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?

Thank you OP

I really hope you get a positive resolution to this.

[quote foodfiend]@Whatwouldscullydo What training/recording is this?[/quote]
It was the recording of a Mermaids training. Michael Conroy was a difficult audience member and recorded the whole thing.

It was regarding the infamous GI Joe - Barbie spectrum. "You need to really, really just take a step down academically, yeah?"

Thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3454658-recording-of-mermaids-training

And transcript part 1 and part 2.

Bravo @foodfiend - someone does indeed have to stand up and point out that safeguarding has gone out the window under the Stonewall "guidance."

14yo girls making their own decisions about whether or not they should share a room with a male-bodied 14yo, who has the potential to impregnate them if they do give in to their hormones - nah.

I had school friends who were sexually active from the age of 13. It might not have been legal, but it still happened (usually with boys of the same age). The whole "Gillick competence" thing came about because of Victoria Gillick, who didn't want it to be legal for GPs to be able to prescribe contraception to u16 girls. She failed and girls are able to access contraception under the age of 16 without parental guidance - which all just goes to show that there are girls, and boys, still having sex before the legal age of consent.

So safeguarding has to stand up and say "not on our watch" - and keep male bodied and female bodied children apart overnight, to avoid accidental pregnancy, or assault.

When safeguarding turns a blind eye to male bodied people because they "feel like females", then safeguarding is failing in its basic purpose. And there is NOTHING to say that trans boys do not have sexual feelings for girls still - hence the many problems on lesbian dating sites now, where many TW call themselves lesbians.

Functional biologically male genitalia can still impregnate functional biologically female reproductive organs, regardless of how the possessors of each define themselves.

So keep them apart in sleeping arrangements, private arenas such as showers, toilets and changing rooms, until they are legally adults and able to choose for themselves.

@NecessaryScene
Thank you for the transcripts link. OMG I would be considered by many to be a trans (& LGB) alli but I am also GC. I could not have sat through that presentation and kept quiet.

I understand the difficulty for the school but I think the issue here is they will be changing in the same room and therefore is should only be those who are physically the same gender together whilst I understand they identify as female whilst they physically male I don't think it's reasonable for them to be sharing a room.

Actually I think it’s very simple for the school. Accommodation for School trips for ? 70 years have been separated by sex. Same with showers , bathrooms and changing rooms. This is for the safety, privacy and dignity of all children.

Children who cant share a room for some special circumstance ( perhaps they have a medical condition or disability ) can sometimes be given a single room if available.

It’s blindingly simple.

I really feel for you OP and I would be taking exactly the stance you are.

I can't understand why the council/school are prepared to throw safeguarding out of the window and take such a risk. I assume they think that because the girls say 'ok' that's tantamount to them consenting. This is a terrible message to send to teenage girls, many of whom are not sure of themselves and don't want to be the odd one out. They will be forced to go along with this and won't know how to handle a situation where they don't feel comfortable.

The adults in the room should be protecting these young people, not asking them to make decisions that they are not capable of making (because they don't have the knowledge/understanding to do so). They should be telling the trans student that they either share with their natal sex or have their own sleeping arrangements.

I wonder how they would react if a trans boy (natal girl) asked to share a room with 3 male students.........

Thinking back to when I was 14/15. I was very compliant and wanted to be liked. I would have said I was ok with sharing a room with a trans girl even though deep down I would have been very uncomfortable with it. It’s too much asking teenagers to make policy for us adults.

Yep, i lost my virginity because i was too polite to say no.

@confuseddotcom1234

I understand the difficulty for the school but I think the issue here is they will be changing in the same room and therefore is should only be those who are physically the same gender together whilst I understand they identify as female whilst they physically male I don't think it's reasonable for them to be sharing a room.

"physically the same gender" is now a nonsense phrase. Gender is not physical. SEX is physical.

We must all learn to use the correct terminology - if this had been done from the start, instead of twee-ly covering up the word sex so as not to make the fainthearted blush, then there wouldn't be so much confusion! And certain groups wouldn't have been able to browbeat so many companies into believing that the Equalities Act said things it doesn't.

Gender now should ONLY mean "societal construct of how people identify".
Sex = male or female.

Exactly as above. We all started using the word gender years ago as it sounded polite and nice unlike the word sex which describes an act. But it has backfired. We must now go back to using the correct terminology. Sex is biological. Gender is a belief.

Teenage girls can be staggeringly naive about the lives and motivations of teenage boys, in my experience.

Of course your daughter wants to be kind and pretend this is a girl like any other. But someone needs to be the grownup here, and the risk in mixed-sex sleeping arrangements is NOT the same as in single-sex sleeping arrangements.

@foodfiend. I have been thinking of you. How are you going?

@TheSandgroper Thank you, that means a lot to me. I can't update for various reasons I'm sure you'll understand, but we're working on it.

Anyone else following this and wondering what they could do:

• contact your dcs school and find out what their policy is in this area
• particularly find out whether the local authority is also using a toolkit based on the same template as the ones already withdrawn in Oxfordshire, Merthyr, Wrexham and other areas
• If you're in Wales, sign up to, and invite your school staff to this webinar on 19 March - a really interesting line up of speakers including Milli Hill, Stella O'Malley of Genspect, Stephane Davies-Arai and others . (Obviously open to people outside Wales, but it's particularly about the proposed new Welsh RSE curriculum.) www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/webinar-sex-education-in-wales-tickets-253628608997