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.

For some people that might be the difference between non-binary and trans, but for other people it is not. Teen Vogue has recently featured a model who has expressed her "non-binary" identity by getting her breasts cut off. She clearly wants very much to be defined by her non-binary gender.

It's also true that for some people "non-binary" - and in fact "trans" as well - originally stems from a wish not to be defined by a given gender. But for most people the wish not be defined by gender is best expressed by accepting the sex you are and then fighting back against other people's expectations of that sex. Without needing to re-label yourself.

You are quite right that sex isn't important most of the time but when sex is important it is more important than gender. Compare "can I sleep over with Jane and their siblings" versus "can I sleep over with Jane and her brothers".

I think it's clear that Holly doesn't have a good understanding of safeguarding processes in schools and the need for them.

I expect Holly grossly underestimates the safeguarding issues schools have to deal with and how there is a constant game of whack a mole in keeping those who present a risk to vulnerable groups away from vulnerable groups.

I can only imagine that those who willingly brush over or mimic these issue have been very fortunate not to encounter the dark side of society that lead to safeguarding practices constantly having to be revised and updated due to predatory and dangerous people having navigated previous iterations.

Serious case reviews, time and time again, show that people overlook and don't see what is screamingly obvious because it's too ugly/upsetting/horrific to process. I expect something like this is at play on this thread

People with intersex conditions have a diversity of views and identities, the same as anyone else. You’re trying to suggest everyone thinks the same thing, which is obviously not true. Some of them identify as intersex, some of them don’t. See this recent interview with an intersex person at the Boston Museum of Science, for example:

They don't sit in changing rooms, but they do have to supervise, being in earshot, going in if there's a problem. And some children with physical disabilities may have an adult assigned to them to help them change for PE. So which changing room should this "non binary" teacher be assigned to?

That's why I mentioned if it is necessary. So at 9 they probably all get changed in the classroom, well they did at the school I volunteered at, didn't matter if the teacher was male or female. No one got stripped off, pants and vests are fine at that age. If it is overnight trips then the school needs to manage that, I think it is rare that they would be away overnight with only one teacher so I don't think the school would have much of a problem. What is more of a problem is primary schools without any male teachers so boys likely to be supervised by someone of the opposite sex.

This.

Say you think her teacher is lovely but wrong about certain things and it's ok to do this.

Say what you believe and say what she believes and say why you think the teacher isn't helping girls.

But also say we have to be respectful of other people's beliefs so we can't just go 'but you are wrong'.

Yr4 is a an ok time to start saying things like this in my honest opinion.

Don't pander to the shit.

This is how I would handle it too.

We are ALLOWED to have different beliefs - religious and political.

We are ALLOWED to express this and be honest. This is called free speech.

What we should not do is harass others for their beliefs or be nasty to them. Even if they are total and utter bellends.

The eyeroll serves aj essential purpose in life.

Yes, it really is. People with DSDs are still male or female. There’s no third sex. People with DSDs make up a tiny fraction of a percent of people. Stop othering them with your crap. I have a person with a DSD close to me and they are extremely fucking fed up and embarrassed by this garbage.

People with DSDs are nothing to do with trans people.

I really hope this teacher isn't compelling non standard pronouns. As well as making all the children's English education confusing, that could be discriminating against several protected characteristics

Using non standard pronouns is hard for everyone but particularly children and particularly children with SEND. I note the many many court cases where even the strongest trans allies constantly slip into using sex based pronouns.

Personally I'd say compelled non standard pronoun use from an adult in power onto a child is a breach of safeguarding as defined in kcsie.

The teacher isn't saying they are trans, wanting to be non binary does not mean you are trans.

Honestly, just put the link back in between the science part and the psychology part.

Get her a good kids’ text book that shows the physical differences between men and women - inside and outside. Then make a diagram for her. Trace round the man and women and label it ´physical sex differences’ or biological sex differences. Then add in the old school definition of gender - the societal expectations about how men and women behave and how they should behave. Get her to list all the gender expectations and stereotypes she has heard, even if she personally believes they are rubbish. So now you have sex and gender on your diagram. Ask her how she feels about all the gender stuff. Probably she doesn’t like a lot of it. Or she feels guilty for liking some ´girly’ things because it’s looked down upon by boys. Then explain that some people feel good about their sex and the gender expectations that go with it. But lots of people don’t. And those people who don’t react in two ways. Either the gender expectations are the issue and should change or be ignored. Or the gender expectations make them feel like their bodies and sex are wrong and they wish they could swap sex or opt out altogether. People who feel like their bodies are wrong might feel strongly that they have a gender identity - draw it up near the head - which is like a feeling about how you want to see yourself in terms of sex and gender and also how you want others to see you. So then you can put examples of real people back in. You are a women (sex) who thinks some of the things society expects women to do/like (gender) are silly or not fair and so you ignore those expectations and do what you want. You don’t have a gender identity because you deal with gender by deciding gender stereotypes are the problem. Trans/non binary people deal with gender stereotypes by deciding they are the problem and create a gender identity for themselves to distance themselves from their sex.
So gender identity isn’t ‘made up’, but it is psychological, not everyone needs one, and it doesn’t change your sex.
Plus you can add in specific things for how she should behave with her teacher. - She should be polite and use the pronouns her teacher wants. She should avoid asking her questions about whether she’s really a girl etc. Her teacher’s gender identity has absolutely nothing to do with her own (your daughter’s) sex and how she feels about gender expectations herself.

Tell that to Stonewall. https://www.stonewall.org.uk/list-lgbtq-terms

Ultimately I'd frame it as the teachers religious belief.

Done that way it's fine. We don't need to share religious beliefs.

For goodness sake, you re an adult woman presumably, you can't seriously think that the way we conduct safeguarding is guesswork.

Dear lord.

Once you’ve got the diagram going you can use it to answer questions that are likely to come up about : Disorders of sexual development (formerly known as intersex, and the even older and no longer considered accurate term ´hermaphrodite’ might come up too), + homosexuality (you can put heterosexual relationships as part of gender expectations and then put sexual attraction as part of biological reality. Then it’s easier to explain that sometimes if people are attracted to other people of the same sex that makes another thing that can make them upset about their bodies and gender expectations and so it can contribute to gender identity but not for everyone and not in the same way for everyone).

The problem here, which makes it a little bit different to religious beliefs, is that a person's belief they are 'non binary' requires audience participation to uphold it. In this situation the audience is primarily small children that the teacher has a duty of care towards.

What are the consequences here for children who forget or don't play along and call the teacher Miss/Mr/She/He instead of Mx/They/Them?

Children should not be gaslit in educational settings, told to reject the evidence or their own eyes or abandon any critical thought skills they are developing.

Teachers, especially those who teach very young children, should be acutely aware of the stages of child development and should be motivated to put the children in their care first during working hours not utilise them as a means of self validation.

Straight is also under the umbrella.

Also if you have the biology textbook you can explain that sometimes gender dysphoric people get drs to help them change how their body looks on the outside but that it doesn’t change how it works on the inside. So even if a man becomes a transwoman he can’t make eggs and can’t get pregnant with a baby and if a woman becomes a transman she will never make sperm and can’t become a father. Or a transman can grow a beard with drugs but it won’t make them grow taller.

I would describe the bulk of trans people as straight tbh. Men who identify as women, whilst remaining attracted to women are heterosexual.

Stonewall, on the other hand, could describe two men having sex as lesbians.

@Datun "Garam's paradox"

Lol. Nice throwback from early MN resistance there!

I recall how many of us got deletions and warnings on the back of that thread.

Haha, yes indeed!

And I don't even think non-binary was much of a thing back then.

Not sure how we'd have fitted that in to be honest 😆

You're ticking off every single bonkers statement that TRAs feed gullible people like you.

There are only two sexes. Come on! Look around you. Who have you ever seen that's not male or female?? And that includes people with DSDs. For example, Caster Semenya is male with a DSD that only affects men.

And there are NOT a 'huge number' of people with DSDs - don't be so silly!! About 0.018% of people are born with a DSD.

Please, please educate yourself in this and don't go around believing everything you're told.

Dr Stock's Material Girls is a good book to start with.