Trans pupils and dorms in France

[LaChatte]

I live (and teach) in France and so far haven't really been confronted with any situation which has actually bothered me. DD is 14 and will be boarding as of next year, we've been visiting schools and one of the dorms was decorated (by the pupils) with trans flags (which is fine obviously). I thought I'd ask what their trans policy was. Turns out kids are allowed to to be housed in the dorms that align with their gender identity and the parents of the other kids don't even need to be informed. I'm not thrilled to say the least. I have no idea where to go from here. DD has to board, I don't want her to be ostracised or perceived as having transphobic parents but I do NOT want her sharing a room with a male for the next three years.
Not sure what the point of this thread is, maybe I just need to air my concerns here as I probably shouldn't IRL.

I would not be happy about this. The school has a statutory and legal responsibility to keep your child safe. Sharing a dorm with a male with a penis risks her safety.
You could enquire about their safeguarding policy and if it is missing a section on female pupils sharing intimate spaces with biological males I wound query this. You could also ask to see their risk assessment. If they don’t have these things you have every right to expect them to get them in place pronto.

Yeah we don't have all that stuff here! I checked on the official (national government) website and that's the actually stance they have, pupils to be housed where they want basically. The showers are individual boxes in a big bathroom.

Well they’ll be going through puberty now so it’ll be blindingly obvious who’s a real girl and who isn’t. So if DD suspects a dormmate is a boy masquerading as female she needs to ask to move. If you aren’t brave enough to say why then make up another reason. I’d have no qualms about telling them why though. Presumably there’s every chance she’ll be playing sports and expected to change infront of boys too if they want to play dress up. Yeah, I’d not be giving them my money tbh.

DS who boarded last year has just told me there was a gay trans boy in his dorm. He didn't say anything to us at the time but he's just said it was really awkward.

OP if your daughter has to board and that's the policy and you don't want to protest or be seen as "anti trans', pretty much the only thing you can do is make sure your daughter has very strong boundaries about people seeing her body and various kinds of sexual contact, whatever the gender identity of those around her

Not easy, I would imagine, what with peer pressure and general French culture (I used to live in France).

I'd rule that one out and look at the other schools. It might not be illegal to house boys and girls together but you might find a school where it's not so actively encouraged.

While few countries have great records of safeguarding children, France seems to have a greater problem than most with the sexual assault of girls. There's been a series of recent reports, scandals exposing paedophilia, incest and the routine abuse of girls. This was in the Times the other day about the film industry:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d84680fd-e3d2-489c-aaa9-1e4db7a6f68d?shareToken=c3ef9d31deea54f37b9fddae9f100dd4

& this from several years back in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/25/memoirs-writers-highlight-sexual-abuse-in-france-metoo

Does she have to board in France? Are these independent schools OP?

These are bog standard state schools, she has to board during the week as the closest school that does the course she wants is an hour away. God it's depressing.

Yeah, I’d not be giving them my money tbh.

I suspect that this is a state secondary school where children have to board during the week because travelling distances are too great to get to and from school every day, but the OP can confirm whether this is true or not.

Cross post with OP

Yeah that's it, it's about 1400€/year for full board so possibly actually cheaper than having her at home!

Count yourself lucky that you’ve been given an early warning. Read ‘Lost in Trans Nation’ book by Miriam Grossman, ‘Trans’ by Helen Joyce or ‘Time to Think’ by Hannah Barnes, so that you’re well informed. There is also a movie ‘War on Children’ by Robby Starbuck.

Could you drive her there and back if it’s an hour away if she was ever put in a situation where she was boarding with a boy?

Technically she could get public transport but it's 2.5hrs each way and she's going to have a lot of homework. DH and I both start work at 8am so can't drive her in. Fuck.

I'm just going to have to work on her and her personal boundaries. I'm sure the trans kids in question are lovely, and they may not end up in the same room.

Most of these children are highly vulnerable. The problems arise with the emotional manipulation that's encouraged by others in getting their perceived demands met. That's where it's a problem in what should be single sex spaces - especially sleeping and washing with sometimes limited and unaware supervision.
If there's no alternative then enabling her to have firm boundaries and to seek support from you instantly if she has any sense of her boundaries being challenged is critical. Especially if she's a new student which can make her more vulnerable with (hopefully for a while) a more limited peer support group.
Is there any possibility of a similar course you'd deem acceptable somewhere where she doesn't have to board in a school boasting of eroding boundaries for girls?

I don't want to worry you, OP, this is a tough situation.

Helping your daughter draw strong boundaries is great advice; but my concern would be as much for consensual activity as anything else.

How on earth does anyone think having mixed sex dorms for teenagers is going to work?!

Are other parents aware of this situation?

Children committing half of reported child sexual abuse offences, new figures reveal | UK News | Sky News

Much of the reporting about this depressing report obscures the facts by talking about 'peer on peer' sexual offences and highlighting image-sharing, neatly hiding who is doing what to whom.

Tucked well down the news story:

" The most common offences committed by 10 to 17-year-olds were sexual assault on a female (15%), rape of a female under 16 (12%), and taking, making or sharing indecent images. Mr Critchley said the predominantly "gender-based crime of boys committing offences against girls" has been "exacerbated" by the accessibility to "violent pornography" and smartphones."

I would feel confident assuming the situation would be as bad or worse in France. (I also used to live there - I had been lucky enough never to have experienced sexual harassment before I did... It was a tiresome feature of daily life for the whole time I was there.)

Could you change your working hours a tiny bit so you could, in a worst case situation, drive her (perhaps each of you doing one way) and maybe drop her at school early (say 7.30am) / pick her up later. If it's a boarding school there will be students and staff there anyway. At the very least I'd want my DD to know I'd do this for her if she felt uncomfortable about whoever she was being forced to sleep in a room with - she's not going to sleep much if she feels worried is she? It's hard to speak up for yourself at that age, especially if you'll get the JKR treatment for doing so.

If she's living there, then you start driving her, you can just tell the school she doesn't feel safe where she's sleeping and leave it at that. At that point they need to accommodate her differently. No need to mention trans at all. No need to spell out or justify why she doesn't feel safe - presumably they do have some responsibility to make students feel safe?

Whilst I am very against a clearly flawed policy of letting a certain small cohort of kids dictate who they get to sleep with(what could possibly go wrong?!), in terms of prioritising the wellbeing and safety of my child this is probably how I'd approach it.

Oh! I got my first deletion.

I think my error was to want to communicate clearly about which children have penises. I'll try again.

I'd ask the school, if a child exposes their penis, accidentally or on purpose to a girl in the girls dormitory or shared bathroom, and the girl objects, would they treat it as:
a/ indecent exposure (I assume that is a crime in France as well)
b/ transphobic bullying
c/ both

Clearly it would be better for all concerned if the children were not put in a situation where this is possible. No deliberate misbehaviour is needed for really bad things to happen to children. And in the context of my following post about sexual crimes by children (overwhelmingly male ones) assuming that there won't be any misbehaviour seems insanely naive.

The more I think about it the more annoyed I am. The only lockable places are the (tiny) shower cubicles and the loos, so that means she'll have to get dressed and undressed in there everyday if she has to share a room with a male (she's shy enough getting changed in front of her female friends).
Driving there and back twice a day isn't possible.

The issue of her being a new student would worry me. It may be fine and her peers may be supportive, friendly and she'll fit in But if she's an outsider and IF the ethos of the school doesn't reinforce boundaries and mutual respect, along with perhaps being toxic about women and girls, she'll need to be a really self confident and self aware young women to navigate a boarding environment.

Is it not possible for children who live far away from school to have some kind of half remote, half in person approach yet? Boarding is quite hard even when there's adequate safeguarding.

Teens need boundaries, without clear boundaries that protect all (not just some) it's just a disaster waiting to happen. The teen years are quite a critical period for young women for developing boundaries and an ability to say 'no' to a variety of pressures. If she's put in an environment where 'no' to males is not an option and to do so = social death and / or where teen on teen abuse is normalised, I think that's a really big problem and I would probably look at homeschooling before putting my child in that situation.

If the school is not even willing to discuss the need for sex-based safeguarding I consider that a major red flag. You really need to sound them out - are they genuinely denying the risks or would they, in reality, be happy to ensure she only shares with a female and it's just national policy that has drunk the kool aid?

I think even the message that girls aren't worthy of safeguarding or boundaries and their opinions about their lives don't count is dangerous even if nothing happens. It's almost like a form of grooming - you don't count, what you think doesn't count, how you perceive reality doesn't count, be kind to male bodied people even when they're invading your boundaries and your space.

Could she board with a family who live near the school?

Pre-Brexit, a state school (not a boarding school) local to me in England offered the IB and took a few students from other parts of the EU. A friend, who has had children at that school, has been one of their host families. I don’t know how much she was paid.

The school still offers the IB but post Brexit they may not take the EU students.

It would be a more expensive option, though.