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.

Thank you

This 100%.

Exactly @Rightsraptor

Non binary is a style/ trend but does have safeguarding implications for girls (elective mastectomies, blurred boundaries around sex divisions, males who claim to not be male.)

How far does this go?

New teacher arrives. Teacher is female and 5'2" and talks a lot about how difficult it is to be tall.

Teacher is the child of two white parents and by every possible objective measure is white herself, but has decided to identify as Black British.

Teacher uses a wheelchair by choice, in spite of having no disability necessitating it.

Teacher identifies as being 25 years old, but teacher's birth certificate says born in 1970.

Teacher believes herself to be overweight but objectively is actually severely underweight.

The vast majority of us would agree that in all the examples given above the teacher has lost touch with objective reality and the children and their colleagues should not be expected to tell lies to avoid giving offence. Truth matters. Learning to deal with life even when it's not how you want it to be is an absolutely essential life skill.

Why is it different if someone refuses to be identified as the sex they perfectly obviously are? How is it polite and respectful to go along with this? Why don't the children's needs count for anything? Schools don't exist to validate teachers, they exist to provide the children with an education.

I'm also concerned about the implications for how they'll teach human biology in science as it goes into quite a lot of detail around human development and the sexes.

There are some good examples of what you can say above.

My DDs school taught them about gender and LGBTQ+ quite young - maybe in year 3.

She came home with many questions and I was honest. Biologically you are born a boy or a girl and your gender does not define your whole being (I’m sure I said it in an age appropriate way - such as you can be whoever you want as a girl but you do not have to change into a boy. But some people don’t want to be and they might get help from the doctors).

As she got older (year 5/6) she had questions from a different perspective. Again, I compared changing gender to someone deciding to have plastic surgery as the conversation became more about outward appearances. Plus mental health and it coming from a sadness of feeling that you are in the wrong body - which this generation are so aware of at a young age.

Overall I think it’s unfair to expose children to thoughts and ideologies they are probably not thinking about - especially when it’s so closely linked to sexuality. I think honesty is the best route and linking it back to your values is the best way to go.

Plus mental health and it coming from a sadness of feeling that you are in the wrong body - which this generation are so aware of at a young age.

I find this so insanely offensive from the point of view of anyone with a disability.

This is how this (in our experience) will go.

> they will have extra LGBTQ+ lessons as the teacher will try to ensure an LBGTQ+ inclusive environment

> some will be done by incompetent external providers and not age appropriate.

> some people will complain - and be flagged as problematic by the school as they are unkind.

> other parents will be unaware

> as science starts, they will learn reproduction. This will be completely de-linked from any LGBTQ+ teaching.

> many children will be uncomfortable, some will not be able to talk to their parents about it

> some will google “reproduction” and transgender / same sex (as they are too uncomfortable to speak to their parents and the disconnect between PHSE and science is complete) - they will get “interesting” results and even more uncomfortable

> by year 7, the boys will be rejecting the entire LGBTQ+ community, make homophobic jokes and “accidentally” misgender the teacher. Possibly as a payback for the initial confusion.

> science lessons will be littered with what the boys identify as and requests to make any talk of reproduction it relevant to them.

> parents are desperately fighting a losing battle against homophobia and misogyny

It's also a victim mentality which seems to be a growing issue amongst young people.

Some are desperately seeking diagnoses rather than learn skills to deal with life's daily problems.

Obviously there's a line at which a diagnosis is absolutely necessary but I'm too aware of young girls desperately wanting to get a diagnosis of something in order to validate what's actually very normal miserable puberty angst. Sometimes a diagnosis doesn't really do anything at all, it's the way you're supported but also supported to be gradually more independent in dealing with problems you encounter.

Unfortunately with some mental health issues it can spiral to much more serious realms if the problem solving techniques are self harm and damaging- often contagious behaviour especially amongst girls, eg bulimia.

(This is a very board brush comment as I'm well aware many children are not getting the proper diagnosis they need.)

(I also say this as someone who wasn't diagnosed for long periods of time with 3 specific physical illnesses and was thrown antidepressants instead.)

Agreed in spades.

But by saying this you have already bought into people having a gender identity - that they "feel" like a man or woman rather than being born one. So the argument, so to speak, is already lost.

I would just say that some people don't feel like a boy or girl so they refer to themselves as non-binary.

It's also quite sexist. As it nods towards sexist stereotypes of boys and girls.

Can someone, anyone, can give me even one example, with every word in the English language at their disposal, of the sort of feeling a boy could have that means he's actually a girl?

The sexist stereotypes is an issue

There’s no reason we can’t model a good range of how we are and what we do to children whilst not falsifying basic and fundamental facts

Being NB isn't the same as gender reassignment. So it's not a PC.

So let's be clear here. Should non-binary people to be banned from teaching? Is that the result that many on here are looking for?

Yep or in the case of NB - feeling which is neither male or female

@Bigwelshlamb - The suicide rate amongst trans people is astonishingly high

Is it? What evidence do you have?

Of course not but just as I wouldn’t expect a teacher who was an evangelical Christian to use the classroom to proselyse, I would expect a NB teacher to keep their religion out of the classroom

If men can have babies then why with the recent case of that poor little hour old mite being abandoned, were they only looking for a woman/the mother?

My son had a non-binary teacher who had the surname Schnitzel - try saying that with Mx at the beginning!! Poor kids would then get a behaviour point for accidently calling her Miss. Mental. She didnt last....

Firstly, everyone is non binary. The teaching world is awash with people who fit this definition.

Second, no, people who claim a special “non-binary” identity should not be banned from teaching.

But they should be banned from teaching gender ideology to children. And demanding to be called “they” is attempting to teach gender ideology to children.