My son is 14 . At primary school there were only 2 kids in his year group and the other kid was a menace (trying to be polite about it!). He is a bright kid, but violent and manipulative. School responded by trying all sort of special treatment, social workers took him on outings every week etc. His behaviour got worse as he learnt to manipulate his teachers and other adults. Eventually, we had to demand that our son was protected from him- at age 11 he was coming home covered in bite marks and bruises. Nothing was put in place for our son, but the other boy was given extra activities to distract him. Not helpful.
Once they went to secondary, it seemed to settle down. They were apart for most of their first year in secondary, which really helped. Then this year, the boy has changed his name to a mythical creature, wears false breasts under his jumper and insists that on the days of his choosing, he is now a girl. Son is a kind boy, and never intentionally mean, so he was just polite but stayed distant. The boy hasn't really made any friends and wants my son to spend lots of time with him. Son is polite but insists that he can't be forced to spend time with anyone. The boy tells the guidance teacher that my son is transphobic and is bullying him. He of course denies this, because it isn't true, but he also refused to say that he thinks Unicorn is really a girl now/sometimes.
Over the last few weeks, it has escalated. He tells teachers that my son hides his bag, calls him names and is generally nasty to him. There are always witnesses who say that he is making these accusations up, but the school is not listening to my son and always take the other boy's account as the true one. Today while he was waiting for another class, the guidance teacher pulled my son into a side room and asked a lot of very pointed questions about whether he had a problem with trans people, and why he was behaving so badly towards this other boy. Every time he tries to defend himself, it seems that he is dismissed and labelled as phobic.
My son has (mild-ish) SEN and we have fought so hard to get him extra help and support and we felt that he was doing much better than he had at primary school, and I'm so worried that this will escalate even further and end badly for him. We are in Scotland, which doesn't help. I'm trying to find a way round this without any reference to the boy being trans, because it's not really about that, but I can't seem to make it not about that. I do believe that my son hasn't been bullying the other boy (because it isn't in his nature and because he has a compulsion to confess every single thing he does wrong to me!), but I'm as sure as I can be that the other boy is using the trans issue as a stick to beat him with.
So far, my son has asked me not to speak to the guidance teacher(said he wants to save the nuclear option!), but I don't see me having a choice if this goes on. The trouble is, I don't know how to tackle this effectively without being dismissed as a transphobic Harpy and making it all worse.
Has anyone else dealt with this kind of situation? I genuinely don't know how to deal with this and it really seems like this kid is untouchable. (I asked if it was okay to post here and son is fine with it, also Unicorn isn't really the kid's new name).