Maths teacher sacked for refusing to use opposite sex pronouns.

[SweetChilliGirl]

I hope he wins at tribunal.

www.independent.co.uk/news/education/kevin-lister-transgender-pronouns-teacher-b2515054.html

Re: Melons, I went to school with a girl whose surname was Apps but who was referred to as Bapps, first by the boys and then by herself, on account of her large breasts. To this day, the surname she uses on her Facebook is Bapps, this was 25 years ago.

It’s the kind of thing that can start and stick really young, and a teacher can help resist.

You’re always going to slip up, though. Call a child by the wrong name, or the nickname everyone uses but which is inappropriate …

You all need to remember it is a confused and vulnerable minor here!

The teacher was refusing to use a boys name because of the vulnerability of minors. That is why he considered it a safeguarding issue.

I imagine there is much more to this than the newspaper soundbites. Like the teacher who was sacked 'for taking children sledging on a hill near school' who in fact was sacked for disobeying a direct instruction from the HT not to take the children off school grounds and offence he had already had a written warning for taking children out without telling anyone or parents.

This isn’t the only teacher facing tribunal over this this week. Here is another one:

https://christianconcern.com/news/teacher-sacked-for-raising-concern-over-child-transitioning-to-have-case-heard/

Or it could be like the head teacher who was found to have been unlawfully sacked, for tapping her own toddler son’s hand to gain his attention, a couple of weeks ago.

You could follow Tribunal Tweets rather than Newspapers and find out rather than speculate using a completely different case with a completely different set of circumstances to imply guilt.

If he really did get sacked and barred from DBS for raising a safeguarding concern (which I believe is the case - there is nothing else that has come out) then safeguarding is dead in schools. All the time and training spent on it is pointless.

If being concerned that social transition is a safeguarding red flag (which the co-morbidities of gender questioning children show is a very reasonable and evidence based point of view) is enough to get you fired and DBS barred then no teacher or member of school staff is going to dare to raise safeguarding concerns any more.

Part of safeguarding best practice is also sharing information which in this case the school seemed to deliberately not do - i.e. they should have shared information with the parents who are the adults legally responsible for their children. The only situation where not sharing is justifiable is also a situation where social services should be involved, which in this case there is no suggestion happened. You can't claim parents are so dangerous they can't be told a key fact such as a child wants to socially transition and also that it's fine to leave the child living in that household - like all of gender ideology it's total illogical nonsense.

I recently had safeguarding training and I pointed out that all the examples given of people who intervened were people who had nothing to lose by doing so. E.g. Victoria Climbie's taxi driver, there was a case of an intern (who was supported by her parents) at an educational establishment so she could just walk away from the internship. People who need their job and a monthly salary can't afford to raise safeguarding concerns. That's just a fact very heavily reinforced by this case.

It's supposed to be the case that you're protected if you raise a good faith safeguarding concern even if you're wrong. What really happens obviously couldn't be further from the truth.

The name issue is really difficult. It sounds like he's not necessarily done a good job of cutting through this in the tribunal.. and could be harming his case as a result. I hope not.

To add a thought from my own perspective. My daughter began using a "neutral" name at school, in a limited and unofficial capacity, without us knowing. Eventually the school told us and we cautiously went along with it, saying yes (we didn't really have much choice, we felt that our hand had somewhat already been forced by the circumstances) to agreeing to it being her "known as" name. Meanwhile, I was busy learning all about this weird new world of gender identity (I had no idea about Mumsnet at this point), following her request for puberty blockers (which we said no to, following what we read on the NHS page about gender dysphoria) about 3 months prior.
As I continued to learn more, I was getting increasingly concerned about this name. Not the name itself but what it represented: an untethering of my daughter from the reality of who she is, a chance to be a blank canvas and reinvent herself in whatever she understood to be her "authentic self". When she told us at Christmas time that year, about 3 months after the new name started being used, that she was happy for us to use her normal name at home, I grabbed it with both hands. She's now her normal name at home and with family and friends, and her "neutral" other name at school and activities. Yes, it's a bit weird but I'm going to keep her as tethered to reality as I can, while she works through whatever is in her head about all of this.
It's possible that something similar to this was behind his concerns about the name e.g. if nobody else was going to help her keep a foot in reality, he would. Whether that's safeguarding or overreach, given he is a teacher not her parent, I'm not sure. But I can fully empathise with the place of concern that it is presumably coming from.

When she told us at Christmas time that year, about 3 months after the new name started being used, that she was happy for us to use her normal name at home, I grabbed it with both hands. She's now her normal name at home and with family and friends, and her "neutral" other name at school and activities.

How much of keeping the trans name (because it really isn’t neutral) at school is because she might feel stuck there? That she told everyone this is the new person she is and now it is very difficult to row back from that?

Anyone who has been a teacher knows that all sorts of things which are "nothing to do with the lesson" find their way into the classroom.

In this case, which name you call the child has "nothing to do with the lesson", and you are involved with this whether you like it or not.

As the school is keeping this from the parents it would be the name that they gave the child.

The article reads to me that the pupil was deliberately provoking the teacher. Why all the fuss about dead names etc to act as a boy and then wanting to act as a girl? This was an attempt to trap the teacher, a successful attempt which led to the teacher's sacking.
I cannot believe that the authorities have given children the power to sack teachers. Especially when he appears to be the only staff member to reject compelled speech and enforced compliance with an unproven ideology.

It's difficult to know. She really likes the name and I think she somehow associates it with things going more positively now with friends. She missed a year of school owing to autism-related bullying. It took a long time for her confidence to come back, even for her to leave the house.

That's why it's so important that she retains a connection to herself that is based on the reality of who she is.
So no, it's not "neutral" at all in that respect. You're spot on.

In many ways, a name is just a name. But when it comes to this subject, particularly when it's related to adolescent/young people, a name is so much more than that.

So, part of masking at school in order to fit in?

I am glad she can be herself at home.