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actually publishing a young trans person's own words on the subject of their own existence and how the government's draft guidance is likely to affect the people it directly pertains to.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

Bullying is always wrong and must be addressed, whatever the supposed reason for it in some children's minds might be.

I always hated dresses as a child, always wore trousers, loved sports, had many male friends and played all sorts of games now coded as male. None of that made me a boy, only a girl who wanted less suffocatingly rigid gender boxes.

I thought feminism achieved that? But at some point the Western world decided to retreat from that (most of the rest of the world never visited the feminist ideas to begin with) and to welcome sexist stereotypes and 1950s gender roles for women and girls back. But now they are supported by both the far right and the far left.

If not wanting to wear dresses or being good at sports makes a child a boy, how does that really differ from the old sexist view that boys should not wear dresses and that boys should be good at sports, while girls should wear dresses and probably should not care for sports?

We end up with the same rules in either case, only difference being that the sexists base the rule on innate views about sex while the genderists base it on innate views about gender.

Neither of these allows much scope for feminism.

Bullying is wrong, for whatever reason, and that should be the school's focus.
But adapted/disabled toilets are not there to make able-bodied people feel 'comfortable'. It's always wrong to offer them as a third-space solution, and the school in question is sending out a bad message by allowing - encouraging, even - an able-bodied student to use the adapted toilet.
Disability rights went out of fashion quickly, didn't they? 😕

They generally do work at the start of the day.
Until the pupils that want to damage them arrive.

Of course then the school runs out of replacement locks and has to wait for the new ones to arrive.

The girl in the article sounds to me like a typical tomboy.
There is no mention of dysphoria or hatred of their body, just a dislike of certain clothes and enjoying various sports.

This...I would have been a prime candidate for this bullshit. I am still a tomboy in my 50s! I never wanted to fit into 'girly' stereotypes. We seem to have gone backwards, 100 years of feminism written off.
As for this child, the school needs to deal with any bullying regardless of why.

@ButterflyHatched based on your post back to me i am assuming you are a woman who wants to look like a man. That is fine by me, and i dont care what your sexuality is, thats your business. What is annoying is that you project your own perspective and experiences, to the extent that you lose any objectivity about child protection, and educations role in a child’s life.

The article you refer to really makes no particular complaint about the guidance. It’s just a ramble from a confused teenager about schools failing to keep her safe.

As for you as a TRA most of us hold you and your ilk responsible for all this gender confusion in young people in the first place because your agenda is

all about you isn’t it

Precisely.

I find it incredibly sad that an 11 yo girl that loved sports and liked practical clothes felt that she had to “identify as a boy”. It appears that by identifying as a boy this young person has swapped their childhood for a miserable life.

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

If we take this to its logical conclusion then nursery children should be consulted on EYFS, prisoners should be consulted on sentencing guidance…..

I sympathise with any victim of bullying but the article is hugely incoherent.

If I’d been able to exist in my school as a trans kid from the beginning, nobody would have complained because I wasn’t asking for anything special. The only reason other kids saw the difference was because it was pointed out to them.

This doesn't mean anything, at all. There'd have been no bullying if... what, I don't know, this pubescent girl had been allowed to shower and get changed for PE communally, just like all the other lads?

Isn't the article an example of the contradictory messages we are given about childhood social transition. On the one hand we are told it is life saving and prevents years of misery, on the other we are told that post transition life is awful for these kids and people like SG had to be on suicide watch for years.

The article does not deal, at all, with the impact on other children, and how gender ideology leads them to feel bullied and coerced in the name of tolerance and kindness.. So not balanced at all.

The Guardian will be TRA focussed as per

And yes the point of looking at what’s best for all children is why safeguarding is paramount

LOL, if the government consulted any children I know about what school policies should be, school day would be 2 hours a year and Fortnite would be on the curriculum.

I'm sorry that this child has been bullied. Bullying is horrific. I've recently heard different groups of young people casually using gay as a synonym for something that's not very good and I was shocked because I thought that we'd moved past that.

The school should have been better with trying to do something about the bullying and the lock, though I don't support disabled loos being used as a third space. Hopefully everyone will know what to expect once used to the guidance.

So do you think a teenage girl should have been put in to change with the boys, shared accommodation with boys on school trips and played contact sports on the boys teams?

because you are unhinged if you do

It is strange that there is no actual description of the bullying, how were they bullied?
Was it being mis-gendered or something else?

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?
That's a very good question and I think it can be applied directly to your paragraph above.
How the guidance affects people like the child mentioned is completely ignored. It is simply claimed that it will. Why are you and the guardian ignoring the exact specifics of the thing you are complaining about?
This is a huge part of the problem. I have great sympathy for the child in question. It's clear that the adults around them have failed them by scaremongering about basic safeguarding or what the guidance entails.
And the people who draw up any guidance need to be adults, experts in their fields when it comes to schooling and safeguarding.
It is absolute insanity to demand that children with no expertise or life experience are the ones who get to shape rules around safety.

In my daughter's class at primary and secondary school there were numerous girls I only ever saw in trousers.

They were girls who wore trousers. That was it

It’s absurd in any case. The disabled loo is for disabled pupils - why should they have to share with an able-bodied child?

The question you have to ask is: why couldn’t this child use the girls’ toilets? If the answer is that the child is a boy, then why not allow them to use the boys’ toilets? The fact that we know why that won’t happen serves to demonstrate that everyone, including the child, knows that she’s a girl.

If the answer is that the child is a boy, then why not allow them to use the boys’ toilets?

Because the boys are also entitled to respect and privacy.
Boys at school are also going through body issues.

It’s inexcusable to say a child needs to have permission to experiment with their name or wardrobe. Cis kids do that all the time without their parents being informed.

Are parents not told if a child asks to be called a different name in school? Other than a shortened version of their name, if they want to be called their middle name or something completely different I'd expect it to be mentioned to the parent, it would come up at parent teacher night when the teacher uses the name surely? Children should be able to wear any school uniform regardless of sex in my opinion, nothing to do with 'trans'.

The thing about this kind of first person account of things is that it is not very good evidence of anything. It doesn’t even tell you what is going on - you just get the story the individual tells which will be skewed in so many ways.

Systematic research is required to get underneath this and find out what is actually happening. Especially when we are talking about the perceptions of distressed young people who are focused around identity.

Lived experience is not a substitute for objective evidence.

In this case, it’s not even relevant to the guidance. The guidance just came out. Some speculation from an upset young person that it will just make things worse doesn’t meet any sensible definition of evidence.

Teachers don’t have to use the children’s nicknames or go along with anything else in the peer culture.

Just because Duncan’s friends call him Big D, it doesn’t mean his science teacher should follow suit.

And the hidden agenda that we all know - it may be massively dangerous for most girls to undress, shower, share sleeping accommodation with boys in countless schools - not matter how they identify.

It's brilliant that the guidelines spell out so clearly:
Schools must not allow a child, aged 11 years or older, to change or wash in front of a child of the opposite sex, nor should they be subject to a child of the opposite sex changing or washing in front of them.

I really want to hear trans organisations explaining why this is wrong as it will force them to say the quiet bits out loud.