for all schools ( so from Nursery age through to 18 years olds) as if they're a homogenous mass. They reference the Equality Act & Public Sector Equality duty with zero mention of the need to safeguard children. Not even in the references - which of course offer Mermaids, Gendered Intelligence and the Genderbread Person.

Yes, this struck me too.

They're all just 'young people' now.

@9toenails I am absolutely delighted that you have - no doubt justified - complete confidence in your children to be loving, supportive, fully affirming parents all children need, to your grandchildren, and that your grandchildren have a justified complete confidence that they can tell their parents they are genderqueer and know their parents will never, for example, tell you.

@CandyLeBonBon Why would the child be present at a parent-teacher meeting?

Is this some new thing? In my day, parents met with their child's teacher without their child present, and passed on, or not, to the child what the teacher had to say.

The idea of a single "trusted adult" went out with the discovery that those adults (priests, teachers, scout leaders, sports coaches) were not always the best people to trust

Since then, safeguarding is done via a team, in the hopes that rogue individuals will be spotted by others.

Safeguarding 101 - no child should be alone with a single adult; no adult should be alone with a single child. For obvious historical reasons that some posters appear, unbelievably, to be unaware of.

Jeez. Someone is working very hard trying to insist that you either unquestioningly affirm, or you are some form of abusive/neglectful parent whose children need to be told by the nice teachers that of course this can be kept quiet, dear.

Again, I'm quite sure the objective reader is coming to their own conclusions.

Teachers are not trained in child psychology. A teacher and pupil should never ‘have secrets’. If there is any question that a child is in an unsafe situation then they need to report this.

No teacher should have secrets with a pupil.