DD feeling bad after mis-gendering sub teacher.

[ImDuranDuran]

On the way home this afternoon, DD14 explained how she is 'in trouble' after addressing her sub teacher as 'Sir' during a lesson.

It's the first time the teacher has subbed for the class.

Apparently teacher snapped back "Actually it's 'Miss' to you!".

I asked DD if the teacher had made any announcement at the beginning of the lesson regarding pronoun preference and she's adamant that they did not.

I'm concerned that DD now thinks she's in trouble and to be honest I'm pissed off. It was a genuine mistake and she's 14. She would never intentionally try to embarrass a teacher.

If the teacher had pulled her aside afterwards and explained the situation I might be more understanding.

Should I just leave it?

I do understand that there are some people who like the idea of catching people out and chopping and changing their pronouns (I’ve created a thread about this myself a couple of years ago when I had to deal with this issue).

But this was a teacher who if they wanted to go by a certain pronoun would have said at the beginning of the class or used the DDs mistake as a way to talk about themselves and why they go by the pronouns they do.

No other student got it wrong and DD was not in trouble for it.

This was just a simple mistake by the DD and as PPs have said it does happen a lot in schools.

I’d just leave it obviously if there any great sanctions from it then I’d follow it up

tbh teenage kids can be vile so the teacher will have to shut this down hard in the first instance

Well she was being taught by a biological man, who needs to get used to the idea that people will mis-pronoun him unless he makes his preferences clear.

For a child to be told off about this is a disgrace and I would be feeding this back to the school. He is there to teach her his subject, not to plug his personal life.

It is appalling that young people are being caught in the crossfire of all this. Sometimes it is just a way of exercising control. It makes me shudder.

I speak as someone with a gender dysmorphic GC whom I love and respect. I get the pronoun "wrong" sometimes - we both have a laugh over it.

No other student got it wrong and DD was not in trouble for it.

Due to your insistence on this point, I've asked DD why nobody else called the teacher 'Sir'.

It turns out one other pupil (male, if that's relevant) did and was sent out.

Are there any other points you want me to clarify with her?

I can't work out if you're being deliberately disingenuous or you're just naive!

Which order did those incidents happen in? I'm guessing the other pupil was after DD, because of the harsher response of being sent out?

Also, did other pupils say Miss/perceive the teacher as a Miss, or did no other pupils apart from DD and the one boy use any form of address during the class? Does DD have the impression that the whole class read the situation the same way she did or was there any doubt/discussion?

This is so true. It is like some people haven't seen the plethora of she/thems or he/thems or the they/hers/his, the ones where you need to follow the correct order or you are hateful. But yep. Indeed, there are enough non binary people using sexed pronouns out there. Hard to miss it these days.

Another pupil was punished for it?

No wonder your DD was worried about repercussions that might have been coming.

I'd be straight down to the school for an appointment with the head. If this really is man then the children are being reprimanded and made to feel ashamed for their honset recognition and response. Not acceptable.

I know of another MTF teacher who the girls ( all girls school) were supposed to call. 'Miss'. This teacher also ran a LGBT lunchtime club. The school is catholic and has a high percentage of Muslim pupils, and needless to say numerous complaints were made by parents. A bad decision in the first place, by the head, to appoint this person in such a context.

It's certainly confused you.

Well yeah that’s fair enough.

DD calls her sir and she gets told it’s miss.

Then another student calls her sir intentionally to be a dick and rightly so gets sent out for it.

I would have thought you would have found this out as soon as she told you yesterday tbh.

If your DD is adamant that this is a man and multiple students are getting into trouble for saying miss, then why would she not want it followed up?

At the very least you could enquires about the name of the sub, it would take the receptionist about 30seconds to check.

Anybody that uses the term "fisherthem" can't be that interested in fishing as there is already a "non-binary" term that they could use.

The fishing industry doesn't like being gender-neutralled, according to Fishing News

I don’t think he is interested in fishing at all. It’s just a way to get attention and boost his sales.

I agree, the whole "don't mis gender me" is all about attention

It's certainly confused you.

Quite.