How to talk about 'trans-girl' in my son's class.

[user1471471849]

Hello,

My son is 7 and there is a 6 year old trans-girl (aka a boy who identifies as a girl) in his school. It's a small school so everyone interacts with each other a lot. When the boy first socially transitioned and started wearing girls clothes and changed their name it was hard to know how to explain this to my son. He's a clever guy who asks hard questions and he was confused about what was going on. I went with the line that the child is a boy but is confused and feels he's a girl and not to bring it up to avoid arguments or hurt feelings.
Just to be clear, I don't agree with the parents' choice to socially transition such a young kid, I feel the kid is being pushed into this.. But it's not my place to say and I'm conscious of the poor kid's mental health and not wanting to make his life harder. To me, sex is binary and immutable but I knew that I'd eventually run into problems. Unfortunately, my son doesn't get on well with this kid and has made comments about him really being a boy. So we were called into the principal's office today saying the boy (or girl in the child's mind) is transgender and is a girl now. I explained what I'd told my son- that the child is biologically a boy but is confused and feels he's a girl and to not bring it up. I also said I wasn't willing to lie to my child and say that you can change sex and I got the impression that they agreed but said it's the school policy ( here and nationwide- in Ireland) to accept this.

Obviously, we don't want our son to be upsetting anyone so we'll make sure he knows to be very mindful of people's feelings but it's such a hard road to navigate (being truthful with him and trying to make sure he doesn't upset the child by passing on his thoughts on the matter- it's not a nice situation for anyone). I know we're going to come up against this again. The parents haven't said anything to us but I reckon it's only a matter of time.
If anyone has any advice on how I could manage this situation better please let me know.

Thanks.

What if you don’t respect them though? I don’t respect people who gaslight me and expect me to go along with their lies to appease them. Pretending a child can change sex crosses a line in my opinion.

Agreed, but from kid to kid it's a nice thing to say. It's good for kids to learn they can have different opinions and still be cordial to one another.

If I had to leave a child in a school pushing this abusive rubbish, I'd go with "I respect your right to hold your beliefs and I hope that you equally respect my right to hold my beliefs. Our beliefs might not be the same but we both are free to hold our beliefs ourselves, but neither of us can impose our beliefs on the other because that is not respectful" or something more 7 year old friendly. But basically this. My 8 year old could learn this verbatim and I'd go over it as much as needed. And myself tell the teachers this 500x with a link to the 'emotional abuse' bit in KCSIE until they gave up trying to gaslight my child.

It's galling because obviously biological reality is obvious, empirically provable fact which gender identity is not. But it should make it more possible to navigate school without having to mess up your child's English language learning with junk like 'preferred pronouns' and without undermining their safety.

It would be tempting to tell the school that your parental pronouns are 'yourhighness / yourexcellency' if they don't respect your son's right to believe in material reality and observation and seek to impose someone else's beliefs upon him through force of punishment if he doesn't comply. Which would be clearly breaching KCISE and abusive.

You could claim that through 'educating' yourself about gender identity you've discovered your inner gender identity is royalty gender, or something. The reflection gender is also good where your pronouns reflect whoever the last person you talked to is. Lots of potential for bigoted misgendering and complaints to Governors there.

If you go the 'different beliefs' route you can also point to Forstater and state it is discriminatory to not allow someone's sex realist beliefs. Which they will be doing (discriminating against your family on the basis of belief) if they force your son to use wrong-sex pronouns or pretend a boy is a girl i.e. force gender ideology unscientific beliefs upon him and you. It's also anti safeguarding, anti Cass and anti the draft schools guidance.

As a school, an organisation, they are bound by EA2010 which you as individuals are not.

But the OP is in Ireland, so these points wouldn't apply.

I live in a country which I complain about plenty because it's pretty much stuck in the fifties as far as racism and sexism go, but when I read things like this I thank my lucky stars! My daughter has had a friend since nursery, and when she was four she declared she would rather be a boy. Her parents are very laid back and don't really conform to traditional gender roles, so went along with it as far as haircut and clothing went. Apart from that she was just left to get on with it, played what she wanted with who she wanted. All the kids knew she wanted to be a boy but there was never any suggestion she actually was one. She's now a totally well-adjusted 12 year old who no longer says she wants to be a boy and generally chooses to hang out with the girls, although she's not into wearing dresses. i dread to think what might have happened had she been in a different country.

I remembered that as soon as I'd posted! Sorry OP. I blame the menopause!

I still think that the equal respect for different beliefs is the way to go. Point out the inequality of what they are doing.

No worries! They are still good points which I can use if I have to.

I would be clear your son he is to:

• leave this boy alone / not to interact with him
• if he cant say something nice say nothing blah blah.

Beyond that you are right. He is a boy.
A boy with long hair and dresses but a boy nonetheless and I wouldnt be pretending anything else to my child.

If this came up again I would be inclined to ask them how mindful and respectful they’re being of all the children who are now expected to collude in this child’s delusion and basically lie every time they interact with him.

So sorry this is happening but thank goodness your son has you as his mum!

I know it's been said before, but if this child had anorexia, the school would never in a million years be telling the other children that they must agree with the child and affirm how 'fat' they were - and encourage them in eating as little as possible.

After all, telling them that they're actually unhealthily thin and that they're believing something that most clearly isn't not true - and should seek help with their mental health - would probably also upset them, wouldn't it?

Yes, it is very unkind to the children to force them to lie about the reality they can see with their own eyes. Maybe there would even be consequences for them if they didn’t lie, in this upside down ideological conformity the school seems to be imposing.

They are being taught that lying is a good thing. And, telling the truth is bad. Not an insult, just the observable truth as you’d be able to with any other boy.

Are all the schools in Ireland indoctrinating children in this new anti scientific religion now? If Christian schools are also teaching it, how does it align with the do not lie commandment? The young earth creationists in Northern Ireland don’t seem to be comparatively more anti science now either. The belief that people can change sex is even more ridiculous. And the forcing of such rubbish on children is nasty and abusive.

Educate yourself to become a better human & stop being transphobic is what you should do. And if you can’t do that for self-less reasons, here’s a selfish one: your son’s generation is going to be the most accepting of transgender people yet, if you don’t support him to understand it now, he’ll learn that from somewhere else & ultimately it’ll impact your relationship & his trust in you.

Ooo scolding here too.

OP is safeguarding. You are virtue signalling.

I have no time for the ghoulish allies.

@LivelyCritic this kid is 6. 6!!! Get a grip.

Or on the other hand you could outright lie to your child; tell them it is possible to change sex. Lie that lifelong medication and surgeries for "a feeling" so they will conform to stereotypes is a good thing. That will definitely impact your relationship and trust!
Who benefits from disrupting families and confusing children?

Well the scoldly virtue signallers get to feel good about themselves whilst they emotionally abuse a parent to boost their image.

Imagine bottom feeding off emotionally confused and damaged children by abusing a parent who refuses to go on with delusional sexism...

Ummm…. No.

No.

People change names for lots of reasons, it would be weird and disrespectful to not use a new name that has been asked for?
in terms of gender, its likely that this has very little impact or relevance to school life at this age. I think all that's needed here is to follow the school's lead? Im sure that family have enough to deal with

The OP's primary responsibility is to her own son, not to the trans-identifying child. It's not helpful or fair to teach young children that people can change sex, or to expect them to ignore their own eyes.

The current cohort of tweens and teens are not accepting of trans people. This is primarily down to TikTok algorithms pushing out content ridiculing trans people. It’s a case of the pendulum swinging back following several years content from non passing males getting angry about being misgendered. The binary nature of sex is obvious from a young age. Young people tend to be very accepting of difference if they are not taught to fear or resent it - but they won’t believe night is day and will resent being told it is.

OP, I suggest you explain to your child that some people don’t want to be the sex they are and some people think that the best way to manage this is for everyone to pretend that the person is the opposite sex. Some people are happy to pretend and others aren’t. If you aren’t happy to pretend, that’s OK, and most of the time it isn’t difficult to not pretend whilst also minimising upset (such as using names instead of pronouns, and not commenting on gender non conformity - such as clothes and toy preferences). I think this type of thoughtfulness helps diverse groups be more at peace with each other. Another examples would be asking a child not to refer to the hanky on a Sikh boy’s head as a hanky because in his culture this is not what it is it’s a patka. The child could be told that if it were in their household it would be called a hanky and would be a hanky, but in a Sikh household this is not what it is or is for.

And if the school has a policy that is harmful to the other students?

Plus acting as if a child is the opposite sex to that which they are, is teaching children that they must lie to keep somebody happy. How can this not be harmful?

It is also lowering children’s boundaries. It is a significant safeguarding issue and it should not be dismissed.

There is no such thing as ‘transition’ - only delusion. Or in the case of 6 year olds, deluded parents.

Parents are most often the best placed to make a judgment regarding their child.
The child is obviously confused....because the child remains male no matter what his parents have allowed him to believe to the contrary.