"Transphobic bullying is rife": 15 y/o trans boy's view of coming out at school

[ButterflyHatched]

A rare and refreshing example of the mainstream media actually publishing a young trans person's own words on the subject of their own existence and how the government's draft guidance is likely to affect the people it directly pertains to.

‘Transphobic bullying is rife’: a 15-year-old trans boy’s view of coming out at school | Transgender | The Guardian

Transphobic bullying should be cracked down on as hard as any other bullying. Sounds like the school were seriously at fault in that regard.

It doesn't negate the need for this guidance.

This.

Safeguarding is still important and that means guidance.

Any bullying should be dealt with separately.

This has nothing to do with the new guidance.

Bullies target kids for ANYTHING that makes them different.
We still need to make sure kids are making informed, adult guided choices. Not being covertly affirmed at schools without parental knowledge.

This 'guidance' relating to children and young people has been drawn up with no consultation whatsoever with children and young people.

How anyone can take it seriously is beyond me.

I was allowed to use the disabled toilet but the lock on the door didn’t work and it didn’t feel safe.

The lock on the disabled or any other toilet should work!! A big safeguarding fail which has nothing to do with trans.

The problem with the article is that it is purely anecdotal.
Especially with
Transphobic bullying is rampant and I think 100% this guidance only fuels that fire.
and no backing up at all it may as well be a youtube or tiktok video.

I too think useful information comes unfiltered from people who believe in trans ideology. Not at all rare from the Guardian though.

So this child is a girl (I'm using "girl" and "her" as her SEX not her gender id. To use preferred pronouns would render my point unintelligible and obscure the misogynist nature of the harm) who liked sports and wearing trousers, which for some sad reason made the adults around her feel uncomfortable.

The very least that could be infered from this account is that adults took insufficient interest in what was accessd by the child online, but often when you hear from the parents in interviews such as this, the homophobia and sexism is barely disguised. Or there's parents at war with each other and a neglected child in the middle.

It's good that the school was kind and sensitive to all by offering the disabled toilets (although if there was a high number of children with disabilities that would be much less true) but it's terrible they didn't fix the lock. Humans need to feel safe in order to use the toilet normally.

It's terrible that the school didn't deal with bullying.

I don't think that parents with regressive attitudes, broken locks or bullying are reasons for children to embark upon life changing medication though or for safeguarding protocols and "working together" to be ignored. This child has been failed by multiple adults, not least the ones who encourage her towards irreversible medication and surgery to address the failings of the environment around her.

This 'guidance' relating to children and young people has been drawn up with no consultation whatsoever with children and young people.

The guidance is for teachers. Do you think children should be consulted about all guidance for teachers?

Children do not have the necessary tools to be involved in decision making around safeguarding standards.

What would have helped this poor girl enormously, is if the idiot adults supposed to be looking out for her, had never told her she was in the wrong body in the first place.

the government's draft guidance is likely to affect the people it directly pertains to.

Of course, the guidance directly pertains to all children. All children in a school are affected by the relevant issues.

When all children are in danger of having religious beliefs imposed on them, guidance balancing the rights of everyone affects non-believers as well as believers.

Indeed, in this case it arguably more directly pertains to the non-believers, as its their rights that are being belatedly shored up.

I can't help but feel this child would have been happier as a gender non conforming girl than as a trans boy. So the guidance might have helped them a lot had it been in place.

So this child is a girl (I'm using "girl" and "her" as her SEX not her gender id. To use preferred pronouns would render my point unintelligible and obscure the misogynist nature of the harm) who liked sports and wearing trousers, which for some sad reason made the adults around her feel uncomfortable.

She sounds like a perfectly ordinary girl. This is the first sentence of the article.

I was always very masculine when I was growing up telling my mum I didn’t want to wear dresses

Why would this be seen as anything other than perfectly normal? It shouldn't even be worthy of comment, let alone starting a child on a path of lifelong medication and damaging surgery.

I know what you mean, but the trouble is silence is interpreted by some as acquiescence.

How many times did the guidance repeat that bullying is wholly unacceptable and should not be tolerated? There were at least two clear repetitions that I remember.

So that's that sorted out.

Exactly

This is where adults fail children and we need to change that pdq

I'm not sure what you mean by this? I've been chastised repeatedly by posters on this forum arguing that as someone with extensive first-hand experience of what it is like to transition at school, I'm not allowed to speak for young trans guys. I thought it would be useful for people to see the words of a trans boy himself about what it is like and how this guidance is likely to affect people like him.

Why would people ignore the exact thing they want to see?

Annnnd reaching for the 'hide thread' button due to overwhelming deja vue.

.

This is just an anecdote. It’s not even relevant to what the new guidance will do because it’s just one trans identified child speculating and deciding it must make things worse.

Bullying - which should always be dealt with very firmly by schools - is entirely separate to the guidance given in yesterday's publication.

Adults should not give children the ability to make or alter legislation. They are in no way mature enough, despite many teenagers thinking they know better. It is the responsibility of adults to safeguard all children and young people.

The brilliant thing about the guidance is that it addresses the needs of all children in schools. It specifies that there is no group that has the power to negatively impact on others - that "rights" "demands" "wishes" must be balanced against those of other groups and individuals. It's a refreshing change to see a government (that has until now funded these organisations in imposing their beliefs on children) to draw a line and say no more.

I'm glad that the Guardian gave that 15 year old the space to speak about their experiences. I'm sure they'll next be offering a platform to the girls forced to undress alongside random males in their changing rooms, the girls assaulted by boys in mixed sex toilets along with those who refuse to use illegal mixed sex toilets in schools causing them physical harm.

And just a reminder - no women or girls anywhere were consulted about whether we consented to have our sex based rights removed, let alone our language changed and our teenage daughters gaslit that they could opt out of their pubertal angst with drugs and surgery and "become men".

I think it's really hard to relate that article to anything negative about the guidance. It sounds firstly as though transition has been completely negative for this child and that the school was one that badly needed support with these issues, which the guidance would help with.

Pre transition they were a confident girl, in their own words 'masculine', presenting in a way they liked, enjoying multiple sports. Them raising their gender sounds really badly handled by the school and the guidance would help here - the family are supportive and no safeguarding concerns, which should have been the focus, rather than what the child perceived as a punitive process of contacting the family. I agree the child should have been involved, and if the school handled this better, maybe the parents would have approached the school directly.

Transition seems to have coincided with a plunge in the child's confidence, function and access to learning, no doubt due to the bullying, which the school needed to tackle properly, like all bullying. The child's view that they could somehow transition but nobody would notice sounds implausible and i have to ask what else was going on with them. I also agree that robust bullying policies are the key rather than a big focus on transition.

Geez.

Bullying is wrong. Schools should deal with bullying.

Locks on toilets, all toilets, should work.

There's nothing controversial here.