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?

He wore dresses and makeup in private, and told me about the freedom he felt when he wore a skirt. He envied girls their curves, their breasts and so on, and disliked his straight-up-and-down frame. He had a female online identity which he kept secret as well as a public male one.

This wasn't gender dysphoria. He was grappling with something else there.

@ChristabelHolloway

But this statement - A "true trans" person has still been badly affected by something growing up. - is just WRONG. And this lies at the heart of many of the posts on here - and it's fundamentally transphobic, in my view. Would you say this about someone who is homosexual? And if not, why not?? This is a real question - if you believe that some people are born homosexual, but nobody is born trans, then please explain the basis for that belief.

Personally I don't particularly believe that people are born homosexual. There's some tentative evidence to that effect but not enough to make a confident claim, IMO. People seem to want to believe that because they think it provides a stronger basis for gay rights. I don't really get that - gay rights should be a no brainer anyway just based on the fact that sexual preferences between consenting adults are nobody else's damn business.

The point here is that a biological basis for homosexuality is not actually necessary to justify anything people have wanted to DO about homosexuality - like decriminalising it, introducing same sex marriage, fighting discrimination in the workplace etc. A belief in a biological basis for transgenderism, however, IS necessary to justify advocating medical solutions as the first line response to it. It's even necessary to justify social transitioning of children: if gender identity is not an innate biological "thing" then a boy saying he feels more like a girl could just be left to "see what happens" while adults make clear that when they call him a boy, they're referring to his sex and nothing more. The need to move him over lock stock and barrel to the female social "category" is all based on the idea that his gender claim indicates a permanent, essential, biological fact, so failing to confront that fact now will just cause more problems later.

This. I was in my local city on a shopping trip on the day the Pride march was scheduled and looking round at all the girls draped in trans flags one thing stood out. All of them were girls who don't meet today's unrealistically high standards of beauty. They were the awkward girls, the unconventional-looking ones: the girls who weren't going to be competing in the pick-me dance for boys. Declaring yourself queer or NB is a brilliant ploy. It makes you interesting and different. You go from minger to special. It confers power: if someone disses you for your gender you can be offended and expect redress. As long as you don't get pulled down the puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones route you can get through adolescence without worrying about not being pretty enough. Which is why, I suspect, so many young people feel attacked when adults say there's no such thing as NB or queer — because it's what they've built their esteem around. They go into blind panic.

It's obvious and yet when I pointed it out to a friend who was with me it had never occurred to her.

Absolutely Patti - and it would be an utterly genius strategy if it didn’t have the potential to lead to medical and surgical intervention.

The medical establishment needs to stop behaving like vampires and feeding off teenage emotional distress.
Let these kids properly grow up before cutting anything off them.

Late to this party, but I knew many girls in the 70s and 80s who were tomboys. The figures now show that most trans are female to boys, now as then. I really think that as a grassroots movement, trans is nothing more than the fully traditional, and entirely rational, rejection from females of their extra burdens supplied by the male gaze, their subordinate position in society, and vulnerability to male violence.

It therefore makes me all the more infuriated that the general societal discussion seems focused on men being allowed to trespass more on the female-centred domains where we can avoid those male-centred burdens, and in fact is focused on forcing women to be ever more vulnerable to men!

Did no one suggest to her that she might be a lesbian? Because there are an awful lot of lesbians who could relate to that. I'm 60 and I know a number of lesbians who say thank goodness they were born at a time when being a tomboy and not wanting to wear skirts and ribbons was respected — without anyone trying to persuade them they were really boys.

^Im a little unsure, but this question seems to be more directed at @Onceuponatimethen .

Fwiw I never heard of tomboys being told they were lesbians, at least not outside of universities. I don’t think people questioned sexuality as much prior to the existence of the internet: to put it bluntly most people were not bathed in strange and different ideas daily back then, especially if they were not the sort to hang around with books and libraries anyway. People grew up, got jobs, and got on with daily life.

Been teaching since 1996. First case in school was in 2017. Remember when they changed guidelines for inclusion in about 2016? And remember seeing transgender listed and myself and colleagues raised an eyebrow at that having never seen a case ever in schools. Lo and behold 3 years later, we had several in the school.

@RosaGallica this young person’s parents were very old fashioned. I doubt she would have felt at all comfortable coming out even if she was gay.

Just popping on to say I notice NHS groups are starting to back away from Mermaids, which is excellent news. Hope education follows.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/08/nhs-staff-told-not-promote-mermaids-trans-charity/

Boys called us lesbians when we rejected them!

Boys called all of us lesbians when we rejected them!

True!

I have worked with children and young people all my career, including those with Eating disorders.

Eating disorders seems very similar to trans identification - they are about a fear of body changing at puberty and also about retaining control. They are strongly associated with mental distress and trauma.

However we respond to the body dysmorphia that the condition creates rather differently to the way we respond to trans identifying children/young people. We explore the roots of the distress, instead of dangerous affirmation.

@ChristabelHolloway I would explore what you mean by 'trans' - I'm from a catholic background and so familiar with transubstantiation and the different ways in which people view that process.

So is 'trans' a symbolic belief that you have crossed from one set of sex stereotypes to the other? Or is it a truly faith based belief that you 'become' the opposite sex.

I do not believe you can 'trans' in that I do not believe you become the opposite sex. If you define 'transing' as taking on the opposite sex stereotypes I could understand that, but I do not understand why that needs any medical treatment.

I was a gender non conforming child, I have volunteered with a stereotypically male sexed youth group and met many young women who enjoyed exploring the male roles and experiences of this group. In uniform I occasionally could not tell one sex from the other and because surnames were used I did occasionally misgender some of them, which they found amusing. I remember being quite pleased as a child if someone thought I was a boy.

I know that as a troubled teen I would have jumped on this 'trans' train and could have ended up a damaged adult. This would have been a tragedy for me as I have so enjoyed being a mother, not so much a woman.