School trip policies on overnight accommodation for trans children

[foodfiend]

Short version:
School's policy appears to be something long the lines that trans girls can share with girls if the girls are OK with it. Dd (14) is proposing sharing a room with trans girl friend and another girl. We have said we're not happy about this. Dd says that's transphobic.

Long time lurker here - would welcome any relevant experience, especially from any secondary teachers. School trip is this spring, planned since Oct - they've now been asked to submit room share preferences - rooms of 3. Dd is friendly with a trans girl - (since before name change ~ 2 years ago). Dd says A told her that the teacher had told A that they could share with whoever they want 'as long as everyone was OK with it'. (I have now checked with the teacher, and this appears to be correct.) Dd and another girl have agreed to share with A.

DH and I both said, hang on, A is male. It is not appropriate for you to be sleeping in mixed sex bedrooms. Dd says A is not male and we are transphobic.

To be clear - the kid seems perfectly nice and I think this scenario would probably be fine. (No idea what the other girl or her parents think.) But a policy of 'yeah, sure, mixed sex sleeping arrangements are fine if everyone agrees to it' sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. And it's unclear whether I'd even know it was happening if I didn't happen to already know that A is trans.

I'm pissed off at being put in this position of having to be the one to point out that this is inappropriate and put a target on my head as 'hateful', or seeming to specifically reject A/A's identity. While Dd professes to be happy/keen on this, it's clear that it would be extremely difficult for a girl in a similar position to say that she wouldn't be happy to share - she'd be terrified of being accused of transphobia. And it seems pretty crummy for A as well to be asked to go round her friends and put them on the spot like this.

It seems like the school is relying on the kids to somehow work it out for them. And that no-one seems to have spotted the obvious risks of setting such a precedent. Will they be equally happy for a trans boy to go in with two boys next time around? Or other male and female students to choose to share mixed bedrooms?

Are any other parents and teachers able to share policies or approaches from their schools?

Perfectly put
Artichokeleaves and Neccessarily

As someone who has been a 14-year-old male, the staggering naivety of some women never ceases to astound me, tbh.
Indeed. MrFlo often tells me I'd be horrified if I could see inside the head of a male adolescent.

Dear Op

Sorry long post. Some questions that you might ask the school.

1. How many mixed sex friendship groups had the School allowed to share sleeping accomodation previously (eg do they have prior experience to reflect on).

1. What training do staff have so that Supervisors can support and mange disputes about mixed sex sharing. (accidental nudity, inappropriate conversations, complaints, etc).

1. What guidance would be given to students so that they felt confident in reporting incidents even when they had chosen the mixed sex arrangement? How would the school handle the foreseeable and likely victim blaming.

1. How does the school support students so that they can safely report grooming.

1. Basically - what's the schools policy about dealing with any fall out from this higher risk arrangement.

1. Finally, have the school checked this guidance/policy with the Safeguarding Officer and their insurer?

DD might think nothing will happen that she's not happy about. She might think if it does happen she can deal with it. None of that relieves the school from its safeguarding responsibilities to its students and they might benefit from being reminded of that regualory responsibility.

DD might also want to think about what to do if she falls out with her friend, or starts her period, or doesn't want her friend to try on/swap clothes, thinks her friend is watching her get changed, or her friend wants to talk about relationships/kissing/boyfriends, or a thing that happens that makes DD uncomfortable or vulnerable, etc etc. These are all things that happen on school trips when you are in closer quarters than usual.. Difficult conversations, troubles are better managed if you've thought about it beforehand. DD needs to know who to turn to and be confident that she doesn't have to put up and shut up if she's scared or upset.

Hope this is helpful, BW

In conjunction with those very thoughtful points:

how do school intend to respond to other male children who are not trans saying they are being discriminated against not being allowed to sleep in the same room as female friends?

This quite likely would be discrimination in law, as there is no way to clearly delineate which male children are bound by usual boundaries and which male children are permitted to break those boundaries if they want to, and no girl has wanted or felt able to ask responsible adults to hold their boundaries in place for them.

@HeyMoana

Please don't use your daughter's trip to make your point.

Whats that supposed to mean? It's about adhering to basic safeguarding rules so her daughter is able to go on the trip. Safely.

@Floisme

As someone who has been a 14-year-old male, the staggering naivety of some women never ceases to astound me, tbh. Indeed. MrFlo often tells me I'd be horrified if I could see inside the head of a male adolescent.

All the male sexed people that I’ve known have said that at 14/15 and upwards they have thought about sex, female bodies, porn every 10 mins as a minimum! The hormones are raging at that age.

‘the position is that the school have told the children that I've vetoed the arrangement. Great.”

Well,You have haven’t you? Which it what you want - for your child not to share with this other child.

‘School policy is not to have a policy, and to treat every case individually, and say that they're following local authority advice. ‘

Following the local authority advice is a policy. Why wouldn’t they treat each case individually? They ask the kids, and they ask the parents. In this case the kids wanted to share but 2 parents didn’t want them to. End of.

Well,You have haven’t you? Which it what you want - for your child not to share with this other child.

It's not acceptable for a school to shift the blame on to a parent for enforcing safeguards because the school is too weak to enforce safeguarding itself. The school has completely failed in basic safeguarding duties. I wonder what else they have failed to do.

‘ Dd is now having to tell her friend that we're not happy, which is horrible for both her and A.’

Is it? We’re the bad guys with our kids all the time when we think it’s in their best interests… everything from who they see, where they stay over, how much gaming time, have they done homework before going out and on and on…

In this case the kids wanted to share but 2 parents didn’t want them to. End of.

It is so clear isn’t it.

The kids wanted to share and the parents didn’t want them to….

Now put the reality in.

The kids, male and female, wanted to share and the parents didn’t want them to….

Why are you making out that the parents are unreasonable and trying to shame this mother who is actually being the responsible one?

You keep conveniently avoiding answering the question.

Would you let any male and female share a room on a school trip?

Why is this male special? What exactly is different with this male’s body to any other males body?

We can keep repeating the questions if you like.

Dear lurkers, please note that Isaw has selective blindness about what they will respond to - strangely enough, not actually answering any of the questions.

Why wouldn’t they treat each case individually?

Because that is not how safeguarding works. To avoid any accusation of discrimination (positive OR negative) you have to apply a blanket policy, in every situation, no arguments.

Anyone else feel they've got deja vu?

@Isaw3ships

‘the position is that the school have told the children that I've vetoed the arrangement. Great.”

Well,You have haven’t you? Which it what you want - for your child not to share with this other child.

‘School policy is not to have a policy, and to treat every case individually, and say that they're following local authority advice. ‘

Following the local authority advice is a policy. Why wouldn’t they treat each case individually? They ask the kids, and they ask the parents. In this case the kids wanted to share but 2 parents didn’t want them to. End of.

As stated multiple times in previous pages:

Under the Equality Act, this is a fail of inclusion. Indirect discrimination has happened.

• The trans child has been put in a situation where people may or may not say yes, (and knowing who said yes and who said no and that all this was a problem)
• The other children have been put in a situation of knowing that the trans child's feelings are likely to be hurt so not a neutral choice but a pressured one with a 'right' answer and quite likely peer pressure involved too;
• Parents have been put in the position of having to be the bad guy and everyone know it is them making the unpopular decision that affects feelings, identifying them.

This has successfully caused a mess, negative outcomes, bad feeling and none of this is helping good relations between people with different needs and beliefs and characteristics. Why has this mess happened?

Because adults were afraid of a political lobby and getting into trouble, and of facing difficult feelings, and because adults were not able to be clear and firm about a blanket policy that met all needs, ensured safeguarding according to law, and did not mean case by case win/lose/movable boundaries.

Absolute fail all around. Very badly handled by the school. And none of this changes that if it is not ok for male and female children to sleep in the same quarters because of clear and accepted reasons under safeguarding, then there are no circumstances in which a male child gets to be a special exception to this. Feelings don't enter into it.

Has the school read the Estyn report "We don’t tell our teachers - Experiences of peer-on-peer sexual harassment among secondary school pupils in Wales", published less than 2 months ago?

In its "case by case" approach, how does the school know what any particular trans pupil's attitude to sexual activity with fellow pupils might be?

Has the possibility of coercion through threats of "outing" as a "transphobe" even occurred to the staff?

@HeyMoana

Please don't use your daughter's trip to make your point.

Bloody mothers nagging about safeguarding. Why don't they just live and let live?

@Isaw3ships

‘the position is that the school have told the children that I've vetoed the arrangement. Great.”

Well,You have haven’t you? Which it what you want - for your child not to share with this other child.

‘School policy is not to have a policy, and to treat every case individually, and say that they're following local authority advice. ‘

Following the local authority advice is a policy. Why wouldn’t they treat each case individually? They ask the kids, and they ask the parents. In this case the kids wanted to share but 2 parents didn’t want them to. End of.

Oh good lord. Because nothing could go wrong with this approach

‘In this case the kids wanted to share but 2 parents didn’t want them to. End of.

It is so clear isn’t it. ‘

Exactly! It really is. And if the OP wants to hide her ‘discomfort’ or whatever it is under the guise of standing up for those to come then she’s absolutely free to.
Just as the school are free to take unusual situations like this on a case by case basis, and give parents the option to have a say on anything to do with their own child.

Just as the school are free to take unusual situations like this on a case by case basis, and give parents the option to have a say on anything to do with their own child.

Males wanting to sleep with females is hardly an unusual situation.

And are they doing it case-by-case or not? Should they or should they not be allowing all males to do so on a case-by-case basis? I think you've been asked this a few times.

There’s nothing unusual about this case though, that’s the point, this is everyday safeguarding stuff about when it is and is not appropriate for opposite sex children to share rooms

A teenage boy (who May or May not present as female remembering that presents as female isn’t an actual requirement to be trans) wants to share a room with 2 teenage girls

Thete is no reason to treat them any differently to any other teenage boy because that is what they are

I work in a school on an ad hoc casual basis and am DBS checked. Based on the fact - y'know, this case by case thing - that I'm well known to the school, have never harmed a child, have kids of my own and get on well with the students I interact with and I understand safeguarding surely there's no need to renew my DBS when it expires? I'm no risk?

Thete is no reason to treat them any differently to any other teenage boy because that is what they are

/// Absolutely this. Ships, what are your thoughts? Or are you just here to poke about?

Isaw3ships. I hope to god you're not a teacher. What a fucking disaster that would be if you were. No clue about safeguarding at all.

@Isaw3ships

‘In this case the kids wanted to share but 2 parents didn’t want them to. End of.

It is so clear isn’t it. ‘

Exactly! It really is. And if the OP wants to hide her ‘discomfort’ or whatever it is under the guise of standing up for those to come then she’s absolutely free to.
Just as the school are free to take unusual situations like this on a case by case basis, and give parents the option to have a say on anything to do with their own child.

Nice selective answering - yet again.

Here it is again though.

(says ships)

The kids wanted to share and the parents didn’t want them to….

Now put the reality in.

The kids, male and female, wanted to share and the parents didn’t want them to…

Why are you making out that the parents are unreasonable and trying to shame this mother who is actually being the responsible one?

You keep conveniently avoiding answering the question.

Would you let any male and female share a room on a school trip?

Why is this male special? What exactly is different with this male’s body to any other males body?

We can keep repeating the questions if you like.

@Isaw3ships

‘What’s to stop boys ID’ing as female so as to share rooms with their GFs on school trips? My BF when I was 15 would have done that, I am sure.’

You honest to god believe that a straight boy would pretend to be trans to share a room with his girlfriend on a school trip? And that no-one else would pick up on that?
You do realise that teens can have sex with each other outside of sharing a room in a school trip??

Your argument relies on the assumption that to any rational person, the social stigma of being known as trans would outweigh the benefit of having the opportunity to have sex with your girlfriend on a school trip.

1. This may have been the case once. Is it always going to be the case? I was under the impression we were putting a lot of work into accepting trans people in 21st century Britain.

2. Are teenagers people who always make rational decisions and accurately assess longterm consequences?

Teenagers impulsively risk life and limb jumping off cliffs and taking drugs. They jeopardise their longterm futures all the time for the sake of short-term benefits, never mind their current social lives!

@Theeyeballsinthesky

There’s nothing unusual about this case though, that’s the point, this is everyday safeguarding stuff about when it is and is not appropriate for opposite sex children to share rooms

A teenage boy (who May or May not present as female remembering that presents as female isn’t an actual requirement to be trans) wants to share a room with 2 teenage girls

Thete is no reason to treat them any differently to any other teenage boy because that is what they are

And this is what the Equality Act mandates too. It's discriminatory to treat them any differently to any other teenage boy.