Teacher struck for posting online 'Where I teach the trans kids are untouchable'

[IwantToRetire]

A teacher has been struck off after ridiculing her school's gender identity policy and posting transphobic comments online.

Camilla Hannan, 54, posted offensive remarks including 'where I teach the trans kids are untouchable' while working at the school in Manchester.

The teacher, who had been employed at the school since 2001, also wrote of trans students: 'They get everything they ask for and everyone, staff and other students alike, is petrified of upsetting them. They don't seem oppressed to me more like oppressors tbh.'

Hannan admitted all the allegations against her and accepted they amounted to unacceptable professional conduct.

A Teaching Regulation Agency misconduct hearing said the behaviour demonstrated a lack of tolerance and respect for the rights and beliefs of others.

More at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13988139/Teacher-struck-school-gender-identity-trans.html

This is nothing like the Kate Clanchy matter. Have you even read her book? She loved working with those children. No way was she disrespectful to them.

I can completely understand why a rational adult who finds themselves living in a world where a very odd thing is happening, and it cannot be spoken about, goes nuts. I can also see why doing that so publicly is going to have consequences.

Whilst she absolutely should not have made specific comments about pupils, I do have issues with some of the things in the report. Apparently teachers should not question gender identity as it brings the profession into disrepute?

Whatever your views on gender identity, repeatedly intentionally misgendering a teenager is a supremely dickish thing to do.

Based on those excerpts, I'm not convinced "girls" was the redacted word in the tweet about autistic children, I suspect it was something much worse than insulted their intelligence.

I used to work at the TRA

Huge amounts of work goes into preparation before a case gets anywhere near a panel. The fact that a case could end a teacher's career is taken extremely seriously.
I've skim read the report and it seems to be a significant issue is that her SM posts could have or did identify individual children.
I have personal exprience of teenagers with ASD getting sucked into a trans identity. Whatever my personal views on it, ridiculing them and outing them on social media is damaging to the individual.
She should have known better.
In any case she is prohibited for 2 years and can apply to have the order lifted in 2026. No guarantees but there is an option available for her to return to reaching in the future.

If it was 20 years ago, and a teacher at a school where there was an outbreak of competitive anorexia started talking and writing about pupils with the condition in an identifiable way they would also have been in trouble.

The big difference would be that then, with anorexia, it would have been recognised as a dangerous condition that needed treatment.

Mmm. But which is worse: sacking a teacher for making public so clumsily what she believes is happening in a school, or failing to ensure that safeguarding measures in that school protect children? Do we know if anyone has investigated or is intending to investigate the latter?

This is the problem with there being no defence. The committee will just get a completely one sided view with absolutely no pushback or testing of the TRA evidence. As a result there is nothing in relation to freedom of speech or freedom of expression and freedom of speech. If she’d been represented it’s possible that this determination would read very differently. This determination is a very one sided view of events which is obviously this lady’s decision to not be represented but the outcome might be quite different if she had been represented and had bothered to turn up. I can only think she was ready for retirement.

@C4tintherug

No, the issue is that she did it on social media and focused on individual young people who could potentially be identified. Individuals who may well be vulnerable.
By all means have the debate in an appropriate environment.

I read some of it on X and thought it sounded like she’d simply had enough. I have a friend who’s a similar age, who was so sick of the way teachers are now forced to pander to the pupils, however unreasonable their behaviour, that she has taken early retirement.

Obviously it’s not professional, but if you’ve been dealing with a pupil or pupils and they’ve essentially been using their so-called trans status to bully you, completely backed up by the school, I can imagine eventually thinking “to hell with it” and saying what you’ve been thinking out loud, in the knowledge that you don’t need to go back to it.

I'm a retired teacher in my late 60s. Like every other school, our social media policy was strict, reminders were made in staff meetings regularly, and we had to re-sign a copy of it every year. That was for at least a decade before I retired.

There is NO excuse for a teacher, of any age or amount of experience, to post what she did. There's is no defence, and no-one here should be trying to excuse her or find a benign reason for her 'making a mistake'.

Nah, that won't wash - anybody who has been in a school for more than ten minutes over the last 20 years will know full well that above all else, above anything specifically relating to politics, religion, beliefs or social media policies, you never, ever EVER identify a child outside the school.

This topic alone and its comments confirm the quite shocking (to me) transphobia among Mumsnetters.

Someone even suggested that the teacher was bullied by the pupil and the school, while it’s clear she was the bully herself.

Misgendering the child in person, or on social media? Obviously no pupil should be identified on SM, but I think it's interesting if people are forced to use preferred pronouns in situations where the person has no idea they are being used.
I'm not sure if her comment re Autism has been misunderstood (if it is what appeared in the article.) Was she saying children with autism can't understand gender identity, or drawing the link many on FWR have noted between autism and trans identity, which is more about protecting those young people than ridiculing them.
I'm aware things might have been said that I haven't seen which could change my mind. The worst thing she has done seems to be the identifying information that's totally wrong.

I also think the pronouns issue must be hard when teaching in an all girls school, when you'd expect everyone to be a girl!

Her SM posts could have or did identify individual children is not the only or main issue.

A Teaching Regulation Agency misconduct hearing said the behaviour demonstrated a lack of tolerance and respect for the rights and beliefs of others.

While I understand that her age and rigid beliefs could be a factor, I don’t think that should serve as an excuse.

No teacher should be posting about their pupils. Highly unprofessional.

I've read the report. There does only seem to be about 5 tweets. The name used by a student is given which is unacceptable. Though I suppose as the account was not in the teachers name she might not have expected it to be identifiable. I wonder who told the school it was her.

I also think the pronouns issue must be hard when teaching in an all girls school, when you'd expect everyone to be a girl!

Well, yes—if you overlook some basic understanding of transgender issues.

Can you explain? In a room full of girls you'd expect she and her to be the pronouns in use. They would have been the only ones she'd used for 20 years!
If one of the girls has identified as a boy, how does that fit with attending an all girls school? or vice versa?

The teacher might have been used to using "she" and "her" pronouns for years.
But if a student transitioned or identified as a gender different from the one assigned at birth, she should respect their identity and the pronouns they prefer, even if it's an all-girls school and the teacher finds it difficult to accept/understand it.

I imagine most institutions will allow students to continue attending based on their gender identity, recognising that gender is not strictly defined by the school’s admissions criteria (rather than excluding them). The school would be expected to support the student’s gender identity, including the use of appropriate pronouns, regardless of "what teachers used to do in the past"

Gender isn't assigned at birth.

You are right, sex is.

Gender is more complex and involves social, cultural, and personal factors, and schools are increasingly respecting that