“Outing” and “Transphobia”: Informing a parent that her child was being “socially transitioned” by a school/college

[Steve3742]

So, I’m having a problem with my employer.

I am—or was—a Learning Support Assistant at Nottingham College, and have worked for them nearly continuously since 2006.

Last September, I was informed that a vulnerable 16-year-old autistic girl was to be socially transitioned within the college, adopting a male name and “he/him” pronouns. I was also informed that her mother had not been consulted and that this information was to be deliberately kept from her. After unsuccessfully raising my concerns with Safeguarding that withholding important information about her daughter’s health and well-being was a risk for the child, I decided to inform the mother about what was happening. As a result, I was fired.

The college’s decision to hide the social transition of a vulnerable 16-year-old girl from her mother was unlawful and violates both the Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE) statutory guidance and the Department for Education’s Guidance on Gender-Questioning Children. Both frameworks are informed by the evidence presented in the Cass Review, which emphasises that social transition is not a neutral act and can be harmful to a child’s welfare, particularly for vulnerable individuals.

Paragraph 208 in KCSiE states that supporting a gender questioning child “should be in partnership with the child’s parents” and clinical advice should be sought.

By engaging in this deception, the college directly breached safeguarding principles. Any collaboration between adult staff and a vulnerable child to withhold information from their parents is a clear violation of fundamental safeguarding standards. My referral to safeguarding referenced all these points but wasn’t acted upon. I raised these concerns multiple times during the disciplinary process, yet they were repeatedly dismissed.

I’m taking the college to a Tribunal for false dismissal (and am gardening to help with that, check the CJ site). But one of the objections raised against me is that I “outed” the child, with all the connotations that go with that, the abuse that gay children often face from unaccepting parents.

I don’t think the two situations are comparable. For a start, the parent already knew her child was gender-questioning, so she wasn’t “outed” in that sense. She was informed, by me, about what the college was doing, not any new information about her daughter. She was told that the college was facilitating the “social transition” of her daughter and, particularly egregiously, that the college was trying to keep this information about their activities hidden from her.

All the relevant guidance, some of which is statutory, states that she had a right to know this. That she had a right to be consulted about it. Indeed, that the college had a duty to consult with her about this. One that it not only failed in but actively tried to subvert by conspiring with a vulnerable 16 year old child to keep their activities secret from her. Conspiracies between adults and children to keep secrets from parents are a huge safeguarding red flag.

Not only this, but it can be argued that a child’s sexuality is the child’s business and, even if the college were to find out about it, they have no reason to disclose it to anyone. Even Section 28 didn’t put a duty on a school or college to inform a child’s parents that they were gay, were they to find out that they were. But the guidance quoted above does include a duty to consult with a child’s parents about their “social transition”, for good reason. “Social transition” involves the school or college making significant changes to the way it operates. Names must be changed, wrong-sex pronouns must be used by staff and students, decisions need to be taken about what punishments, if any, should be meted out to dissenters, and so on. Certainly, this is not a secret – all the child’s fellow students and all the staff in the class will know about it. It cannot be claimed, therefore, that this should be kept from the child’s parents in the name of privacy or confidentiality – such things do not exist for social transition, the nature of it requires widespread dissemination. It is instead, as I’ve already said, a conspiracy – a group of people working together to do something, and to keep their activity hidden from other people.

Nothing comparable could be said about gay children, even in the days of Section 28. This is not the same thing.

What do you all think?

If I were the Mum I would be so grateful to you for being the only person to inform me. I would be livid if a school tried to keep me in the dark, and would instantly remove my child, as it is such a huge breach of trust. Well done for sticking your neck above the parapet, we need more professionals to follow suit. I sincerely hope you win your case, you have been treated appallingly. Good luck!

Going rogue

Let's have that expression across the front pages.

Trusted teachers, you are 'going rogue', if you inform the parents of a medical condition your child has that their school has both diagnosed and is treating without their parents' knowledge.

It will be up to the court to decide this.

In this situation, either the school genuinely think the child is at risk and have failed to report it, or don't think the child is at risk and have put the child at risk by starting them on a risky medical pathway without any authority to act on the child's behalf. In both scenarios, the school has failed to protect the child.

On the other hand, the OP has identified that a child is a risk, attempted to report through the proper channels, and then taken steps to protect the child when the school did not comply with its duties.

Whether or not the OP has a claim for unfair dismissal, the school have failed.

Well let's have it out in the open, then.

Let the country know that parents will not be informed if their children are socially transitioned at school.

And all the reasons why.

And it's a firing offence to tell the parents.

I don’t disagree at all I just don’t want the OP to jeopardise the case in any way.

Adults encouraging children to lie is despicable.

@datun yes it should all be out in the open, who said it shouldn't?

In this situation, either the school genuinely think the child is at risk and have failed to report it, or don't think the child is at risk and have put the child at risk by starting them on a risky medical pathway without any authority to act on the child's behalf. In both scenarios, the school has failed to protect the child.

This. Making all the teachers, children and parents lie to a set of parents because the child is at risk is ludicrous.

And, of course, completely unbelievable.

All good 👍 Me too.

And what I also I want is for Datun to be in charge of editorial for all major news on TV, radio and online 👏👏👏👏

The people who fired the OP, for a start.

Honestly Bonfire, for some reason, my brain constantly takes a step back in all these scenarios.

And I'm looking at a bloody situation where an entire school is firing teachers for not colluding in pretending a girl is a boy.

And people are saying but did they go through the right channels.

We've got to the point, where teachers are being sanctioned for not following the torturous process, invented by the same people who want you to pretend this girl is a boy.

I want people to take a step back and stop focusing on whether they are breaching rules invented by trans activists, to stop them breaching rules.

Absolutely.

As much as it would be a horrible experience to lose at a tribunal, in some ways doing so is even more powerful. Similar to how the Keira Bell JR case lost on appeal but a) got the appalling lack of data in the gender clinic flagged and criticised in court b) contributed and led to action to change the law regarding puberty blockers. Losing isn't losing at all in that sense.

Yes I agree. Of course, I want Steve to win, and anyone else doing this to win.

But from a purely progressing point of view, it almost doesn't matter.

Edited to add, and on that basis, I would contribute further to a loss.

As it took me a while to find the crowdfunder Exposing Nottm College's secret transition of a child to her mother is where you'll locate it.

Again, it’s NON statutory. Their practices may have been appalling but they have not broken the law. By all means campaign to change the law. If you believe a child is at risk, you go through the appropriate channels. Simply unilaterally deciding to tell parents whatever you choose about their child is what potentially puts them at risk because the non-safeguarding members of the institution are only given minimal details about that child.

The KCSIE guidance is statutory.

The paragraphs in question say that the school "should" follow them.

Should means the school needs to follow this unless there is good reason not to do so.

On a practical level, how did the school think they could keep it from the parents long term?

I work at a school where there are some students we are asked to use wrong-sex pronouns for. It is hard to do this. You have to practically try to trick your brain into forgetting that the student is actually a boy/a girl (as applicable). To then have to trick your brain back and use correct sexed pronouns with the parents? Very, very difficult. Some staff member would have tripped up eventually.

Secondly, what about the child's peers? Were they expected to revert to correct sex pronouns if/when they ever met the parents?

What about when that child is mentioned in newsletters, school magazine, concert programs, etc? Which name/pronouns?

I don't think op's use of the word "conspiracy" is an exaggeration

Edit - we are not forced to use them. Just heavily encouraged

Screenshots below ⬇️

Obviously the Gender Questioning Children guidance referred to in para 208 is a) non-statutory and b) still in draft form. But the paragraphs in the screenshots are statutory. Even if a school decides to disregard the GQC guidance because it's still draft, the information on informing parents is clear.

So he should have taken the steps in the guidance for if you feel your concerns are being ignored, especially if he's going to quote the guidance in his complaint about the schools actions. He had no proof the school was "flouting the rules".

Nope he says no where that he escalated his concerns as per the guidance in Kcsie, he just says he approached the safeguarding lead, no mention of escalating any further. It reads that he approached safeguarding and then decided to take action into his own hands aka completely irresponsible to be working with children if he can't follow protocols.

It's not though - it has very clear guidance on how to escalate concerns and he has completely disregarded it.

I don't think op's use of the word "conspiracy" is an exaggeration

It's also a legal term.

It's not in direct opposition to KCSIE though. Either you haven't read the guidance in full or you are reading only the bits you want to see. OP hasn't told us that safeguarding confirmed the child was at risk but if they did they wouldn't need to divulge to OP any of the details. He is employed in his position and the safeguarding lead is employed in theirs, it's his job to either trust that they are acting appropriately based on the info they have and follow their decision or escalate to senior leadership and / or local authority safeguarding. It's never appropriate to for OP to take it upon himself to get involved and tell a parent when he has none of the relevant facts and he hasn't even bothered to follow the escalation process in the guidance he is clinging to in his defense for getting himself fired.

Yeah and with OP not being in the relevant teams to know the info, he had no way to know or be certain there was no good reason not to. If he didn't trust his employers safeguarding lead to accurately assess this he should have escalated to other safeguarding teams.

Steve you clearly need to reread, especially the beginning when it will tell you the difference between must and should before you start quoting the guidance and writing must instead of should on the relevant bits you're relying on. If it was a must you still would have lost your job for not being able to follow guidance though.

Usernamesareboring1

So why would he be told it's because he had outed the child? What does that mean? Telling the parents that the child has gender dysphoria, as diagnosed by the school? Are there other occasions where it's a school's place to diagnose a child, treat it, and refuse to tell the parents?

If there was something else at stake, why didn't they tell him there's things you don't know about, leave it to us.

And thirdly, by socially transitioning the child, and treating them for gender dysphoria, and telling staff not to tell the parents, what about the other parents? And all the children? In your experience should they be expecting all the other children to keep quiet too?

Do you not think that this looks a lot more like an ideological application of Stonewall Law, which deliberately conflates homosexuality with gender dysphoria, hence the word outing?