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.

If a female is so wretchedly unhappy about her femaleness and having female body parts and reproductive system that she can't cope with any manifestation of a little girl's femaleness, she should be nowhere near a school or any other job necessitating looking after children. She is going to mess those children up. Plenty of other jobs she can do where it wouldn't be an issue.

Telling 8yo that some people will kill themselves if they don't believe something patently untrue about them is abusive.

Teaching 8yo to disregard all their senses on the sex of adults with authority over them is red flag borderline abusive.

Telling 8yo that there is a binary based on stereotypes which is completely unevidenced and yet results in harmful medicalisation and surgeries for some who don't fit the stereotypes is...abusive.

The HT and governors can employ who they like but comparing this to hair covering is just silly. Kids understanding Muslims like to cover their hair is in no way comparable to an ideology which is resulting in teenagers having healthy breasts sliced away. This woman can identify as a doorknob if she likes but shouldn't be telling any impressionable child they can be an inanimate object if that's how they 'feel'. Harmful beliefs have no place in schools, and people who think they do should not have any authority around children ever.

You got it right there.

Yes agree with all that and the better analogy is below, enforcement of religious ideas and practises

@1982mommaof4

Just in case this is a massive coincidence.

Does your DD attend M school in B city? And the 'teacher' is similar to Mx Sausage, so sounds like McSausage?

If this is the case, please message me. I have had a long and arduous battle with the school to date (see my past threads on the No Outsiders posters and the captured DepHead).

If this is the same school, the 'teacher' is actually a HTLA, being used for planned weeks of cover.

Nailed it early on

Not not the same but thank you will look at your past threads!

McSausage would be a great name though.

It was as close to the right sound as I could think of. I spent a term thinking my DD had a phonics teacher that she only called by his surname, no title at all.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I think Hoover was trying to be tactful and not be deleted and is ultimately in agreement with me but I too had a visceral reaction to thinking about a Trans man's needs over those of a child in this context.

@1982mommaof4 , @Vebrithien's threads are excellent and definitely worth a read. She's a total hero

There is some mixed info above re gender reassignment as a protected characteristic. It's not the destination (male or female) that is protected i.e. when someone identifies as the opposite sex, it doesn't mean that their "new identity" is protected. It means that a man who identifes as a woman should be treated no less favourably than a man who doesn't. And a woman who identifes as a man should be treated no less favourably than a woman who doesn't. It applies to any stage in a "gender reassignment" journey, so in theory identifying as "non-binary" could be part of a journey from identifying as a woman to identifying as a man as far as the PC goes.

Re the issue at hand, I'd personally approach it in two ways:

1. your daughter: "Some people believe in God. Some people believe in Allah. Some people believe the world is flat. Lots of people believe lots of different things. It's OK not to believe the same thing as other people. I believe your teacher is a woman/man because I believe that there are two sexes: male and female. Your teacher believes something different. I don't want to make your teacher unhappy but I'm not going to change what I believe." I'd probably then throw in some easy examples of the differences between men and women like sport or how babies are made.

2. the school: in your meeting with them, it might be helpful to talk about the new draft government guidance for schools. It's a good opener to ask how they will support two different beliefs. The guidance makes it clear that not everyone believes that we all have a gender identity. Your daughter's teacher believes that people do, but many people don't believe that such a thing exists. I'd be asking the school what they will be putting in place to make sure that this teacher's belief isn't positioned as factually true in the same way as they would with any other belief. It's fine to acknowledge that people have different beliefs. It's even fine to explain that some people may feel upset or confused that others don't have the same beliefs as them. But a school enforcing a belief as a truth (e.g. forcing children to use preferred pronouns) is unacceptable. To follow the pronouns example, the school will need to have a sensible plan that the children can follow when they don't want to use this teacher's preferred pronouns. Without such a plan, the children are likely to take the path of least resistance and accept the teacher's preferred pronouns so that they are being "kind". It's really important that the school recognises this as a coercion to accept the teacher's belief as a truth. Given the teacher won't even be there to hear themselves being spoken about in the third person by the children, it should be easy to accommodate the alternative (legally protected) belief that there are two sexes and that they are immutable. The other staff at the school would also benefit from such a plan, considering some/many of them may not have a belief in gender identity.

Yes, I've been so cross I've been responding to posts as I've read them, rather than reading the whole thread first, as I generally try to. Visceral is the word!

Op do you refer to your dc’s teacher as he or she or have you not used anything yet

Just to add to @BonfireLady's post, in a classroom pronouns are used quite often in the presence of a individual. Eg, children analysing / discussing something "No she (the teacher) said you do it this way" "I don't think that's what she means when she said...." etc

Children learn best when they're relaxed and able to freely think and discuss. Imposing an irrational fake reality on children does nothing to create an effective learning environment for them. Imposing the use of pronouns that defy reality on young children works against their learning. It's also incredibly detrimental to those with learning disabilities, a variety of SEN & English as an additional language.

The visceral reaction is in part due to people like Liv Hewson. See Twitter thread below.

The school needs to be aware of these women.

They seem to think there's no harm done with this trend, mainly as they think it's a woman being non conforming.

x.com/redheadranting/status/1748709558074159195?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

I think it’s distressing for children to be told by an adult that they must remember to alter language for a non fact based ideology

It’s not something I could back up so there would be a problem with the disconnect with what I say as fact and another adult in a position of authority

I think the issue is one of belief and the concerns arise (in both directions) as to how to navigate different beliefs.

With religion - I think most people find it acceptable to say, I respect your belief in X[insert name of relevant deity] but I don't believe in X.

If we make the comparison with gender identity - I accept that you believe you are a man/make/ woman/female/neither but I don't believe that, I think less people find this acceptable. I guess this is because they think it more personal, but I disagree. For many religious people, it is painful to hear others say their God is not real. Especially those form less individualistic cultures where there is more homogeneity of beliefs.

I don't think within western cultures societies expect others to uphold the religious practices of others (e.g saying 'peace be upon him' after mentioning a profit), yet there seems to be tension about whether to do this with chosen pronouns. I am curious as to why this is.

Hopefully the craze for pretending anyone can opt out of being the sex they are will soon pass as it’s so utterly illogical.

This. As I've said before it would pass in a matter of weeks if too many of the wrong sort of people started identifying as "non binary". It's easy to do, it requires zero commitment, no need to change pronouns even.

And meanwhile, in class.

'yes miss. I mean mx' 'miss, whoops I mean Mx Jones said she wanted us to use the bus stop method. Oops sorry, I mean miss, sorry mx jones said THEY wanted us to use the bus stop method'.

I am curious as to why this is.

It's a direct lie enforced to children about sexed bodies which matters because sex matters in medicine, safeguarding and law. It impacts them.

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

It applies to any stage in a "gender reassignment" journey, so in theory identifying as "non-binary" could be part of a journey from identifying as a woman to identifying as a man as far as the PC goes.

There is no reason to assume that a woman "non binary" will eventually result in her identifying as a man, any more than it will result in her going back to identifying as her sex. It depends on the circumstances. Lots of people claim to have no "gender" or multiple "genders". Claiming to have no "gender" or both "genders" is not covered in the PC of gender reassignment in the EA. That is binary, as is the Gender Recognition Act.

Good point!

This school has a difficult path to tread here but their plan needs to be robust enough to take this key point in to consideration. Children's learning could easily be disrupted by a disproportionate amount of their cognitive thinking being diverted to supporting this teacher's belief. (Putting in brackets so that it's not a derail: I've got a list of notes that I'll be discussing with my daughters' secondary school as they've asked me to work with them on how they put the guidance in place once it comes in. I shall add this to my list WRT the SEN children there, as it's got even more of an impact when it's the teacher than it does when it's another student).

It's why the Californian who chose to move here and try to import California law, lost the JR this week.