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?

Also bollocks to she couldn't tell. Dogs can tell.

I have no doubt that I, and presumably you, would recognise someone male as male in most real-life circumstances. (As someone interested in logic I have to recognise that we have no idea about the times we fail to recognise a male as such, because by definition, those are the occasions when we never find out our mistake; but I've had enough cases of being unsure in a carefully selected still picture, and then seeing the same person in video where it's immediately obvious, to be pretty confident about this.) However, children's abilities to do recognition tasks don't spring fully-formed into life, however much we'd like to think they do. The case I know about is face recognition: children are much worse at recognising individuals (especially individual adults) than adults are, but adults typically don't realise this. Brains develop gradually, including the amazing abilities we adults take for granted! Moreover, these days it is far more unusual in younger generations for a woman to have short hair and no make up than it used to be when I was a young person. I think it is natural to wonder whether today's young people might be more easily confused than we think.

Anyway, just thinking about how embarrassing and undermining it would be if OP went in all guns blazing on the assumption that her DD was being taught by a man, and then found out that actually the person concerned was a woman - I think it's worth bearing the possibility in mind.

Oh I’d be grumpy I won’t lie. Unless the teacher said you must address me as miss whatever at the start of the class your dd won’t have known. If he looks like a man then it’s right to say sir .

Dogs, and babies, can tell statistically i.e. better than chance - not perfectly in every instance. And dogs mostly use smell, which a human child in an average classroom isn't sensitive enough to do.

I agree that it sounds like a trans woman teacher...but disagree with the idea that sex recognition is as accurate as that.

As a child of 8-12 years old I was frequently assumed to be a boy, simply because I had short hair and wore trousers.

My mother, then in her 30s, was frequently assumed to be a man, because she had short hair and wore trousers.

I have no reason to believe either of us are at all male-looking, physically. Yet without the extraneous gender-markers of long hair, make up or dresses, the majority of people were confounded.

And just strategically, we'd be foolish to insist on the proposition that every woman can tell the sex of every man unerringly. If that's our argument it's fatally undermined by one mistake from one person! Given what people can fail to notice when they aren't looking for it (if anyone doesn't immediately know they've watched this selective attention test before: do it now!!) I do not want an important political movement to depend on such an argument.

Maybe worth having a chat with the school to clarify? If nothing else you could always approach it from the angle that if there is a trans teacher at the school, if they introduce themselves with their chosen pronouns, this is then a learning experience/lesson for the students to respect how others choose to label themselves? It doesn’t have to be an aggressive situation, but a bit of clarity on what has actually happened would probably help a lot.

It may be that this teacher is not trans and is actually just a woman with short hair and wearing trousers as others have suggested, either way I think a quick polite chat would be a big help.

Tell your daughter she has nothing to worry about.
That nonsense has no place in schools, and especially not amongst the staff.

A man wearing women's clothes is a man.

My child would be withdrawn from that school immediately.

It no different from a teacher turning up and telling everyone he is Napoleon.

It doesn't matter if the teacher is trans (although forcing their beliefs on children is wrong) If they cannot cope with having incorrect pro nouns being used they shouldn't be a teacher.

This is ridiculous. But typical.
I would have thought that any new or substitute teacher would start by introducing themselves: "I'm Miss Smith" or whatever and then writing their name on the whiteboard. Then the students know how to address them.
If the teacher didn't do that at the beginning, they have no leg to stand on. How on earth can the students be expected to automatically know how to address every new adult who turns up?! Especially (but not exclusively) if they are trans or non-binary or whatever.
I would definitely be challenging the school on it.

I'd be going in on a 'constructive feedback' angle about how teachers should introduce themselves and how it is unprofessional to snap at this way and how your daughter is deeply upset and traumatised by his tone and manner...

I don't know, I've been "mis gendered " loads, you would think a petite female (w short hair no make up) could never be but there you go. Easy mistake

I must be weird then. I know for a fact I have been uncertain or mistaken on a few occasions. One time wasn't that long ago, others were in times well before pronouns and gender identity was a widely known concept.

I find it strange that people dismiss a reasonable possibility, and readily assert that they know as fact the "truth" about a situation they were not present in, involving 2 people that they've never met or even seen a photo of 🤷‍♂️ They could be right, but if they are it's just luck.

Whatever happened to following scientific principles, and the idea of establishing facts rather than judgement based on observations that haven't been tested?

We're not even sure if the teacher meant it as a big deal. The teen could be making a bigger deal of it than the teacher intended, we can't know without more information. I'd advise encouraging the teen to not make a thing of it. If using the pronoun feels wrong, avoid it altogether is an option too right? Just say "yes" or "okay", or whatever other option for not mentioning it feels right.

Everyone knows, I hope, that pronouns before all this were about more than identification. They were indicators of other things like status & importance, and other stuff. The superset of he/she is lord, lady, king, queen etc. it's all patriarchy or hierarchy generally 🤷‍♂️

I would not leave it. I would start hell at the school. I would be furious at the fact that this man is allowed to teach children, and that he is confusing my child, trying to coerce her to see him as something he's absolutely not, and making his delusion everyone's problem. This is not okay. I do not consent to my child being taught that a man can be addressed as Miss. Nope, no, niet, non.

I don’t know that it’s forcing belief’s on children to simply say at the beginning of a lesson with a new class: “You should address me as Miss xyz”. When I was at school I had a teacher who hated being called Miss or Mrs, every time she started with a new class she just used to say “please just call me Susan”, nobody had an issue with that which isn’t massively different really.

Absolutely the teacher should not have snapped at OP’s child and that’s something to pick up with the school, teacher’s should be introducing themselves to new classes (that’s what happened while I was at school), and if students don’t pay attention or forget then there’s nothing wrong with correcting them, but politely and in a respectful manner.

I think it’s much easier to mistake a woman for a man, than a man for a woman.

in my experience anyway (and I don’t mean the filtered or photoshopped pictures on social media)

I wouldn’t just leave it and didn’t when dd was expected to address her clearly bearded and male teaching assistant as “Mx” absolutely bloody ridiculous. I wrote an email informing them this would likely create issues for my autistic child and under no circumstances was there to be any drama made around this situation. I’m concerned that your dd would believe herself to be “in trouble” though. Time for a crystal clear conversation on why this is a nonsensical non issue and she’s not for one moment to worry about it.

If this person is telling a child off for using the wrong pro nouns then they are forcing their beliefs on the child.

Even if the person is saying call me "Ms X" and the child is being told off for "Mr X", then the person is wrong. They are going to have a very long and stressful career if they are going to do this to every child that gets this wrong.

Ultimately, an adult should be aware that being mis-sexed (if that's what happened), or 'mis-gendered' (if that's what happened) is likely not deliberate or malicious, nor a fatal blow to one's sense of self, and therefor snapping at a teenager is not an appropriate response.

“Sir” and “Miss” are not pronouns.

She was right.

I've been read as male more times than I can count. I am definitely female.

Scientists have done experiments in which participants watched silhouettes of people walking and had to state whether male or female. The accuracy rate was close to 100%. Survival depends upon knowing whether a man or woman is approaching you in the dark. We don’t even need to know detail to tell.

If someone tells you how to address them and you address them incorrectly, they are allowed to correct you. Trans issue aside, take my teacher who just wanted to be called “Elaine”, if I called her Sarah instead, or “Miss”, she would have corrected me, because that’s not how she asked to be addressed.

The snapping is an absolute no, of course. But whether you like it or not the world is changing, and I don’t think it’s a hugely onerous task to teach children to just respect how other people want to label themselves regardless of whether you agree or disagree with it.