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 truly give up even replying to what is genuinely at this point just a thread where a majority of posters are openly transphobic.

Disgusting.

It sounds as though your DD and the supply teacher were both embarrassed today. Had the supply teacher written their preferred title and name on the board so students would know how to address them, that embarrassment would have probably been avoided. That's what I would contact the school to say.

Whenever I teach new classes, I introduce myself as Mrs Another and write it on the board or a piece of paper which I put somewhere visible. I've been called Mum, Dad, Sir and Mr Another (plus some pretty unpleasant things!) but don't consider it rude or insulting for a child to get my name wrong. After all, there are definitely times over the past 20+ years I've accidentally called a child by their friend/sibling's name and they have always been understanding of my mistakes. I can see that things may feel more personal for a trans teacher but in the absence of evidence to suggest a student is being deliberately unkind, I would assume it was a genuine mistake. Writing their 'teacher name' on the board could reduce much of the angst in this sort of situation.

A few months ago one of my DCs was injured at the end of a lesson taught by a supply teacher. None of their friends knew the name of the teacher even though he'd covered other lessons. After the incident was investigated, one of the outcomes was that supply teachers would be asked to introduce themselves by name and to display their name somewhere in class. Whilst that particular supply teacher hadn't done anything wrong as such, the fact 30 students didn't know his name and ultimately had to describe him using random tidbits of knowledge about his hobbies and the shape of his ears(!) both undermined his behaviour management and slowed down the initial stages of the investigation. I think it's important students know the names of their teachers (and vice versa).

Where is the transphobia. Please point it out?

is it saying that human's can't change sex? Or pointing out that males can't be lesbians? Or a concern that children are being compelled to lie to protect an adult's gender feelings?

@ImDuranDuran

the school would be hearing about this.

she was being taught by a man, who looks like a man. If he wants to pretend to be a woman he needs to do a better job of it clearly and he needs to inform the poor children of his choice of pronoun & not expect them to be mind readers.

FFS this is all getting bloody ridiculous & when it impacts the children, they need to be told to just stop behave!

I asked her this during our discussion, she said teacher was slightly bald with short, spiky, grey hair at the sides and wearing a tracksuit.

She's in her room at the minute but I will try to establish further as to why nobody else made the same mistake during the lesson.

*No I’m not, I’m sticking to the facts.

Its OP and other posters who are jumping to the conclusion that this must be a biological man.

The DD said sir and the teacher corrected her to let her know that she is a miss.*
*
No other student misgendered them and OP doesn’t know the name of the teacher.*
*
Therefore we can assume that this is a biological woman and DD was mistaken.

There are also multiple posters who’ve been misgendered or known other teachers to be misgendered and it does happen*

as you seem to think you're in a court of law, please identify where op says:

No other student misgendered them and OP doesn’t know the name of the teacher.

You don't know this. I don't know this, and neither does anyone else other than who was there.

There are also multiple posters who’ve been misgendered or known other teachers to be misgendered and it does happen. Yes it happens. No one has said otherwise. For a masculine looking woman to be completely mistaken for a man for an entire lesson, is extremely rare, unless they are making a conscious and considered effort to do so. Every single masculine looking woman I've ever met, who at first glance I may have mis-sexed, has very obviously 'outed' themselves within a reasonable time period. As has any transwoman. Im not saying we can't get it wrong, but an hour in class and I don't imagine anyone was under any illusion as to what sex the teacher was.

Therefore we can assume that this is a biological woman and DD was mistaken.
Well no, I don't think we can assume anything, actually! It could be that this thread is a load of bollocks or it could be absolutely true, and assuming anything either way is probably unwise, but based on the info we've got so far, making assumptions like that is just you wanting things to be the way you want them!

We are biologically programmed to identify sex. It’s sort of an important feature of evolution.
The fact that we find it easy to pick out trans females so easily is testament to that.
The video is interesting but we don’t notice the gorilla because it is not a gorilla. If it was a real gorilla our brains would pick it up instantly. Just as most of us can pick out a trans woman at 30paces.
We notice behaviour, trans women tend to retain some of the subtle male behaviour that differentiates from female social behaviour. More reactive when threatened is probably most noticeable. This teacher displayed this really well. A female teacher who had been miss sexed would have probably made a joke of it and laughed it off.
Trans women are just men dressed as women. Being a woman is so much more that a dress and a bit of lippy.
It doesn’t matter how much they fill their bodies with hormones and practice tottering around in heels they cannot cast off the inner man.

And in case my use of the word 'outed' us challenged, I used it to mean that human beings have innate body language that communicates non verbally.

Just so we're clear.

Right. So you chose not to answer the previous question related to homophobia/same sex attraction? Hmm

As the saying goes love, you should never argue with idiots, hence I’m stepping away.

I’m more than happy to leave a thread full of ignorant, frankly nasty, as well as transphobic individuals. Hopefully the OP has taken some good advice from the thread as a whole.

My money is on the fact you have a trans child or close family member. You are being so angry and defensive there is no other explanation.

No one here is transphobic and there was no need to be so rude to @CandyLeBonBon she was asking a very reasonable question.

Sorry @Mrsttcno1 Flouncer's corner is that way>>>>>>

Roughly translated as

"I'm right and you're wrong, so you are all nasty transphobes"

or alternatively

"I don't have a coherent argument against the points you've made so you are all nasty transphobes"

Or even more roughly translated as

'Wahhh, you're using words I don't like, I hate you all, transphobes'

It’s an easy mistake to make, sometimes our brains see short hair and instantly think man or vice versa.

I remember telling a drunk ‘man’ to get out of the ladies toilet and it was a woman 🤦‍♀️

I am very careful now.

Tell your DD not to worry. I’m sure it’s not the first time the teacher has been mistaken for a man and it definitely won’t be the last.

"I remember telling a drunk ‘man’ to get out of the ladies toilet and it was a woman"

😂

I did a supply period in a classroom which was shared by two teachers.

Had only been given the room number, so asked the kids which teacher was scheduled, so that I could find the correct electronic register: "Is it Miss X today?"

A boy answered: "No, this is Mx Y's day. He says we've made him unwell..."

It’s an easy mistake to make, sometimes our brains see short hair and instantly think man or vice versa.

Only if you're not able to understand that men can have log hair, and women can have short hair!

A phobia is fear based. Women are not frightened of trans women they just don’t accept that they are women. If a trans women is continually mistaken for a man they really need to accept that transition is not enough. Occasionally they are going to have to correct people. If they did this with grace and perhaps a little humour they may not garner such reactions.
I am happy to accept that some men consider themselves to be women and that they choose to dress as women, take hormones and even surgically change their bodies. But they need to understand that not everyone will recognise them as women. It’s not intentional, it’s not hatred or transphobia it is simply misgendering them.
Sexual dimorphism may be subtle but its components are multiple in humans. For example men have thicker wrists than women proportionally. The presence of brow ridges, hairline, pelvis shape, jawline all very subtle but together they add up to male.
It would take an immense amount of surgery to totally feminise a man including chopping a foot off their legs in some cases.

What we should be supporting is that men can be trans women and women can be trans men. But we allow women to retain their unique identity and men theirs.

Why any man would want to be a woman is beyond me. If ever I am reincarnated I want to come back as a neutered ginger Tom cat who lives in a cottage in the country where I can lie by the fire in the winter and bask in the sun in the summer.

Quoting myself to explain the relevance. Because the room was shared, there were laminated name plates in the room which were adhered to the door via Blu Tack when staff were in. While I was subbing, they were behind the desk.

The one for 'Mx' had a cartoon pic of someone with a beard. I later found out that the kids were supposed to refer to the teacher as 'They'.

Kids automatically refer to kids as they see them. The pupils were using the teacher's preferred title, but the pronouns were a bit much for them.

@Angrymum22 can I just pick up on one thing on your post.

You say it's just 'misgendering them'. I'd phrase that as correctly sexing them.

We shouldn't compel children to correctly gender if that means lying about a persons sex.

And for me it is intentional that I don't see males as women. It harms women if males claim to be women, we lose single sex spaces, sports and prizes etc. These males are NOT women, no matter how convincing their costume is. Womanhood is born and not worn. It's so offensive to women to suggest otherwise, and harmful.

Yes of course but it doesn’t sound like the DD intentionally misgendered them.

The teacher may have been quite masculine and her brain just went into autopilot and said ‘sir’ without thinking.

The same way people call teachers mum.
They know they’re not their mum and don’t look like them but sometimes your brain just goes into autopilot.

@lifeturnsonadime I totally agree but the OP’s DD believes that the teacher is biologically male, was dressed androgynously and had short balding hair. So she potentially didn’t mis-sex “her” but mis-gendered her or mis- pronouned her. Easy mistake to make with 99% of trans women.
Another possibility is that the teacher has recently had chemo and has reached a stage of hair regrowth where she feels confident to go without a wig. But she must be aware that her appearance is androgynous. I don’t think she should be arsy with a pupil that makes that mistake at their first meeting.

Being gender critical and being transphobic are two completely different things you know. Do you think OP’s daughter should be compelled to deny biology?