"Julian is a mermaid" reception aged child

[Quantumduckling]

Hi, I wonder if I could get some views on this. My child has just started reception and came home with a book "Julian is a mermaid". I'm concerned that the teacher may be pushing a transgender narrative to the children if this is the book that they are given on day 1 of reception. Would you be concerned?

I'm absolutely fine with boys being told they can dress up and play with whatever they like, the same for girls. This just feels off to me so soon after starting. Would you be concerned? After the supreme court ruling are schools allowed to teach children that they can change sex if they feel like it (they can't- and I wouldn't want my 4 year old child to be taught anything like that).

Or would you just take it as a fun book for the first day of reception and no deeper meaning?

It's nice the male child gets told wearing his nanas clothes will make him female?

The moral panic on this thread is wild. Someone even mentioned librarians wearing rainbow lanyards - shocking! I’m married to a primary teacher and he is way too busy dealing with SEN, school reports and the impacts of poverty to “push a trans agenda”.

I’m confused by the worry and outrage in this thread having read the book itself to my children many times. It reads very simply as a book about imagination and children not having to be confined by gender stereotypes, and it has beautiful illustrations. This book actively helped my son feel fine about liking to dress up in play in any costume when other reception-aged children were saying pink was for girls and that girls weren’t allowed to play with trains. He never bought any of that. Even if the author has a take that goes beyond this, that isn’t apparent in the book to a child at all. It’s a positive read for questioning gender stereotypes.

Prehaps you could have a little chat with him about safeguarding?

I am sure he will be able to explain that not all teachers enter the profession for the same reasons nor do they all think the same way.

I am sure he will be able to explain that bad people with bad motives enter the profession.

Its the teachers take that is the issue.

However, this book is part of the insidious drip-feed to introduce the concept of ‘being born in the wrong body’ that TRAs are pushing into schools. The author herself explains why and how she wrote this book, which is enmeshed in transgenderism.

What take does he have on being forced to use opposite sex hormones for one of his pupils if their parents tell your DH their son was born in the wrong body and is now a girl? Or, as in my school, now being told that little Sam’s dad is now his mum and Sam has to be allowed to make his dad a Mother’s Day card, all the while Sam is clearly distressed about being caught up in his father’s fetish?

I think the key here is "winner of the Stonewall book award 2019"

Why wouldn't he be a merman and still dress the same as a mermaid? Now that would be a better way to be against gender stereotypes.

If you think that then you have a lot of catching up to do. It's not as though it's a secret. Groups in many countries are fighting for (and some winning) the legal right to overrule parents regarding their own child so they can stop saying to the kids "don't tell your parents what we did"

Teachers supply girls with dangerous breast binders and introduce them to trans sites and chatrooms where if they are really lucky they will get offers to give them a place to stay if their parents don't want them on the drugs.

If you're ok with a lanyard how do you feel about MAP badges?

I’d tell the teacher in no uncertain terms not to give my DC books with this

Probably because mermen aren’t as well know as mermaids? No idea. Still don’t see what the problem is with the book and lots of the comments on here are really concerning.

It’s a story about a little boy who dresses up in some curtains because he wants to be a mermaid. I’m 100% behind women’s rights etc. I’m also 100% behind letting children have a childhood and being who they want to be. Dress up as a dinosaur - it doesn’t mean they believe they are one. I’ve taught about Henry VIII none of the children have ever believed they are him. Not as far as I know anyway…

If teachers have the time to be pushing an agenda, they’re obviously not doing their job properly.
With the awfully high amount of send, poverty and everything else I have to deal with on a daily basis and support my families with, I don’t have time to tell people what to believe and for the other educational professionals I know it’s the same.

1. lots of the comments on here are really concerning.
   Which comment?

2. I don’t have time to tell people what to believe and for the other educational professionals I know it’s the same.

That may be true for you and your school.
This is a thread about a parent asking the school not to force girls into a mixed sex changing room.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5404868-single-sex-changing-spaces-in-a-brighton-secondary-school-new-school-year-new-thread?page=1

How would your school manage a child/family when the parents decide their 5 year old boy is a girl and they want the school and the student body to all agree he is a girl?

What is its current policy?

It's the first week of term. The children have been asked to pick a book to go home or a random selection has been made. There is no issue or agenda here and there won't have been any formal PSHE yet. If you don't like the book, ask the teacher to have it changed on Monday.

That said, the story might have been read in class if some of the children were seen to be telling girls they couldn't play with the building equipment, or telling boys they couldn't wear the princess costume. Children need to learn that everyone can play with everything and they can choose what they like rather than be restricted to boys' toys and games or girls' toys and games. Personally, I think a lot of confused trans children are like they are because they don't conform to the stereotypes and didn't realise that they can be a boy who loves the girly stuff and vice versa. The message of the story is you can be what you want to be and we should not judge others.

1. The comments which are factually untrue about the book which are winding other people up.
2. I’m in a primary school. I have no experience of high school but they seem to be run very differently.

Single sex changing rooms are law and should always have been.

I don’t understand what you mean by a policy about parents wanting their child to be trans.
We have the statutory policies.
Our uniform policy is that they can wear anything on it, it’s just uniform. Toilets are single sex after eyfs and adult toilets are single person whatever the proper term is for that.
PSHE teaches about gender stereotypes and we use the pshe association objectives.

Those teachers who are ‘pushing an agenda’ need to get on and do the job - we don’t have time for this.

I am asking if the school has a policy on how it would manage a boy (who will clearly be a boy to the staff and other students) who said and whos parents said was a girl.

Other children/staff will know and may say he is a boy and/or use him/he/his when subsituting his name.

Has the school a written policy that he is managed 100% of the time the same as any male student or has there been modifications made to adapt to his mental health issue.

Eg if another child said he is a boy and the child or parent said that this statement is bullying. Would the school policy agree that it is not acceptable speech and attempt to modify the other childs speech?

Ah right! Sorry, didn’t understand what you meant. We have all the statutory policies and that’s not on the list of the ones we need to have so no. We teach that protected characteristics are equally as important. It’s not like animal farm where some are more equal than others.

I'm reading your questions and contributions as good faith on this thread. I think there are many teachers who want to give a positive "dress as you please" message without it leading into a sleight of hand journey that teaches children that they might be in the wrong body.

We teach that protected characteristics are equally as important. It’s not like animal farm where some are more equal than others.

Under this approach, how would the scenarios laid out by AnSolas in the comment above yours work?

As an example, in my children's (secondary) school, the child who identifies as the opposite sex would be given access to their own single occupancy toilet and changing room if they didn't want to go to the one that is legally appropriate for their sex.... so far so good.... but meanwhile, everyone in the school will be taught on a reasonably regular basis that it's unkind and disrespectful not to use someone's preferred pronouns. The coercion comes through RHSE lessons but also randomly in other lessons too e.g. one of my daughter's English teachers told the class that some parents are bigoted and out of touch, such as those that don't affirm children's gender identity.

So in this sense, the protected characteristic of gender reassignment has been elevated above the protected characteristic of sex. (And that's before anyone looks more closely at the PC of gender reassignment and asks themselves what "proposing to undergo, undergoing or having undergone a process to reassign your sex" even means, given human beings can't actually change sex 🤦‍♀️)

We would follow the legal guidelines we need to follow. Whether we (as professionals) agree with it or not is by the by, what is the law is the law.

I think because I’m in a primary school it is very different to the example people have given in secondary. And as primary and secondary schools are very different, I don’t have any experience of working in one or the curriculum.

We teach about different people and different beliefs and I can’t imagine any of my colleagues that I’ve ever worked with with would say some parents are bigoted. That’s very unprofessional.

We need to challenge stereotypes and I still like the book. The idea of boy things and girl things is a load of rubbish.

Why are you avoiding saying what the schools policy is?

What is your understanding of the legal guidelines.

If the boy decides he is a girl would his classmates have an obilgation to act as if he is a girl or not?

We haven’t got a policy. I’m not avoiding anything.
But I do not have the time to continue with this, I have spent the last 5 hours planning for my class.
I am sorry you feel I am trying to ignore questions, I am not. I just don’t have the answers you want. It’s not something we have to deal with in my school so I can’t answer the questions.

We don’t have a policy.
I still like the book.

Julian is not a mermaid. He is pretending to be a mermaid.

Thank you for replying clearly that your school had/has no policy.

I was observing not feeling that no clear answer was included. Unfortunately some use prevarications to hide behind when this topic is raised or like the Scottish politicians in power will claim the law must mean something different to what is written.

And I have no problem with the book as a teaching aid. Its always about how the lesson is formulated around it.

Anyway have a happy teaching week.