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?

This is friends choosing to share a room and everyone is happy.

I wonder if the school is allowing other mixed sex groups to share a room? If not why not? And why does this not apply to this male individual?

@ServeBacon Apologies. I've reread your message - you're talking about your situation and I misunderstood. What you describe sounds fine for a sleepover or whatever, but it would be really helpful to know how the school handled it. Did they ask the parents? Or just assume they were OK with it because of the existing friendship group?

You must be 'that parent', OP

If not you then who?

Someone needs to call the school out on this lunacy

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

This is friends choosing to share a room and everyone is happy.

I wonder if the school is allowing other mixed sex groups to share a room? If not why not? And why does this not apply to this male individual?

Exactly. If mixed sex is not OK for other children (which it isn't) then it is not OK for these children.

And the fact that it worked out OK for you in social settings when you were young doesn't make it safe. I didn't wear a seat belt when I was young and four of us rode in the boot - on the basis that I was fine should we do away with seat belts and car seats?

I wonder if the school is allowing other mixed sex groups to share a room? If not why not?

If the policy is that only "trans" males get to do this, what heterosexual teenage boy wouldn't be tempted to claim to be "trans" if it meant they got to sleep with teenage girls on trips?

I'd be asking to see what their insurance covers. Plus the risk-assessment.

@foodfiend

As with all residential school trips, it is usual practice for the children to indicate a preference for who they would prefer to share with.

Usually, this is dealt with the school without any involvement from parents and rooms allocated at the teachers discretion taking into account the children's preferences.

In this instance I believe the parents were contacted in confidence by the school to seek their opinion on room sharing with the individual/group concerned - and no pressure was given on the parents by the school to accept a room share with the trans teen.

@ServeBacon

How many teens would be sharing the room - that's a key question, I think.

I know of this exact circumstance - all great friends and a very similar situation.

They had a great school trip.

I think you’re failing to spot the obvious issue.

It’s okay to be “that parent”. It’s important for someone to take the first step.

Moreover, it’s important to show your daughter that it’s not “phobic” towards anyone to want to keep the safeguarding of girls uppermost in mind. I am sorry for her that she sees it the way she does.

Frankly a worrying number of people seem to be failing to spot the obvious issue & seem quite happy with 14 year olds being in charge of safeguarding

This is so out of order. Focus less on your daughter and more on the bigger picture.

1. Mixed sex sleeping arrangements for 14 year olds is not appropriate for very obvious reasons. Safeguarding is about imagining the worst outcome and then taking all reasonable steps to prevent it. How are the school doing this, in this circumstance?
2. Your daughters 'permission' does not absolve the school of their safeguarding duties.
3. It was absolutely inappropriate for the school to put this decision in the hands of the children. This should be between the school and the parents. Putting the children in the mix raises the risk of peer pressure coming to bear, and girls being pressured into agreeing something they are not comfortable with

The school have handled this really badly, i would be wanting this raised with the govenors.

In writing to the school:

"I do not believe it is unsupportive of an individual's trans identity to acknowledge the reality that the proposed arrangement is for a mixed sex bedroom, and there are obvious safeguarding concerns with having mixed sex bedrooms on a school trip with 14 year olds which the 14 year olds themselves are not in a suitable position to judge the risk assessment for. The grownups need to have the courage to find a sensitive way of ensuring that all sleeping accommodation is single sex. Sex and gender are not the same thing and it is not a kindness to our children to pretend otherwise."

FFS. This is your DD's friend who she likes and trusts, and you are trying to impose your own ignorant bigotry on the friendship group. The kids were told that they could choose who they shared a room with, an they did so. Now you want to meddle, embarrass your DD and hurt her friend's feelings because you have bought into the scaremongering that all trans people are predators.

Maybe consider how you would be behaving if DD's friend was a lesbian (while DD isn't)?

@BuanoKubiamVej Thank you, you've put that very well.

A lesbian isn’t potentially going to get another girl pregnant hth

God the wilful ignorance of safeguarding is mind boggling

They are 14 - they haven’t the first clue about a huuuge number of things in life one of which is a teenage boys (however they may present) sex drive

Again wreath

Safguarding applies to ALL. No matter how nice, who's a friend, who's old or young etc

Everyone. The aim being to avoid putting people into unsafe or awkward positions.

We do not ignore it because it upsets people. Or because irs inconvenient. Or because they are besties

@Wreath21

FFS. This is your DD's friend who she likes and trusts, and you are trying to impose your own ignorant bigotry on the friendship group. The kids were told that they could choose who they shared a room with, an they did so. Now you want to meddle, embarrass your DD and hurt her friend's feelings because you have bought into the scaremongering that all trans people are predators.

Maybe consider how you would be behaving if DD's friend was a lesbian (while DD isn't)?

Do you think the school would allow the girls to share with any boys they chose to, just because they are friends? Why is this any different? What is in someone's head doesn't change the fact that transgirls are male, the same as the boys.

@Wreath21 This is exactly the reaction I'm worried about. My worry is about males and females sharing. It's not a judgement about trans children or this individual child, but it will be interpreted as if it is. I would not be happy with her sharing with any other males, no matter how nice. I wouldn't have concerns about her sharing with a lesbian friend, because that lesbian friend would be female. People deserve privacy from the opposite sex, and female-only facilities provide safety from the sex which is larger, stronger and commits the overwhelming majority of violent and sexual crime. Most men would not harm women, but we still don't let them all into our changing rooms and dormitories.

Dd does like and trust this child, but they don't actually know one another very well. The children are under immense social pressure to be inclusive. If she wasn't comfortable I don't think she'd feel able to say so. I think the school are being fantastically naive pretending that the children are making a completely free choice here.

Dd is now having to tell her friend that we're not happy, which is horrible for both her and A. You're right that this is upsetting, but I don't think we should have been put in the position of having to make this call.

@Itsalmostanaccessory

If the school ever tried to make the move into forcing this on girls in the future then that's a problem. But I'm not seeing this as a trans issue. Just friends sharing.

On our Paris trip, most of us piled into one room two rooms to chat/watch movies/mess around and we fells asleep wherever we were. So the whole thing was mixed sex. Teachers didn't know but that's what happens.

Taking a school trip to France in the early noughties there was a small outing in the evening to the local beach, the kids were told they were not obliged to go, so some didn't. For some reason they presumed that all staff were going and so they would not be supervised. As the one remaining staff member I had the dubious pleasure of throwing the boys out of the girls bedroom and asking them to socialise in the communal area where they could be supervised by old cock blocker me. I was a narrow minded old witch apparently (and worse) but oddly this hasn't ever bothered me.

Teachers didn't know but that's what happens.

Sadly true no matter how vigilant you are, you have to sleep some time - which is why I gradually withdrew from overnight school trips.

I’d be asking them if ofsted were on board with their new lack of safeguarding.

Surely the question to ask the school is whether they would agree to a girl sharing with her non-trans male best mate if they were both happy with that?

And if not, why not?

The school need a rocket up their backside, because they have not bothered to think this through and by fudging the issue have created a gap in their safeguarding you could drive a bus through.