7 year old pronouns

[BeechLeaves]

A year old child in my child’s school has started to use they/them pronouns. I won’t go into the details of the child just to protect their confidentiality and be respectful.

However, I would like to know what I could or should say to my child about this. Our children aren’t in the same class, it’s two form entry. Parents and school and both fully on board.

I posted previously on a diff channel because I couldn’t access this one to start with.

I’m actually feeling a bit overwhelmed now. I don’t know why. It’s also all going on at my work too, quite a few they/them identifiers in my office. Almost everyone except me has pronouns on emails. If I say the wrong pronoun for someone accidentally then I get corrected, even if that person isn’t around. They want to get stonewall in. And have said that they might get a woman or ‘someone who identifies as a woman’ in to talk on international women’s day.

Plus there’s a few they/them in one of the clubs I go to. I’ve been corrected there too for using the wrong pronoun.

I feel totally surrounded by people who have no idea about this big secret I have. Like I’m an evil person or something. Luckily my husband and one friend knows what I really think. I am trying to start to slowly question things. I need a new ID badge printed and I’m going to ask them to take my pronouns off. They were put on there without me asking or knowing. I sit next to someone who is they/them and so didn’t feel able to challenge it at the time, I’ve only just started the job.

I love to go to women’s events but can’t find many that don’t state that they’re inclusive of all women.

That was an essay, thanks for listening and helping. I’m going to think about next steps with the school. I think that’s a better way than with the parent.

💐- don't worry most people feel the same as you, they're just too scared to say so in this new McCarthyist era of right think. It's basically bullying, you're being bullied in a particularly insidious way that involves redefining basic words and language in a coercively controlling way, that's why you're feeling overwhelmed.

Thanks to very brave women like Maya, Jo, Allison, Rachel, Denise, and Roz and many more to come we now know that you very definitely have the law on your side. Take courage from that.

I think what’s so hard is that it’s almost all of my peers/friends/colleagues think one way. And I know that they think it because they’re nice people and just haven’t properly thought it through.

I’m genuinely amazed at the women who have taken this on at work. Because it’s not just taking on an employer, it’s potentially blowing apart your whole social circle too and that is not easy at all.

The DfE guidance is in draft form, and leaked documents suggest that there is a high likelihood of legal challenge. It's a mess, and it's drafted by someone who doesn't understand and conflates safeguarding requirements and the EqA. I wouldn't rely on it.

https://schoolsweek.co.uk/trans-guidance-dfe-lawyers-said-schools-face-high-risk-of-being-sued/

💐💐💐💐💐
Sending huge hugs. I am still overwhelmed at times and I've been liaising with the school for well over a year. I've also raised and discussed it via whistleblowing at work (after the policy was corrected to be lawful re sex as a protected characteristic, the training about gender identity is still being rolled out but I'm not currently pushing it as school is my priority). It's one of the most difficult things I've ever been involved in and I've been so grateful to everyone on MN for the conversations, the insights, even the pushback and the uncomfortable moments (because it helps to show me the bigger picture). The sanity-saving part for me has been thinking of it as a belief. Asking myself: how would I handle it if I were talking to a Christian and I was being forced to declare Jesus was the son of god, or to say prayers in a restaurant before I was allowed to eat my food? Would I go right in there and say 'God doesn't exist, you're wrong" or would I find an approach that acknowledged the difference in beliefs, while still raising the alarm about the harms? Hold on to whatever approach keeps you sane!

I find it helpful to remember that these people are in the main terrified. This ideology has been promoted by fear and intimidation with women being a particular target to ensure compliance. From the first uttering of #nodebate, the deliberate misuse of suicide stats, the mangling of language everywhere especially the language of women, the bullying has escalated. Disappointingly so many powerful men use it as an opportunity to display their misogynistic tendencies. The Bully Braggs, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Michael Cashman, David Lammy, countless men on sports governing bodies, in the NHS etc have indulged themselves like sniggering schoolboys with opportunities to intimidate and smear women with aggressive language - bigot, terf etc. It's been so disappointing to see - and is why I now take great pleasure from seeing the vast numbers of men finally understanding how important it is speak out.

Never forget that there are some very regressive men around who will smear safeguarding as "right wing bigotry" and are determined that the new guidelines with their focus on safeguarding all children must fail:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4954762-pushing-back-against-safeguarding

Yes, there's quite a PR spin going on to push the idea that it's highly likely to face legal challenge and fail.
Luckily, there are plenty of other voices just about breaking through the TRA noise which are pointing out that the majority of the guidance is either based on existing laws or is based on points that are in line with existing laws.

There was a tweet which laid out the 3 potential challenges, which would have resulted in minor amendments if upheld. Not re-writing of the entire guidance. There's a thread where all of this is discussed in much more detail. I'll see if I can dig it out.

TL:DR the TRAs are putting in a lot of effort on spin. So far, sanity seems to be prevailing.

Their difficulty for the queer theory enthusiasts is that objecting to the guidelines forces them to say all the quiet bits out loud. That an adult ideology takes precedence over children's wellbeing. That schools must be places where a political ideology is allowed to run riot. That children are there to be gaslit by any passing adult with an interest in queer theory. And that children are not entitled to protection from an age inappropriate ideology

Conflating adults with children is a feature not a bug as it enables trans activists to derail and ignore safeguarding. We must insist that the issue of children's safety is addressed. Children are not mini adults.

What I also find galling is how places, eg Bristol Rape Crisis (SARSAS) say that they’re trauma informed and then only have mixed sex groups. Places that are in the main run by women. Why don’t women see that this is nuts and so so far from trauma-informed? I feel like writing to them to ask the question. Has no one learnt anything about the lengths men will go to to access vulnerable women/children.

It’s a bit like if I have to have an enhance DBS. I don’t get all pissed off because it might imply I’m a criminal. I’m just glad DBSs exist so that it’s a deterrent. Single sex spaces are another deterrent to the creeps out there. And now they don’t exist.

Anyway I’ve strayed off my initial post.

Michael Foran tweeted extensively about this and it's BS.

Schools Week isn't exactly a hotbed of trans activism and Foran clearly hasn't read all the lawyers' remarks in that article.

What is absolutely uncontested is that this is draft guidance, and does not yet apply. The chances are that this will not be implemented before the next election and rewritten or abandoned by Labour.

There is, I suppose, a difference between "the guidance might be unlawful" and "the most contentious elements of the guidance might be unlawful". If you had some dosage instructions for some pills and you were warned "don't worry - only some of them are wrong" and you followed them anyway, you'd be Michael Foran.

Foran does say "Theres[sic] no general duty to permit social transition" and "primary schools should not permit a deviation from sex-based pronouns" are examples, which are pretty much the core of what this issue is about. He also neglects to mention that a vital reference to indirect discrimination has been removed and says there are only three issues, when there are more. I guess he's not read this article.

Given the chance to correct them, with a 70% chance of legal challenge succeeding, they chose not to change them. Combining that with the conflation of EqA protections and safeguarding concerns makes the whole thing a hot mess.

Toys exiting pram moment there

<picks up a Sophie giraffe>

I can't find my thread on schools guidelines but I linked it in there. He and others responded directly to that schools week article.

It was mostly around normal legal stuff iirc, as in, lawyers always warn that all guidelines that are proposed can expect legal challenges. It's a warning, It doesn't mean it's actually happening.

As per current law, outside these proposed guidelines, there is no self id for diagnosis for GD, and children cannot legally transition. so schools and others are under no obligation to use pronouns.

The proposed guidelines are simply a reminder of what the law already is, such as single sex loos, and raise some safeguarding questions for schools to consider.

They're going to be brought in.

Labour Ed sec welcomed them too.

'They' isn't just a plural pronoun. You must know this. It's been used to refer to a person when you don't know their sex since Shakespeare's time.

The 7yo is clearly identifying as non-binary, so has asked to be called they.

@hellsBells246 why do you assume that no one knows the sex of this child?

??? Of course people at the school will know the sex of the child. I was explaining the history of singular 'they' to the pp.

There was no need to explain that. People are generally aware that "they" can be used to refer to someone whose sex is not known. But that's not the situation here, is it? The teachers and many children will know what sex this child is and are being asked to pretend that they don't.

I know of a handful of children with ehpcs that currently have it included that they do not have to participate in lessons about gender identity/ ideology nor will be forced to use incorrect pronouns (particularly as it's sometimes taken them longer to learn appropriately sexed pronouns in the first place) and I would urge parents of children with sp and Lang difficulties to consider doing the same.

I think the guidelines will still be non statutory but an EHPC is statutory.

For children with speech and language difficulties it's going to be an exclusionary nightmare of more kids demand they them pronouns.