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?

*changed

Teaching for many decades. First child I encountered was 7 years ago. A boy with mental health problems, abusive family, wanted to become a girl aged 14. We looked online and the DfE pointed schools to Mermaids. They were then recommending assemblies to celebrate cement a child's new identity & demanding that the child had access to changing rooms and toilets of the opposite sex. We looked at our mixed faith/race/sex/class intake and knew we weren't going to do anything so disrespectful. Identified appropriate mixed sex toilet (took over a staff toilet) and a private changing space. The family moved so we didn't implement it. Funnily enough, this very mixed school still has no children believing they've been born in the wrong body while the secondary school (predominantly white middle class intake) 4 miles away has numerous children in every year. Make of that what you will.

I’ve taught secondary/sixth form for 20 years. There has usually been one girl in each year who was a true tomboy - maybe short hair, played football, never wore a skirt, but they never identified as male. This was usually something that was well known about this girl since they were very small and completely accepted by peers.

There have always also been girls who maybe seemed uncomfortable in themselves and trying to fit in with accepted gender roles. Very often these girls would realise they were lesbian and immediately seem much more comfortable in themselves. Or they would find a tribe such as emo and become a part of that.

I never came across a female-identifying male student until about 5 years ago. Again there have always been boys who were almost honorary girls, with predominantly female friends, who usually turned out to be gay. But they never wore female clothes, although they might wear make up/jewellery.

Certainly in the first years of the 2000s emo culture gave both sexes a chance to wear androgynous clothing, have unisex hairstyles, boys to wear make up and girls to wear baggy/masculine clothes and shoes, which seemed to provide a real haven for those who would now be more likely to identify as trans or NB.

I agree with this, word for word.
I've been in full time teaching since 1994. I've not yet had a trans student. My school, (in my tenth year there) to my knowledge, has had 2. One M2F and one F2M. The first one is now 21, and began treatment at around 17. The second is 17 now and currently lives as male. One ex colleague has recently announced he is now living as a woman. So, in 27 years of teaching, I've known 3 people in the school's I've worked in, all in the last 5 years. (obviously, there are probably more I'm unaware of)
I was also that liberal feminist who would have marched at university for anyone's rights. And did.
Mumsnet has educated me. I do talk about my GC stance privately and get the "oooh bet you vote Tory now as well" rubbish back.

Not a teacher, but a parent of gender non-conforming boys.

2008-2011 Eldest ds had long hair, tied back in ponytail(s) at school, plus colourful clothes out of school. He was generally accepted as he was, but sometimes teased about being "girlie". Ds didn't give a dam, so the teasers gave up teasing.

2013-2016 Youngest ds had long hair, tied back in ponytail(s) at school, plus colourful clothes out of school. Was also mocked and teased, but frequently was asked "Do you think you're a girl?"

A typical conversation would be:
"Do you think you're a girl?"
"No."
"Then why are you wearing girls' clothes?"
"I'm not. These are my clothes."
"Yeah, but that's pink"
"So what? I like pink."
"But you've got long hair."
"So?"
"And you've got a ponytail."
"School rules."
"For girls."
"No, for long hair."
"Are you sure you're not a girl?"

Not specifically trans, but I came across this piece the other day and was stunned at the kind of garbled nonsense that teens are now exposed to

www.teenvogue.com/story/9-things-people-get-wrong-about-being-non-binary/amp

It's such an impressionable age and this stuff is everywhere. Social contagion, the media, the woke cheerleaders everywhere, common sense not daring to speak its name. That's most of it, I'd hazard.

Taught since the 60s. Long hair for girls initially very very rare. Came in gradually, and we had struggles with having it tied back for PE, and a girl complaining her mother wouldn't let her have it cut. I noted to self that in my youth mothers wouldn't let girls grow it. Something similar with pierced ears, also a hazard in PE. Parents were very much not supportive of these limitations. This was before the millenium. One parent was terrified of their daughter becoming a tomboy. As if it were a disease.
Never a boy claiming to be in the wrong body, though there was one I would be interested to know about now. Played with girls and was a bit camp in gestures. One boy I do know is now a woman. He didn't play with other boys, but not with girls either, though had one good friend.
The numbers now are a major surprise. There was no inkling of any such thing as trans. I stopped about 2007.

TW: self harm

I was at high school in the early 00s and didn't know anyone who was questioning their gender. A few people who were homosexual but that wasn't really talked about, I do know of several students who had eating disorders and others that were goths/emo though. As far as I know none of my previous cohort have come out as transgender.

I teach in the same school now that I attended myself and our first gender questioning student was about 6 years ago, now we have 20+. Before this we had a massive amount of students self harming, doing it over social media as if it was fashionable. Looking back to my own school days its the same type of student group that had the ED and were into alternative things as when I was younger as was a majority of the 'fashionable' self harmers we had a few years ago and social contagion seems to be a massive part of all these 'trends'.

I'm not making light of self harm, I know how anguished some people are but most that do it seriously keep it private and it isn't performative.

Am an Ed psych, been one for 25 years.
Knew of 1 MTF back in the early 2000s; always spoke about "being a girl" from age 3 or so.

1 FTM around 2010 - autistic female.

Now am aware of loads all with a typical profile of discongruence appearing in mid to late puberty. Many are autistic, have care history, or other vulnerabilities.

My concerns for these youngsters have nothing to do with transphobia and everything to do with safeguarding.

In 2002 I had one female student that presented as male, though retained her name.
I remember calling out the register and when she answered thinking that the child was having a laugh at my expense.
Interestingly, she presented in much more of a masculine way than any of my female trans identified students now. The former student had a proper barber cut, mens shoes etc, my students have more Bob like cuts, and it’s hard to explain but keep things quite pretty.

I teach 18+ and it has only been since 2010 or so that I have encountered this. It started with a dribble and is now a flow but with they/them being the most common pronouns. Prior to this, I remember eating disorders, emo and self-harm. The eating disorders came first and self-harm was extremely common after 2010.

I think a lot of it has to do with online cultures and the rise of porn which has led to a normalisation of some forms of sexual harassment, unrealistic ideas about beauty and sex and children being exposed to these ideas and experiences much younger than they used to be.

I have been a teacher since 1991 and first came across this in 2016. I was aware of it becoming a thing in other schools but we had our first one then. FTM. She lived very remotely and of the group of 5 kids of that age, from that village, 2 are now trans.

We recently had a trans man couple too. One transed FTM and the girlfriend followed (FTM) about 6 months later.

Since the new term started we are on 3/600 pupils but last year it was 7/600 so I think, with a group leaving, things might be turning a bit.

A child I taught from 20017-2010 is now a campaigner for trans rights, they do amazing work supporting the young, black, LGBTQ+ community and I'm immensely proud of them. And yes it did 'come up' during their time at school, I was one of the only teachers that openly supported them in living the way that they felt was most truthful to them. We are in still in touch.

2017 - I didn't time travel to teach them

My SIL retired in 2018 at the age of 59 after 37 unbroken years in primary education (head teacher for the final decade). She had no idea trans ideology existed until her final year, when a newly-qualified staff member identified one of the pupils as trans and asked her for the school's transgender policy. The child concerned was a six-year-old boy who liked playing with girls and dressing up, sometimes in pink sparkly items of clothing. SIL instinctively shut that down by asserting that the school didn't encourage sexual or gender stereotyping. She continues to be a volunteer at that school and has also become a governor for another local school in the hope that she can keep an eye on things and push back when necessary. I gave her Irreversible Damage when it came out and she has passed it to other teachers still at the chalkface.

One boy I do know is now a woman.

No, he's not. Humans can't change sex.

Not education related but was at in-laws yesterday and three year old niece is becoming newly aware of pronouns and the differences between males & females. She frequently makes mistakes and sometimes thinks it's funny to call men girls and women boys. All silly fun and typical 3 yo behaviour.

Through the lens of someone who believes in gender woo it becomes less of a giggle though doesn't it? A chuckling girl saying she is a boy gets taken at face value. Her silly attempts at calling her uncles girls become misgendering. And by the time she starts school she will no doubt already be beginning to become wary of saying what she sees with her own eyes. It's so frustrating and sad.

Emos , goths etc never a mention of trans gender identity.

Similar to everyone else really - qualified in 2006 and taught throughout the primary age range for six years. After I left full-time teaching I went on to complete a Master’s in a subject allied to education which incorporated aspects of child development, psychology, sociology and the history of childhood. Also a fair amount of critical theory.

No experience whatsoever of gender dysphoria in any of the primary classes I taught. There were always a few gender non-conforming pupils, in the sense of tomboyish, football playing girls and boys who favoured drawing and gentler play, but this seldom became an issue and never, in my experience, progressed to anything else.

What I did notice, though, was a growing unease among some parents about their children’s choices, generally parents of boys worrying that they were choosing ‘girly’ activities and refusing to engage in more boisterous play - e.g. I had several fathers of Year 1 boys asking me to ‘encourage’ their sons to play football outside during free time rather than drawing or reading alongside the girls. There was also a subset of female parents who actively restricted their girls to very stereotypical fairytale/Disney princess/role play-based play and we’re clearly hoping to nurture an über-girly ‘Mini Me’.

Working at primary level I was very aware at the time of the increasing segregation of toys by gender, and in particular the very rapid ‘pinkification’ of toys aimed at girls during the mid-late 2000s. This subsequently fed into my Master’s, where I remember scrutinising the changes in how toys like Lego were marketed (one resource we used was the ‘70s advert a pp linked to above), the ‘supermodel makeover’ of My Little Ponies and so on. I wrote a blog post on all this in about 2014, and in hindsight I think children’s cultural landscape was beginning to change rapidly at this point.

My Master’s dissertation related in part to the tomboy figure in children’s literature - I imagine it would look very different were I to rewrite it in the current climate, as half the literary characters I was writing about have since been transed.

@TempsPerdu
My Master’s dissertation related in part to the tomboy figure in children’s literature

How lovely! I'd be interested to read it!

Yes. Teacher and then managed youth services for a local authority and a charity. 2005-present. Now back as a senior leader in secondary education.

2005-2017 - encountered one girl who wanted to be a boy, change name/pronouns, although don’t know if she went on to physically transition (hadn’t at 16).

2017-2022 - lost count of the number of ‘trans kids’ I’ve encountered professionally. Significant number have been on the autistic spectrum. Majority (all but a couple) extremely vulnerable young people with multiple disadvantages/issues.

Teaching since 2001. Same as others, nothing at all until around 6 years ago. It seems to be the new form of self-harm for teenage girls.

I taught from 1999 to 2006, full-time in a large secondary (1300+ kids.) Taught a core subject so saw a large number of kids. During that period I can only remember 1 kid who seemed to be conflicted about gender. I remember him because his situation was considered very unusual at the time.

Totally agree with you, OP. It doesn't add up to me...

Teaching since 2002 and yes it did come up before the time you suggest. And I taught trans students longer ago than 6 years.

Hope that helps.

Not teaching but had children 2006, 08 and 12. Somewhere between 1 and 2 there was a creep towards things being more "for a girl, for a boy" and by the third it definitely was a sea of blue or pink.

The eldest did have a boy in her school who was very into Barbie's and Princess dresses. It stopped by the time he went off to secondary, his friendship group seems predominantly female but he seems happy with who is he. I shudder to think what would have happened nowadays. (DD and he went to different secondary schools, my info is what I can summarise from Facebook)