To Feel Really Saddened That DD's School can't say Daughter or Girl

[Memeapple]

I went to a my DD's high performing Central London Girls school last night for an introduction to year 8 where they mainly talked about attendance.

We then had a talk by the form tutor in the classroom. I noticed that during the entire form tutor chat she was referring to the girls as children. This wasn't an accident because at one point she nearly said daughters but stopped herself. I've noticed my daughter talking about the girls in her class as "people". I've also seen her gender PHSE work from year 7 which says if you misgender someone it is an act of violence. Hmm what about obliteration of gender?

I am profoundly dismayed by this and feel that the school is complicit in the stripping of girls/women's identities. How can "inclusivity" mean that the females have no identity whatsoever?

Am finding this whole situation really really disconcerting. Something nefarious has penetrated the school system. How can fundamental biological/physiological fact be washed away by "lived experience".

@Memeapple

Our daughters are being educated not to be women. It's really very seismic. Most of us grew up very secure with our sex/gender. We don't know how this experiment will end.

Again the daughters. Girls/children whatever you want to call them matter even if they don't have a parent in their life.

@OldCrone

Why was this thread moved? It was on AIBU this morning with a vote of about 90% saying YANBU.

I thought it was!

Do all the ones about sex and gender get moved?

One of my grandsons goes to a boys school, it has boy in the name. In year 7 I saw a child dressed as a girl, school blazer, shirt and tie but wearing a skirt. I asked grandson if they had girls at the school. He said he didn't know, he'd heard the child was a boy transitioing to a girl or a girl transition to a boy. Then he said, "Does it matter?"

It does matter, yes. Sex matters rather a lot. It will have many lifelong impacts on that child, whatever 'gender' they may feel they are.

I suspect most of the girls at the school identify as girls, so why can't they be called girls? Or can only trans girls be called girls?

@LampLighter414

OP you sound like hard work

Accept that things are changing or move schools

Oh yes OP be a good little woman and sit quietly and allow your daughters biological reality to be ignoref

Can someone restart the threat in AIBU?? and keep restarting it!

fucking hell, they'll be renaming the site soon.

Do all the ones about sex and gender get moved?

Yes, usually. There's a conversation about 'cis' on the AIBU board right now. Waiting for that to get moved too.

Someone doesn't like us talking about this stuff and it gets moved over here pretty quickly.

@Joystir59

I suspect most of the girls at the school identify as girls, so why can't they be called girls? Or can only trans girls be called girls?

I think that's where we're headed. Actual girls will be known as 'people with cervixes' or 'bodies with vaginas'.

Thanks @EdgeOfACoin.

OP YANBU, your girl should be called a girl if that is how she wishes to identify.

We are always addressed as “parents and carers”. I think that is great. I wouldn’t want to be referred to as a “carer”. I am a parent. Likewise, it is inclusive for people like ancientgran.

To be honest, I just don’t get why the word “girls” is eliminated. Why cannot a gender non conforming girl still be a girl? Why cannot a gender non conforming boy still be a boy?

Why do we need to pop them into a different box as soon as they go outside sex stereotypes?

@ArabellaScott

One of my grandsons goes to a boys school, it has boy in the name. In year 7 I saw a child dressed as a girl, school blazer, shirt and tie but wearing a skirt. I asked grandson if they had girls at the school. He said he didn't know, he'd heard the child was a boy transitioing to a girl or a girl transition to a boy. Then he said, "Does it matter?"

It does matter, yes. Sex matters rather a lot. It will have many lifelong impacts on that child, whatever 'gender' they may feel they are.

But it didn't seem to matter to him or his friends. They are entitled to be more interested in other things if that is how they feel. If for some reason they admitted the girl to a boys school, the school with the best GCSE and A level results in our LA, I think that potentially that is a positive. I hope the school goes mixed and they can benefit from the best equipped school in the area.

No issue with not referring to the students as daughters, it’s an odd usage for a school anyway. Will not be sending my own daughter to a school that isn’t proud to be part of and lead the journey from girls to being young women for the hundreds of students, and I do not believe a school that can’t say girls and women can do that.

Why do we need to pop them into a different box as soon as they go outside sex stereotypes? it's almost like by encouraging diversity they are actually discouraging it.

I don’t have to worry about my boys; the chance the boys schools they might go to stop talking about how they nurture and develop boys to become great young men to be proud of and start keeping it to ‘people’ is about the same as Mars spiralling into the earth next week.

@bonbonours

I bet it's because some of their girls now identify as boys/non binary. It is quite ridiculous though. Wonder what their policy is on allowing boys who identify as girls to enrol in their"girls" school?

I work in an all girls school.

We have an increasing number of trans/non binary students, have just introduced the option of trousers and have a few members of staff announcing their pronouns on emails and badges.

We are retaining our '...School for Girls' in out name though.. for now...

@Pinotnoirandcheese

We are always addressed as “parents and carers”. I think that is great. I wouldn’t want to be referred to as a “carer”. I am a parent. Likewise, it is inclusive for people like ancientgran.

To be honest, I just don’t get why the word “girls” is eliminated. Why cannot a gender non conforming girl still be a girl? Why cannot a gender non conforming boy still be a boy?

Why do we need to pop them into a different box as soon as they go outside sex stereotypes?

We get the parents and carers on paper. At meetings it is always parents and sons and daughters. For the first time in my life I feel "othered" and it doesn't feel nice. Just had a call with Child Benefit for some guidance on an issue and they seem bemused that someone who isn't a parent is the carer for a child. I can't believe it is that rare.

@MNHQ the OP was asking about her daughter not being referred to as her daughter or girl. Why has this been moved to Sex and Gender debate? This is about girls.

Is there no discussion to be had about women or girls, on a board called mumsnet that wont be corralled off to the gulag?

@GloomAndDoom

Thanks *@EdgeOfACoin*.

OP YANBU, your girl should be called a girl if that is how she wishes to identify.

Her wishes are being formed right now. And the school is informing her that she is a person/student and not a girl/woman. I feel that she's being brainwashed.

If you tell girls they're not girls at puberty guess what happens? Breast binding, hormones, over representation in gender clinics. Schools are helping create the dysphoria in the first place.

Agreed on the point about daughter but this goes much further. They stopped using girls/women.

There's a real issue here about a minority interest groups dictating what happens to the majority. The ignoring of the white working class helped Brexit happen. The next thing that'll happen is swarms of feminists will flock to the Tory party!

To the person who said I was hard work - my husband would certainly agree with you!

But I do feel like something terrible is happening and I want it to be known.

Nonsuch grammar school for girls don't allow teachers to say girls/ ladies anymore.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09202jz

This was an interesting programme. I don't know if it's available elsewhere online but it basically suggests that gender neutral education benefits boys and girls.

Well meaning educators unconsciously treat boys and girls differently which disadvantages both groups.

^^ This is a clip of someone playing with a baby. The baby is dressed as a boy and girl in the experiment and the carer ends up subconsciously offering different toys depending on whether the baby is dressed as a boy or girl.

I know that this is not totally relevant as the school is a girls school and I doubt that the same conversation in reverse happens at boys schools. But I'm thinking maybe, just maybe using gender neutral language is an attempt to treat girls like boys to their advantage.

My children went to mixed sex schools and these issues don't seem to happen so intensely. I've just had an email from school about the "girls football match" and terms like Head Girl/Boy are used.

@theDudesmummy

This is ridiculous and wrong. I went to a girls' school and a line from the school song went "we become the kind of women that the world has needed long". I will never forget that, it had a powerful effect on me. I imagined myself from a very early age as that woman, not that "person". That woman was, and still is, the identity I strive for.

Yes! We grasp in our early teens, if not before, that once puberty arrives we are going to spend our whole lives doing whatever we end up doing while also coping with having a female body and all that entails - periods, sexual harassment for having an obviously female body, contraception, fertility issues, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, maternity leave, menopause, assorted gynae and breast issues that need medical treatment or cause poor health/debility.

And that's without even starting on the many women who have to contend with sexual violence, abusive relationships and so on, and being passed over at work because of the preconceptions that having the aforesaid female sexed body give rise to.

Women have so many barriers to doing well in life and achieving our ambitions, and yet many of us do get on. One big factor in that is having really good role models when we are young. Another is getting encouragement specifically tailored to girls. Good health care would be a big help too, of course.

I was bought up to be proud of being a girl and of growing into a woman. That is certainly a gift I will be passing on to my own daughter. Being a woman comes with all sorts of specific challenges and that must be acknowledged and girls need to be prepared for that. The idea of confronting those realities whilst feeling shame at your femaleness doesn't bare thinking about. We need to provide girls with inner strength and belief in themselves. I would have thought that that was one of the major advantages of an all girls school.

@BananaPB

[[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09202jz]]

This was an interesting programme. I don't know if it's available elsewhere online but it basically suggests that gender neutral education benefits boys and girls.

Well meaning educators unconsciously treat boys and girls differently which disadvantages both groups.

I]]

^^ This is a clip of someone playing with a baby. The baby is dressed as a boy and girl in the experiment and the carer ends up subconsciously offering different toys depending on whether the baby is dressed as a boy or girl.

I know that this is not totally relevant as the school is a girls school and I doubt that the same conversation in reverse happens at boys schools. But I'm thinking maybe, just maybe using gender neutral language is an attempt to treat girls like boys to their advantage.

But the issue isn't gender stereotyping. It's whether we exist or not. Girls can be taught they can be all sorts of things. I used to help my dad out with the car and memorised the engine sizes, speed and MPG of most of the cars in the back of my dad's What Car magazine. None of this behaviour made me any less female. And when I was 24 I thought "sod this career ladder thing, I think I'll have a baby". I loved the fact that I felt like I had all the options because one thing that is really incredible about women is that we can create new human beings and without us no one has a voice because no one exists.