Primary School application asking for 4 year old's pronouns

[ChuffKnows]

Filling in my child's pack ready for when they start school in September and everything is gender not sex and it asks for pronouns! I can let the gender part go at a push but pronouns are a no no.

Any tips on how to handle it without marking myself out as 'problematic'.

Didn't think I'd have to deal with this crap at primary level 😣

We had this and I crossed out gender and put sex. They even asked for emergency contacts gender and again I crossed it out and put sex. I didn't mind being that person in the end.

Crazy. My Son would have said he was fireman sam at age 4.

I could have had fun on that form with my DD who, age 4, "lived as a dog" for a large proportion of her time.

I could have put "speaks Doggish" under Second Languages Spoken (one woof for a yes, two woofs for a no, and lots of panting and yapping and whining).

And I could have put "Needs to drink water from a bowl" under Special Dietary Requirements.

Ironically, even in her dog identity, she was still female.

This pronoun stuff is so unhelpful.

Gender is the name for the Sex field in SIMS. Quite possibly due to historical responses of 'Sex? Yes please, hurr-hurr' from men. It's annoying but in itself, we can't do anything about it apart from rant on the Internet for decades about them being two different things

Pronouns, however, aren't there at all.

Request meeting with head before end of term - I would go ultra woke - clearly x is biologically a [...] but I think it's really important to understand that such small children are still finding their place in the world and shouldn't be pigeon-holed into one box of other so early in life, I would expect primary school to be a safe place for all children to get to know about themselves and their place in the world without any undue pressure to declare their pronouns or claim or affirm a gender identity. I would prefer that children weren't referred to as girls and boys and separated unnecessarily into girls and boys groups and the like except for toilets and changing. I think we can all agree that in the 21st century there's no need for regressive stereotypes can't we?

So with respect to pronouns I think if a teacher is talking in front of a child they should use their name, if they're talking or writing about a child they should use a sex based pronoun at least up to the point where the child requests otherwise and children should never ever be asked to confirm their pronouns as it creates an undue pressure on them to affirm or deny elements of their personality they may not be ready to share.

Yes. Unless sensible people push back, politely but firmly, this unthinking nonsense will continue. You will have to risk 'being that person' and we will all have your back. Please know that if you are brave and question this, you will embolden other parents who were deeply uncomfortable with it but not quite as brave as you. I would put money on it being down to only one or two staff members, anyway. And it may well not mark your card for the whole time your son spends at that school - staff move on quite quickly these days.

I did that (cross out gender) at my osteopathic clinic. The forms were ancient and just printed off. The receptionist looked, said ‘oh yes…’. Next time I was in they’d changed them.

I just cross out gender on any form from.schools and put sex.

Just did it on a national insurance form too

I do the same. And if there's space, NO GENDER, BIO SEX IS...

I'd be tempted to say you asked your child and he informed you he had just had a poo.

I would prefer that children weren't referred to as girls and boys

But that's exactly what they are. It's time this kind of woke nonsense stopped.

I usually cross out gender and write ‘sex’ and answer that instead. But if you don’t want to rock the boat too much at this stage, you could just write ?? in the box to suggest you don’t understand the question and see if they contact you to follow up?

Oh I'm 100% GC what I mean is that the boys line, girls line, good morning boys and girls stuff adults do can be quite unconsciously a bit sexist bullshit if you know what I mean. Most schools are still (perhaps surprisingly) very sexist places and they could do to work on that a bit.

@Aquilegia23 the point isn't to not refer to a girl as a girl, or a boy as a boy. It's about unnecessarily dividing the children up into girls and boys when it isn't necessary. For example, on the BBC programme "No more boys and girls: can our kids go gender free?" it was found that the teacher habitually divided the class into boys and girls groups when it wasn't necessary, for example having a row of boys pegs and a row of girls pegs. It could have just been alphabetical. Constantly grouping children into a girls group and a boys group emphasises difference rather than reinforcing similarities.

On any type of form that states gender and not sex, I just cross it out, write sex, and then write "my gender is irrelevant".

"I and We"

I don't think it's a case of 'emphasizing the difference' between boys and girls. Most schools I've worked in (and I've worked in a lot of UK schools), don't have a boys line or a girls line, or boys' pegs and girls' pegs. I always simply said, 'line up.'

In my view, all this, 'we need to work on being less sexist,' is far more emphasizing that just leaving a non issue alone.

I don't think children of 4 years old would even notice anyway whether they were asked to form a boys' line, a girls' line, or just line up.
It's adults making waves where none need exist.

Except for the research that shows that delineating children by their sex when it isn't necessary is harmful. Great that you don't do this as a primary school teacher, but many still do.

Where is the research that says this? I can't imagine any great harm coming to children by being asked to form a boys' line and a girls' line.

In my view, all this, 'we need to work on being less sexist,' is far more emphasizing that just leaving a non issue alone.

I don't think children of 4 years old would even notice anyway whether they were asked to form a boys' line, a girls' line, or just line up.

It's adults making waves where none need exist.

There was quite a lot of this sort of thing in my kids’ reception classrooms - girls had pink name stickers, boys had blue. Lining up in boys and girls lines then, when they wanted them to be particularly quiet “zipped” back together so they were boy girl boy girl. Lots of “the boys might like [some stereotypical boy interest like cars]” and “we’ve got [stereotypical girl interest like flowers] for the girls.”. They were very accepting if someone expressed a non stereotypical interest and the curriculum introduced them all to all sorts of things, but they definitely reinforced stereotypes and single sex friendship groups as norms. And my kids, who hadn’t really come across this much at home or nursery, noticed it straight away and found it confusing.

www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/Handlers/Download.ashx?IDMF=e8096848-cbdb-4e16-8713-ee0dadb3dcc5

eg pg 12 about educational practitioners

and the aforementioned study that the BBC tv documentary was based on. A discussion of which is included here: www.bcu.ac.uk/education-and-social-work/research/cspace-blog/gender-stereotypes-in-childhood-whats-the-harm

Of course one incident of unnecessary segregation by sex won't cause great harm, if that's the only example of unnecessary segregation by sex in children's whole primary school experience. The problem is that it is not.

Thank you for the link. I have read the report, and still think it's all about adults creating an issue where none is needed.

Boys and girls are different and I don't see any value in trying to treat them all the same. Where is the harm in boys playing with boys' toys and vice versa?

I remember a tv programme with an experiment on young chimps of both sexes. They were offered traditional boys' toys such as cars and trucks, and dolls. The male chimps played with the cars and trucks, and the females with the dolls.

It's called nature and there's no value at all in trying to twist it round to suit today's particular perceived woke correctness.

Aquilegia
Some boys do like to play with dolls etc, and vice versa girls play with cars and trains. Little children of both sexes often swop around with toys if given a free choice. Both love role play too.

I take your point about nature, and I agree it is there in the background, but there should always be free choice and no sense of this is for girls and that is for boys imo.

Because there are no such things as "boys" toys... and girls and boys are much more similar than they are different. Very small initial differences get amplified and reinforced by the culture that children find themselves in. Gendered environments where they don't need to be is harmful to girls and boys. It's fuck all to do with "woke correctness" whatever is meant by that. It's about causing lifelong issues for children that don't need to be there. Look at the BBC study.

"Girls underestimated their intelligence and had lower self-esteem, whereas boys had a tendency to over-estimate their achievements and ability. Girls scored more highly on vocabulary to describe their emotions, whereas boys’ results depicted themselves as angry, with low-levels of empathy."

"Through the documentary, teaching the children to challenge ingrained assumptions about gender improved the girls’ self-esteem, and the boys were able to express a wider range of emotions, which was thought to explain the 57% decrease in their disruptive behaviours."

So small changes meant an increase in girls self esteem, boys were better with their emotions and had a 57% decrease in disruptive behaviours. Why would you not want to have those outcomes for all children??

So small changes meant an increase in girls self esteem, boys were better with their emotions and had a 57% decrease in disruptive behaviours. Why would you not want to have those outcomes for all children??

Absolutely true.
I do think though when you see teenage girls and teenage boys together, speaking generally and of course there are exceptions. boys have a bluster, bravado and loud assertiveness that girls don’t. They often show off. They hate to lose face in front of other boys. They hold their ground. Wouldn’t that be partly due to all their testosterone, not just upbringing?

People have been trying to be less sexist with children for a while now. It’s certainly not like the 1950s anymore.