Non binary Teacher year 4

[1982mommaof4]

Okay not sure if it's me being sensitive...
My daughter is in year 4 juniors and she has a new teacher who identifies as Non binary and has made the class aware of this. She likes this teacher which is great. However, my DD now has questions that to be honest I don't want to answer.
One being do they( daughters words)have what I have or my brother has because they look like a girl but aren't.

Does that mean that some girls aren't girls...

How would you answer these questions, I'm trying to be sensitive and not offensive but I'm finding difficult to not be brutally honest in what I think.

Thread if anyone interested Another GC employment tribunal. Roz Adams vs Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre #2 www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4988632-another-gc-employment-tribunal-roz-adams-vs-edinburgh-rape-crisis-centre-2

Because it is personal information. Share it if you want, but if you don't want to it is no one else's business.

'Someone believing in the existence of god doesn't directly impact the child in any way'

It does if they talk about their god or bring their religious beliefs into the classroom even vaguely and tangentially. It normalises what to many of us seem a bizarre set of beliefs that only make sense in a historical and now irrelevant context. A teacher is an authority figure and young children are impressionable. The mere fact that they let it be known that they are believers may normalise a sexist or factional pov (Northern Ireland, anyone?)

Well maybe we're at cross purposes, although I don't think so.

If you say son and daughter instead of children, the only extra knowledge is the sex of those people. It doesn't give you any more information about them.

But the reason why it sometimes important to know, is because of risk assessment.

Obscuring sex, especially with children, is a risk. And telling children that someone doesn't have a sex is obscuring their sex.

It's crazy that you're worried about being honest. The teacher has a sex. They were born that sex and will remain that sex whatever silly word games they make people play.

This.

And it absolutely does matter that parents know what sex the teacher is from a safeguarding perspective.

It's not "personal information".

And you were suggesting that it's making a statement about "gender" by mentioning someone's sex, but now you're saying it's about privacy of "personal information"?

Quite. It's how we know which children can be supervised by which adult in changing rooms, and on overnight school trips.

Because it is personal information. Share it if you want, but if you don't want to it is no one else's business.

But every time you go out in public you share the information of your sex with the world. This is not something you can keep secret. Your gait, your hand and foot size, your hip width, the bones of your skull and face — these things are immediately obvious because they are all sex-determined.

I’m pretty sure students have to be recorded by sex for safeguarding reasons

I can’t see that adults are less of a risk wrt safeguarding

Obviously more so given their status and age

I'd like to reiterate what @LonginesPrime to say uptherad about how to talk your child. Yes children will repeat what you say, and yes they will repeat the most obvious bits so avoid words like "silly".

Posibly off-topic for non-binary but one thing I would not mention at all is doctors. Hinting that a doctor could tranform you from a boy to a woman, or from a girl to a man, is dangerous. If you mention doctors then children assume "oh the doctor can fix it". Children don't know the dangers of surgical and hormone interventions (sterility, repeated surgeries, long term illness and ill health, shortened lifespan, dire effects on sexual function) Or how poorly these constructed organs actually work compared to natural. And kids aren't ready to hear that stuff.

If your child starts asking about doctors then maybe you could say something along the lines of "doctors can make someone look more like a boy or a girl but they can't really change anyone's sex". And answer questions. But I wouldn't bring it up.

Holly, I don't think you've thought this through.

Would you not want to know the sex of the people who were supervising showering on an overnight trip with your daughter?

'It should be up to the individual if they want to go into detail about their siblings'

Nearly all post pubescent human's sex is observable, regardless of their gender expression. Humans carry a 'blue print' of hundreds of 'tells' that we don't give conscious attention to (eg gate, shape of skull, size and shape of hands). It is nonsense to say that it is up to individuals to declare this, otherwise it is unknown. It is like saying we should not conclude someone has one leg or is hearing or sight impaired unless they tell us.

Sex is not subjective and it isn't an identity - it reflects the material difference between 2 types of humans that keeps the species alive. It isn't something people can opt in to or out of. The fact that our fucked up society operates with oppressive notions of femininity and masculinity that are seen as being linked to sex, does not mean that sex is the problem. It's not, gender is the problem and saying someone is non binary is, in my view, part of that problem.

I don't want to hurt or upset an individual who believes they are non binary, I do want to push back on gender ideology that their identity is built upon.

I never said it's about making a statement. It is no one's business what gender or sex your siblings or children are. If you want to share that, then go ahead.

And if I want to mention someone else's sex that is fine too, because it's not personal or private information and it tells me nothing about them as a person beyond their physical sex.

You can do what you want.

So when your daughter goes on an overnight school trip, you refuse to let her sex determine where she sleeps? Because it's no one's business what sex she is?

Keeping Children Safe in Education - statutory safeguarding guidance for schools. Look up the definition of emotional abuse. Consider whether the confusion that is occurring for children due to introduction of non age appropriate concepts and possibly using the children for validation falls within this definition.

Sorry in a rush or would link it, will be back later.

It's a safeguarding issue confusing children about biological sex and reality.

HollyKnight

Peoples sex doesn't matter for great swathes of the time. Who does the shopping, the cooking, who works, what restaurant you pick, what clothes you wear.

Basically what roles you fulfil and what expectations society has. Your sex is irrelevant.

unless it's about biology, like giving birth or breastfeeding. Only women can do that.

Or if it's about risk assessment.

The fact is that sex crimes are committed 98% of the time by males. Violent crime is 90% by males. So we have to take that into account, in terms of privacy, dignity safety and risk. Especially with children.

Sometimes sex is important. And therefore, it's a risk to teach children not to recognise it. Or that it's rude to recognise it.

It isn't. It's safeguarding.

Well, I haven't conducted genital checks on her teachers or classmates so far, so I wouldn't know for sure who is watching over her or sharing a dorm with her anyway. I can only trust that the school has done everything in its power to keep her safe.

Adults have the right to play with theories and ideas about gender as much as they want in their adult circles and in such realms such as gender studies or the arts.

safeguarding is incompatible with theories and ideas, it needs concrete and explicit and based in law, evidence and reality.

I can only trust that the school has done everything in its power to keep her safe.

That power is the laws around safeguarding and single sex care.

So yes, sex matters.

In some contexts it is easy to use singular they/them. That desn't mean it's always easy to always use they/them. Often they/them is very confusing.

I know this from experience because my DC uses singular they/them/their for everyone and has done so for years (since getting in trouble for misgendering another child at school) The shift from singular to plural and back is massively confusing, I have to check in whether DC is talking about everyone in the group or just one individual, and sometimes I realise have misunderstood a whole conversation and unpicking it is slow and painful.

Tyring to remember what pronouns people want is also a headache. I have mild aphasia and trying to remember preferred pronouns makes my aphasia worse.

I wouldn't object to introducing a single gender-neutral pronoun that just replaces he/she (etc) for everyone. No more special people.

But only being born male or female isn't true is it... There's a huge amount of biologically intersex people, apparently about the same amount as natural redheads. My eldest DD's close childhood friend was assigned female at birth and presents as female but actually has mixed genitalia. She is infertile because of this as she has both part male testes and part female ovaries. This is real, I know this first hand and this isn't a thing she is choosing and she knew nothing until her periods didn't start properly. Her parents did know but never discussed it with her. I knew this child for years before I knew this was her situation. I will say again I do not understand why you think addressing someone as they identify is such a problem. Children are not having to support people with poor mental health because they are asked to address them as they/them. It's just that way for some people and it will increase your child's understanding that there are lots of different shades of life and all are valid and choices you can make if that is how you feel in yourself. Trans people are not less than they are different to me that's all. My identity is not superior because it is settled, obvious and standardised. I am not trying to goad anyone but all these people have a right to exist equally and I will always make the effort to be inclusive.

In this case the child does know the sex of the teacher as she can see and hear what sex the teacher is with her own eyes and ears. She is being gaslit into being told that what she knows is wrong, even though it isn't. That's really, really, really fucked up. Plain as. A developing child is being taught be someone in a position of authority not to trust her own senses in a situation where her senses are almost certainly correct. It's a form of abuse.

Noticing things is not rude, nor is it a sign of prejudice. If human beings uniquely amongst all life forms didn't notice things about our surroundings and if we hadn't become experts in pattern recognition and able to correctly sex sexually mature members of our species, homo sapiens would have died out long ago.

We often treat people differently because of differences we notice about them. This is discrimination and that isn't always bad. We stop a toddler running into the road because we know they're not old enough to judge risk. We offer a seat on the bus to heavily pregnant women or people with disabilities or very elderly frail people. Tall people reach things down from high shelves for smaller people.

Where discrimination becomes a problem is if we treat someone less favourably because of some characteristic they have, e.g. decades ago girls didn't get to study woodwork or Physics at school; landlords could put up signs saying No Blacks and no Irish; gay men and lesbians were sacked from jobs if their sexual orientation was discovered.

It's strange to have to spell this out in noddy terms in 2024, but it does seem to be a source of confusion.