Was anyone else teaching or working with children in the decade 2000-2010?

[BadSkiingMum]

I am resolutely gender critical and one of the things that makes it so tricky for me to believe the 'born in the wrong body' idea is that I was a primary teacher for about ten years (from 2000 onwards) and the question of gender identity never arose. Ever.

To give a little context, I was a full time class-teacher for many of those years (across four schools), spending the whole year with 30+ children (so knowing them extremely well) and then taking on management positions where I was involved in reviewing the attainment, progress and wellbeing of dozens of other children. Yet a desire for a child to identify as a different gender to that of his or her biological sex was just not apparent; many children were facing problems such as poverty, broken families, refugee status, learning disabilities, involvement with the social care system, being a young carer... I worked in schools where a significant proportion of children could be described as disadvantaged; in other schools I also taught the children of surgeons, diplomats and bankers. Huge amounts of time were spent in school on initiatives to support children's wellbeing. There were undoubtedly children who had mental health needs and, at the time, budgets were good so services such as school counselling or play therapy were available for some children where there were particular concerns. As a teacher I worked alongside those other professionals and read their reports, yet the issue of gender identity was never, ever mentioned. Other children were receiving support from CAMHS (even a very well-known clinic in London) and the lack of feedback on this topic was the same. Nor was it ever raised in training sessions, professional development meetings or online teaching forums, where I spent a lot of time.

This lacuna is very puzzling to me, as that same generation of children is now in their mid-twenties and a narrative of having 'felt wrong' from an early age seems to be prevalent. If this was so much the case, why did it never arise? Not once, in the many hundreds of children with whom I had contact? Never from colleagues in other schools? I am confident that it would have been discussed, albeit anonymised. Schools were certainly making time and resources available to explore and support wellbeing, so surely it would have emerged? Or are personal histories simply being re-told to suit current identities?

However, for the sake of fairness, it is important to note that, at the time, mental health was generally viewed by schools in terms of how it was impacting upon a child's progress, attainment and behaviour, rather than being an outcome in itself. I think that shift in perspective has been beneficial - I think that children and young people certainly do get more support than hitherto which can only be a good thing - but I also wonder if a certain 'pathologising' of emotions has taken place...

So, arriving at my original point, were you teaching around the same time and were your observations and experiences similar to mine? If not, when did you first notice gender identity politics becoming apparent in schools?

Yes I was supporting teens with autism.

I was also very young, liberal, into social justice, approachable, precisely the person the kids would come to first with personal issues.

I was pretty clued up about transsexualism having studied with a couple at university.

And I agree with your whole post.

As an aside, it's pretty sad thinking back to when school funds were healthy, pre crash.

I've been a teacher since 2003, two different local authorities, 4 different schools. Encountered a child for whom this was an issue for the first time in 2019.

Before I was a school teacher I was a sports coach and over ten years encountered thousands of children. Gender identity never came up as an issue at all.

Yes, i was, though not to your extent op, including children with autism. Never came up.

Yes! 2001-2011 I taught year 5 or 6 in 4 different primary schools in London. Flat shared with other primary teachers from different schools for most of that time. Never came up.

Can I ask a question back OP?

Do you think general kid culture has become more "gendered"? ie majority of toys and clothing falling into overtly pink /sparkly /princess or blue /camo /dinosaur camps?

It is really really bad right now (source: flustered last minute shoe & rucksack purchasing for children with colourful tastes). Perhaps not in fancy shops. But in high streets and supermarkets, where the vast majority of kids get their stuff from.

Yes, teaching since the 90s. No never came up until the last 6 years for me.

I taught secondary 2005-2012, across the SEND spectrum, 11-18, three different schools. Never came across it.

Speaking to acquaintances that work in schools now, the ‘born in the wrong body’ thing is not uncommon.

I only taught for a very short time, 2009ish. Secondary. Never had a thing come up about it. Taught reproduction in Biology as well and.... nothing. Goodness know how stressful that must be for teachers now. I'm so glad I couldn't hack it and left, frankly.

Was in my 20s then working in play, youth & community work - first off in deprived communities and latterly with children in care/care leavers and even amongst that highly traumatised group it wasn't something we saw. Like a PP I was relatively young, cool, the one that children always disclosed to. I'm a senior manager now in children social care and whilst we don't have lots in our authority it feels significantly higher than it was a decade ago. My heart broke the other day when I heard about one of our trans teen talking about being a boy because girls are victims and they didn't want to be a victim (they've witnessed and experienced dreadful male violence). More sadly we seem unable in our profession to have constructive conversations about it because of the fear of repercussions. But to your point yep it was very rarely a thing then. My friend was working in sexual health services then and worked with a few young people with gender dysphoria but more often in reality young gay men struggling with their sexuality, even then it was rare.

Yes, I was teaching high school then (from the late 90s), and it didn't exist. What did exist was 'emo' and eating disorders. I see this trans trend as a combination of body dysmorphia and low self esteem, but being blamed on gender.

I have no idea why those in school back then are claiming they felt 'trans' - are they maybe using modern parlance to describe the age old fact that puberty sucks and no one enjoys the changes in their body in their teens? I do feel that a lot of the time we are talking at cross purposes with da yoof.

It's annoying because in my subject sex and gender stereotypes came up a lot and I was fairly assiduous in showing how corrosive they are for both boys and girls. Clearly didn't do any good.

Yes worked in paediatric medical settings in London between 2000-2010 multiple settings.
Very different climate to now. Didn't come across the trans issue in teens only intersex cases which is very different and very much a medical issue. Although MH issues existed they were nowhere near the current scale.
Today paediatrics is a very different specialty due to these changes.
Social media was less of a thing also!

Answering this, as I have never taught in a school (but reading the replies so far with interest) - yes, things have got very gendered. My children were born in the very early 90s. We got a navy pushchair which saw good service for both of them (one girl, one boy). As far as I can recall, nobody had a pink pushchair, and nobody bought a new pushchair for a second child so that they would have the 'right' colour. There were certainly separate aisles in shops for girls' and boys' clothes, toys etc but there were plenty of basic clothes in plain white, lemon, green etc which everybody used for babies of both sexes. Lego wasn't sold in pink. No pink globes. Publishing hadn't started pushing out lurid pink sparkly books either.

Also, it was (I think) only around 2000 that it suddenly became very unusual to see a little girl or a teenage girl with short hair. Linked to the advent of hair straighteners? I started noticing that most women and girls under 30 had long, dead straight hair, either loose, in a ponytail or in a bun.

NC for this- have to be so careful professionally now.
I’ve been in education since 1994. It’s only been an issue in the past few years. In every single case, including all current children using different names and pronouns, there are significant issues in the background ie. childhood trauma, MH issues and nearly all I can think of have or I suspect have, ASC. It is also massively disproportionate between girls and boys- I suspect that despite the LGBTQ+ positivity encouraged at school, there are dozens of gay young men becoming more and more guarded and worried about coming out.
The irony is, this dyed in the wool feminist who took part in first Pride events and marched against homophobia and Section 28, has to tread very carefully and watch my ‘transphobic’ views. Meanwhile, very well meaning but in my mind, terrifyingly naive, young teachers put up unicorn displays with ‘all the genders’ explained. The people we refer troubled students to fully support trans ideology, they reinforce the use of pronouns and in some cases identify as other genders themselves. I believe that their blind acceptance means they miss other very concerning factors in the children’s lives.

I remember how I studied gender and women writers at uni to try and fight the bias; young women seem to think we have equality but it is being sold down the river. We should be examining why being female is so terrifying to young girls right now- it’s something I highlight daily. Sexism at school is like it was in the 80s, sexual harassment is commonplace and gender stereotypes are being reinforced, all as part of this trans ideology.

I was. I began work as a secondary English teacher in 2000-2001, and never encountered the issue at all, despite teaching literally over 1000 young people in that decade.

The first time I ever taught a young person for whom this was an issue was 3 years ago. The handful of trans or NB pupils I’ve taught since then have all had some sort of issues at home/outside school, poor mental health and/or had ASD.

Yes and no.

I was born in the 80s. It was a lot easier to buy neutral baby clothes because 1) no one knew in advance what they were having and 2) they were expensive so you reused them.

BUT play and life after babyhood was very gendered. Girls played with Wendy houses and dolls. We had sylvanians and playmobile. Boys had dinosaurs and Lego and trucks and cars. I even said to my son the other day that when I was little no one would have got Lego for a girl.

At secondary school, boys did their work experience at the local RAF base. Girls did theirs in shops or at local schools.

Boys did football and rugby. Girls did rounders and hockey.

The list goes on.

I worked with a well known toy manufacturer during the 90’s and the first part of your period. Part of my job was product development and researching products with mothers and children, mainly but not entirely with girls.

The tomboy girl was frequently encountered, in fact we saw a shift away from little housewives and mummies to executives and explorers. Girls wanted to climb Everest, although quite often they thought it would be fine to do this in a ball gown. Some of the girls wanted to play with action man, ( or at least, the gun) some of the boys liked dressing up the dolls as Cinderella.

No one , not researcher, not manufacturer , not parent ever suggested that their child was born in the wrong body. They just thought those children liked more adventurous or more artistic toys.

it was the same story at the international toy fair which we went to every year.

In 2009/10 Tavistock GIDS clinic saw 97 children. I can't find the breakdown by sex which used to be on their website, but from memory that was about 2/3 boys, and that was totally consistent with the experience of psychiatrists/psychologists in this extremely specialist area all over the world.

In 2017/18 they saw 2,519 children and I believe the sex ration had flipped, so about 2/3 were girls.

As for why, if I were a researcher or policymaker in this area, I'd be looking very closely indeed at the influence of social media and the effect on young minds of exposure to extreme porn available online and normalised. Both of those are huge changes from earlier generations.

I was a secondary teacher then and am still now.

In that decade (right at the end of it) we had one female child who wanted to be known by a male name. I knew this child well. Once she was 18 she started the process of physically becoming 'male' and now lives as a man.

At this point we have between 50-100 and I think amongst them probably over 80% are either autistic girls or come from very difficult home environments or both.

When I was at school (girls' school) there was an epidemic of eating disorders. Now this seems to have replaced it.

Interesting point about Lego. We had it when I was growing up in the 1960s. I can't remember who it was bought for - my brother, or both of us. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a gift to me. However, once it was in the house we both played with it. In fact I think I played it with more than he did. I suppose if we'd been two girls we'd have been less likely to be given Lego, but I don't remember it being pushed a boys' toy.

I was involved with Guiding for a long time. We get to know the girls in our unite really well, and often have a closer or more equal relationship with them than a teacher might. It's certainly less formal.
The issue of "trans-mess" never came up. We had no men wanting to don a skirt to volunteer either.

Culture generally seems to have become more gendered, with an increased expectation that “sexwork” is a serious career option for women. It even seems to be seen as progressively feminist for women to use sexuality rather than skills to make a living.

Which is odd as being forced into living off sex is exactly what feminism was fighting against years ago.

My anecdote follows.
I taught in a girls' secondary during this decade. .
I did not know of any students questioning their gender whilst I was there.

Up until 2014 I worked with adults with Eating Difficulties (many 18-25) and, quite surprisingly (now) did not have any discussions about gender. 2014 onwards I worked in CAMHS and from the outset I was hearing about gender identity issues from a handful of individuals. Now about a third of both dc's friend group have questioned their gender identity or identified as trans or non binary. I also in hindsight find it surprising that I don't recall any of the adults attending our eating disorder service having an autism diagnosis, or more than mild traits. In CAMHS I would say up to a third of children with eating disorders also had an ASD diagnosis or strong traits. I had a trans woman acquaintance at Uni in the 90s.

Name changes for this. Taught from 1998 to 2009. Primary then secondary. I have never met one pupil/student with this problem.