Email from teacher: Child has come out as non binary

[GoingtoGlasgow]

As per title.

Received email from form tutor (Yr 7 if it matters) saying DC has spoke to them in confidence saying they are non binary. They would like permission from me to tell the subject teachers to use the pronouns they/them.

How do I respond to this?

Before the email (1 day before) got A message with a gif from DC saying 'I'm non binary'. Followed by a text 'do you accept me?'

I replied of course. Bloody love DC why would I not

Just feel they have entered puberty and don't identify with their biological sex.

Have discussed with them that I feel non binary from a gender point of view... don't do anything stereotypically girl like long hair, dresses, make up, prosecco. But don't want to change my pronouns because I definitely feel like the sex I was born with: difficult pregnancies, heavy periods and being seen as 'a woman with kids' when going for promotion.

They think humans can change sex. 'They have surgery'. I said in 1000 years when they find the person's bones that had a fake penis implanted on them and their breasts removed, will they identify that person as make or female. They said they woman. But still humans can change sex according to them.

www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/ food for thought from an psychologist

@ThiagoSilvasToe

I don't think the form tutor should have emailed you at all. It's nothing to do with you and is entirely your child's decision. They should be asking your child, not you, if it's ok to inform teachers.

Yeah, it is clear that you either have a political agenda that you are pushing, or you have no tween or teenaged children dealing with this at the moment, or you have a warped sense that children should be treated like adults when they are, in fact, children.

@PermanentTemporary

I would thank the school for asking you and say you're taking a short period to think about it and request no official announcement from them in that time.

This and counselling.

All of which is not to say to your child that you don’t accept them, but they are an adolescent, a time for exploring and you don’t want them to get stuck in one place.

V much been there - do DM me

@maudesvagina

https://www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/ food for thought from an psychologist

This is an excellent compassionate read maudesvagina. And very chilling in terms of what naive parents are unintentionally doing to their children when they sign up to early social transitioning.

Agreed that school have not handled this at all well. I’d be another voice for saying delay and counselling. There’s a lot of identity talk and negotiation in Y7 and kids are under such pressure. Making a space for you and your child to talk through as you have done is so much more important than getting a child to sort out bloody pronouns. I’m startled (maybe shouldn’t be) that the school led with this and I’d be questioning, given the casual text you received, how well your DC understands what social transitioning means.
Sympathies to you. It doesn’t get easier does it!

How do I respond to this?

I'd respond with absolutely fucking not.

Social transition is a psychiatric treatment which should only occur under appropriate medical supervision. The GIDS guidance on this is here:
gids.nhs.uk/parents/advice/social-transition-younger-children

Amateurs randomly pissing around with kids identity is a terrible idea. Personally I would be speaking to the head about what the schools policy is.

@maudesvagina

https://www.transgendertrend.com/childhood-social-transition/ food for thought from an psychologist

That is a great article, thanks for sharing it.

OP

You have been given some excellent advice already. You are certainly not alone and I also agree that you should ask around about how many of your child’s friends are also making this declaration.

In my child’s instance, although they were 14 at the time, it was 5 out of the 7 of them. At least a couple were ‘transboys’. While I am not making assumptions about your child’s mental health, each of those 5 had very poor mental health. My own child’s mental health was also very poor. However, my teen recognised that the aggressive focus on LGBT issues and mental health was actually feeding their own poor mental health.

They recognised this in their own time and on their own terms without me saying much about it directly to them. They distanced themselves from that group and have noticed their mental health has been so much better. Even though at the moment they have very few friends.

What is very distressing though, is hearing this group discuss their previous selves (ie. Themselves just last year) as ‘soooo transphobic’ or ‘homophobic’ like they are self-flagellating themselves (and adding to their poor mental health). And telling each other that lesbians had to ‘do duck’ if it was trans or nb dick.

Now, there will be posters that come along on this thread who deny that young lesbians are saying this. But having witnessed it in action, it is happening. And it is causing a great deal of distress to those who don’t wish to entertain the issue.

Good luck OP. I hope you find your way through as a family.

@ThiagoSilvasToe

I don't think the form tutor should have emailed you at all. It's nothing to do with you and is entirely your child's decision. They should be asking your child, not you, if it's ok to inform teachers.

That is awful advice which directly goes against both the law and NHS guidance.

A teacher pulling the stunt you recommend could easily face misconduct proceedings.

An attempt to manipulate pronouns is an attempt to control how other people see you. Identifying as 'non binary' is an attempt to duck out of sexist stereotypes altogether, to signal that one wants no part in having certain prejudices ascribed to oneself due to sex.

It's an understandable impulse, given how damaging sexist stereotypes can be, but it doesn't actually work.

Whatever your pronouns, you will be seen on the basis of your sex in every way which matters. We're evolved to recognise sex; pretty fundamental to a species with our method of reproduction. You can't identify out of periods, or pregnancy risk, or any of the other bodily issues specific to females.

I would maybe try to do some active listening to try and ascertain why your child feels they wish to opt out of their sex.

Agreed that school have not handled this at all well.

The school has handled it well in that they have listened to the student but also reached out to discuss with parents. I have two friends where they found out the school changed enrollment without them, the parents, knowledge. That has caused a great deal of extra stress for those families.

@ThiagoSilvasToe

I don't think the form tutor should have emailed you at all. It's nothing to do with you and is entirely your child's decision. They should be asking your child, not you, if it's ok to inform teachers.

This is the latest fad sweeping across teenagers and left unchecked can have serious consequences. Of course the parents need to know. It's basic safeguarding. Would you want your 11/12 year old to be enabled by the school to be caught up by an ideology that has the potential to cause them serious harm.

And don't you dare say that this is them finding their authentic self. This is a craze that's totally out of hand right now.

@Helleofabore

Agreed that school have not handled this at all well.

The school has handled it well in that they have listened to the student but also reached out to discuss with parents. I have two friends where they found out the school changed enrollment without them, the parents, knowledge. That has caused a great deal of extra stress for those families.

I stand corrected helleofabore. You are absolutely right, that’s awful!

I have two friends where they found out the school changed enrollment without them, the parents, knowledge.

I've heard of this a number of times but I don't understand how those schools don't face serious consequences.

There is arguably some legal basis for this with students who are close to 16 YO but anything younger clearly breaks data legislation on young people- which schools take seriously.

I’m not sure there’s anything you can do bar listen, watch and wait. I think the last thing I’d do is dig my heel in and go against their wishes. Simply because I think it would entrench their mindset. So I’d try my hardest to make sure they couldn’t get their hands on any hormones or binders, let their puberty progress (hopefully without any medical interventions) and see where we were at the end of it.

I would also nod along with the school because I’ve heard some horror stories of social services getting involved if you don’t.

I hope all this BS is out of fashion by the time my kids are teenagers.

*I have two friends where they found out the school changed enrollment without them, the parents, knowledge.

I've heard of this a number of times but I don't understand how those schools don't face serious consequences.*

What name do schools use when they contact the parents or write reports or at parents evening? It's really not something they can successfully keep secret from parents for long so it's really idiotic to go down that route.

@rhowton I'm glad mine never fell into it or just seem to miss due to their age
But they did say lots were pushing it at school
I think we need to make it clear you cannot change your biological sex
A biological man cannot have a baby
It seems we compare feelings of people being trans but not that of women
If someone wants to be known as a man thats fine , but you cannot say a man can give birth
All the non binary I just don't get either , it seems to be a worrying trend at the moment

You do realise that treating children as fully fledged, mature adults who need no guidance whatsoever is partly how we are where we are? Would you have this stance on literally any other topic than gender identity? Dealing with lots of money? Having sex? Health issues? Exposure to violence/porn/extreme political ideology? Personal boundaries and consent? Anything? Or is it just this where it’s entirely up to the child and nothing whatsoever to do with their parents (at the age of 11/12)?

I know right? Why is there even a need for parents anymore? Just to provide a place to live and fund them?

Sorry wolves I didn’t mean to sound like I was admonishing you. That was not my intention at all.

And OP. Watch out for binders is your child is female. They get them delivered to friends places on their behalf.

And you will always, always get adults who think it is just like wearing a ‘sports bra’ so nothing to worry about.

But, of course there are many concerns about wearing binders and they are usually legitimate. If a girl cannot do sports in their binder, as sports teachers have told us on Mn, then they are of course, nothing like a sports bar. And it is ridiculous to assert they are in that case.

@DomesticatedZombie

An attempt to manipulate pronouns is an attempt to control how other people see you. Identifying as 'non binary' is an attempt to duck out of sexist stereotypes altogether, to signal that one wants no part in having certain prejudices ascribed to oneself due to sex.

It's an understandable impulse, given how damaging sexist stereotypes can be, but it doesn't actually work.

Whatever your pronouns, you will be seen on the basis of your sex in every way which matters. We're evolved to recognise sex; pretty fundamental to a species with our method of reproduction. You can't identify out of periods, or pregnancy risk, or any of the other bodily issues specific to females.

I would maybe try to do some active listening to try and ascertain why your child feels they wish to opt out of their sex.

And every person who declares themselves 'non binary' in an attempt to escape sexist stereotyping is simply reinforcing and more deeply entrenching that sexist stereotyping, in effect collaborating with it. It's implying those of us who are proud to be women and don't want to duck out of or hide from the name of our own sex are 'asking for it' from men.

I would also nod along with the school because I’ve heard some horror stories of social services getting involved if you don’t

I’m going to respectfully disagree here and say that having been through this exact scenario, if I were able to back in time, I would still not nod along with the school using anything other than sex based pronouns. Social transition (which is what a change of pronouns is part of) is a psycho social intervention and schools are not qualified to make the decision whether or not to support it.

Our experience with social services (after our daughter’s school said we had put our daughter at the threshold for child protection) was that our social worker understood the safeguarding issues around what the school was doing and fully supported us. This was over a year ago, and there is more information out there now that parents can point to about the risks of social transition and the importance of working with parents. The fact that your school has actually contacted you to ask for your view is positive- as pointed out by other posters, often schools will adopt a change of pronouns and/or name without informing parents which creates a whole new set of problems.

I would go back to the school and ask for time so that you can properly discuss the issue with your child and get independent advice. Then do your research- the links mentioned earlier and ask here for anything else as this forum is a great source of info.

Laura Edwards-Leeper tweeted a few months ago re the interaction between schools and parents. She’s the Chair of the Child and Adolescent Committee for WPATH and so a hard one for schools who ever towards gender ideology to ignore.

twitter.com/drlaurael/status/1463351438298337283?s=21

Also this just out by Genspect might be useful

genspect.org/guidance-on-social-transition/

@donquixotedelamancha

How do I respond to this?

I'd respond with absolutely fucking not.

Social transition is a psychiatric treatment which should only occur under appropriate medical supervision. The GIDS guidance on this is here:
gids.nhs.uk/parents/advice/social-transition-younger-children

Amateurs randomly pissing around with kids identity is a terrible idea. Personally I would be speaking to the head about what the schools policy is.

I’d have the same response.