The time has come where I'm required to teach gender identity...

[OldChinaJug]

What the hell do I do about this?

It's all stereotypes (obviously) and talking about people having the right to express their gender preference. Now, I don't mind teaching that some people believe it (because they do) and I have no objection teaching kindness and tolerance.

But I have a huge issue with teaching gender identify itself as some kind of 'fact'.

All I've got so far is calling in sick 😫

"In the old days little boys wore pink and little girls wore blue...."

'Some people believe' would be my ideal but wouldn't be accepted in my school which has been fully Stonewalled. I am fighting it at the moment but don't underestimate how captured most schools are. The Unions are also captured so if we were to get into trouble over objecting our Unions wouldn't support us.

Primary school. Our poor children.

I don't get it. Can't it just be a lesson about relationships? Some people have 2 mums, some have 2 dads. Some have just one. Some people are black Some are brown, some cultures wear different clothes, believe different things. Sometimes people wear clothes that express themselves. Sometimes they wear clothes for religion. Most people wear whatever they feel good in, unless they need to wear a uniform.

Where would who wants to have sex with who come in to it at primary age? Or what is between anyone's legs? I don't see why gender or sexuality would come in to it at this age.

Something like, all about families, by Usborne, might work.

The books on sex and changing bodies isn't recommended until age 12+.

Primary school 😮
My kids primary didn’t bring it up at all (just finished year 6)

If you are being asked to teach this then it is above and beyond what is expected at a school. I consulted with our primary school and they decided not to go above and beyond. Someone in the school made the decision to teach about gender identity ideology, fine if it is taught as some people believe and isn't based on sexist sterotypes, but I doubt it.

Support to OP. And I thought @Decoupagedelilah's suggestion was great for secondary level. For primary school kids it really shouldn't arise. But if it does it falls within the remit of RE rather than PSHE surely. It is a belief system. I wouldn't pass on a belief system as fact to primary aged kids, sorry but even if my job depended on it, I wouldn't. Good luck.

I can’t think of anything more unprofessional than telling children they can change sex, can you?

Not a teacher, so sorry if this is naive, but can't you just 'accidentally' leave out a sentence or two, here or there? A lesson plan isn't an actual script, is it?

Primary school kids are unlikely to denounce you for wrong-think and, if they did, you would have the defence of being unfamiliar with the material.

A lot's going to depend on what it actually says on any worksheets provided. I suppose the OP could accidentally leave them on the photocopier, but that would smack of unprofessionalism.

No real ideas, but just to say my daughter was taught gender crap in the last weeks of year 6 and is now (2 weeks into secondary) identifying as a “non-binary demi-girl”, whatever that means.

For the poster who said: “There is a mental health crisis in young people and teachers/ schools have to do something. They can't just ignore the issue and hope it goes away“ … I would argue the mental health crisis is being caused by schools telling kids they’re supposed to have a gender identity - cue a lot of agonised naval gazing as they try to discover which of the 100 or so genders best describes them. I am so * angry about this, and I speak as someone who has been GC for many years. Schools have a lot to answer for.

Please find a way of telling the truth. Gender is socially constructed, sex is biological.

only needs to take a few minutes.

"People are born make or female. However as they grow up some people pretend to to be the opposite"

Bish bash fucking bosh. job done.

male or female that should read.

Primary school 😱

Well. Guidance has been published by the government saying children should not be taught that they can be ‘born in the wrong body’, nor should they be taught that gender identity is anything to do with clothes and toys etc. It even says at much on the Mermaids website fakers

I would challenge it that way. Just email the person who created it to say you’re concerned it contravenes government advice (or Mermaids advice if you’re that concerned about being outed as GC). Please don’t ring in sick, see it as your moment to shine here!

Gender Identity is filling the subculture void that was created when emo left and nothing took its place. That’s all. Like any other subculture, it will fizzle out with just a couple of hardcores clinging to the upturned hull.

I would also throw in a few ‘famous trans people’ photos. Just to give them an idea of what it’s all about. Eddie Izzard springs to mind. There’s no way trans will be ‘fashionable’ to them if their first impression of it is Izzard.

They taught this in Yr 6 in my DD’s primary school - last year.
I requested the lesson plans and details of all the RSE lessons . Then I wrote a huge 3 page email to the headteacher expressing my concerns about the lesson plans and teaching gender identity as fact etc etc using DfE guidelines - and I included some choice photos of trans women in sport including Hannah Mouncey (Australian rugby ) and Laurel Hubbard (weightlifting) suggesting maybe the kids could discuss whether this seemed fair .
I went in and had an animated chat with the deputy head and she said there were going to have a meeting to discuss my concerns and issues I’d raised. I’m the sort of parent who never normally goes in to talk to teachers but I felt they actually did pore through the points I’d made. (I used lots of info from these threads).
The lesson plan originally said something like ‘if a boy feels like a girl’ and vice versa but I asked what an earth that means? How can he feel like a girl? You can’t give examples of that without promoting gender stereotypes which you’re not allowed to do etc.
Anyway - when it was actually taught, the sensible (middle aged) teacher apparently simply said something like ‘there is female sex and male sex and some people believe they are the other sex - these are transgender people - but you can’t actually change sex’ and that was that.

Had to teach this in year 10 to my class in PHSE. Tbh I planned the main lesson to be delivered during a cover lesson but even then when I returned there was more.
Just stick to facts of some believe this, some believe that and we have to be kind and respectful.

Brava!

Teach it like you’d teach comparative religion, in historical context and with other similar and opposing ideas to compare:

• brief history of sex and gender politics, incl involuntary FGM of children in Africa, breaking girls toes in China, eunuchs etc
• emergence of feminism and sex discrimination laws as reaction to perceived oppression
• struggles of homosexual people eg when was illegal and was banned in some jobs etc
• emergence of Stonewall etc as reaction to oppression
• emergence of Western transgender ideologies (Helen Joyce’s book would be very useful here as it recaps the history of how transexuals became a thing in the West)
• Rewriting of history to claim some feminist/lesbian heroines were transmen
• Aggressive (and illegal; verbal assault and death threats are criminal offences) hounding of female academics and authors
• emergence of gender critical thought as a reaction to oppression
• emergence of detransitioners, not just Kiera Bell but also in Thailand where a lot of ‘ladyboys’ sued those who castrated them as children
• current confusion re law being different in different countries, eg in Canada I think it’s a crime not to use preferred pronouns, whereas in Texas I think children can be removed from their parents if the parents encourage medical transition
• questioning of idea “what does it mean to be male / female, and when does it matter?” In sport, in medical care, etc etc.
• Importance of free speech and whether some issues should be exempt.
• Teach them to question their sources: why does this lobby group want me to join their club? Why does this webpage exist? Etc

You’re a teacher. If you were required to give a lesson on Islam you wouldn’t tell your students they must all pray five times a day. Teach facts. “Some people believe this… Some people behave like this…”

You have a real opportunity here to educate. Let them walk out of your class having learned about physical differences, gender stereotypes, the lifechanging consequences of surgery/drugs, and the politics of it all.

Suggest you get the lesson approved by the school before you give it, as whatever you say someone will be unhappy, but if you stick to facts you should be ok.

I agree. It would be highly unprofessional to teach children complete nonsense as a fact. It goes against basic professional ethics, surely? In Eastern Ukraine, the part occupied by the Russians in 2014, the schools were sent some additions to the curriculum. The pupils had to listen to their teachers (the ones they'd always had) teaching them as a fact that Putin was a godlike leader and that Ukrainians were and always had been Russian.

Ein makes good points, particularly regarding history.

Can you perhaps also have a student generated discussion with leading questions?

For example - what does transgender mean? What changes if you say you are transgender? Do you need to medically/surgically transition? How many people do/don’t medically transition? What does it feel like to be transgender? What is the difference between that and a stereotype? Why are stereotypes wrong?

As @Ein says.

Don't do what DD's school did in primary and leave her coming home, having never had any inkling she was anything other than a girl, saying "am I a boy because I like ninjas?". FFS. Cue me googling female spies and ninjas for more time than I want to spend on it.

We will look back on this time with wonder and amazement.

I know how important it is to earn your crust, but I hope you don't decide to just obey orders