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?

Yes because when a man says he's a woman we must all believe them and not the evidence of our own eyes or those of our daughters. 🙄

If he/she looks like a bloke then she is going to get called sir or Mr. Another Arthur or Martha.

I echo the posters recommending doing nothing unless your dd actually gets into trouble. I suspect there won't be any follow up. If there is, then I would be contacting the school.

I don't think a 14 Yr old is going to be mistaken about a person's sex after being taught by them for a whole lesson, so I see no reason to disbelieve your dd saying it was a man. Often people make mistakes in quick encounters, but not for the course of an hour long interaction.

How do you respond?

Errr.... think you are being a bit provocative here??

I agree that you might not be able to tell from a photo, and even a short, well edited video. But have honestly NEVER not been able to tell after being in someone's company for any length of time (by that I mean at least 30 minutes). So yes, fleetingly a teenager might be confused, but men who socially transition as adults are not hard to spot, and women who look 'masculine' also have mannerisms and 'tells' that pretty much everyone deciphers. If people politely pretend not to, that still doesn't mean they don't know, just that they went along with the pretence.

A full lesson in, I'm pretty sure OP's dd was perfectly aware of the teacher's sex.

I know that its not aimed at me, but teachers generally don't bother with responses or corrections they just get on with the job of teaching.

Its only become a thing since TRAs have entered the classroom.

If this was a trans man/woman, they would have said their pronouns at the beginning of the class.

They would also be dressed very feminine/masculine.

They would also be called sir by multiple students, not just DD.

It would be easy to find out the name of the sub and whether it’s Mr or Mrs but apparently OP and her DD don’t know it.

But yes carry on being gullible and believing that this story is real.🙄

@Night409 well that's incredibly transphobic. There's no right or wrong way to present if you're trans, which I'm surprised you don't know!

No more than claiming a teacher ‘looks like a man’ even though they’ve said they’re a woman and no other student called them sir.

When I had short hair I had a 4 year old in My preschool class called me Mr for almost two years. I just laughed and let mom know about it. No big deal. Teacher over reacted

What a silly person. First, they jolly well should have introduced their self- “hi I am Miss Sub, apologies for not being your usual teacher”.
Second, subs get called much worse things than “sir”.
Third, some of us xx women have big hands, broad shoulders and narrow hips. I look like I’m in drag if i wear feminine clothes, but honestly don’t mind if anyone calls me « sir ».

Some of the boys in my RE class used to do this to a female teacher, because she had a bit of a moustache. They were doing it to be cruel. She used to ignore them, which was probably the best thing to do.
You need to get to the bottom of the context.

Read my whole reply. I literally said, right there, “the snapping is obviously not okay” :)

I don’t understand your point about respect at all, what I have said in the part you have highlighted, is quite simply to respect how other people want to label themselves even if you disagree with it personally. That’s got nothing to do with me not respecting myself, it makes no difference to my day to day life whatsoever, but just like I wouldn’t call you “emily” if you ask me to call you “jade”, I wouldn’t call someone Mr if they introduced themselves as Miss.

As I said in my first reply, they should have introduced themselves to a new class- all of my teachers always did, and they shouldn’t have snapped.

If this was a trans man/woman, they would have said their pronouns at the beginning of the class.

Well, they didn't. Unless DD is lying to me. I'll have to take her word on that.

As for 'is this real?' Report me? 🤷🏼‍♀️

Your child made a mistake.

She thought the teacher was male but they were actually a woman.

Yes it’s embarrassing for her but no worse than calling the teacher mum, which so many students do.

You being pissed off that she was corrected (no staying after class or detention or any other sanctions) is an extreme overreaction.

if students don’t pay attention or forget then there’s nothing wrong with correcting them, but politely and in a respectful manner

@Mrsttcno1 utter tosh. Children who correctly sex an adult do not need to be corrected by said adult. It is disrespectful to impose an ideology on someone who does not hold beliefs in that same ideology.

By forcing someone to use a term when they don't want to use it is no respecting that person.

And telling someone off for a mistake for using the "wrong" pro noun is certainly not respecting them.

It would be easier for you to save everybody some time and admit you are transphobic.

If someone asks you to call them a certain name or pronoun, the respectful thing to do is call them that name or pronoun.

Regardless of your opinion one way or another. It’s called respecting the feelings of others.

Not the point of the thread, but in my experience this is not true. My primary school friend and my friend's toddler both had short hair and were frequently assumed to be boys (by adults and children) even when wearing dresses. A lot of people assume short hair = boy.

I have on numerous occasions not been sure if someone is a man or a woman.

So by that logic then you can’t “force” anybody to call anyone anything then? I could call you Eric, or I could call you Mary, and you can’t correct me. In fact I could call you a dog, or I could call you a toaster, and you cannot FORCE me to call you a human being because I don’t want to use that term to describe you, so for you to force me to call you a human being you would be disrespecting me.

Slippery slope of an argument you’ve got there.

How was the teacher presenting? Because it seems to me that the two possibilities here are that the teacher was a 'masculine looking' woman, whom your daughter read as male, or a transwoman whom your daughter correctly identified as male. If the former it is unlikely that she was wearing a dress and lots of make up, whereas if the latter, then unless the teacher was attempting to 'present as female' then surely everyone would have made the same mistake.

Prepubescent children are much harder to accurately sex than people who’ve gone through puberty! Your example simply isn’t comparable. My sister used to put a bow in her daughter’s hair because people thought she was a boy baby, and STILL people cooed over what a lovely little boy she was.

I agree.