How do you talk to your young children about sex/gender if you are gender critical?

[quickquestion12345]

I am gender critical, and I will not lie to my children about people being able to change sex, but I also have no wish to hurt or offend anyone else, or for my children to do so. I understand that other people’s views differ, and that’s fine.

Mostly I have just not needed to talk about this topic, but I can feel it getting closer as my kids get older. There is a worker at my youngest child’s nursery who started with they/them pronouns and female name (but is clearly male) and is now using she/her. I genuinely like this person. They are warm, kind and I trust them with my son. It is a mixed sex environment anyway so there are no boundaries to be crossed. However, my eldest questioned their name the other day and I found myself saying ‘oh I guess he just likes it’. I didn’t mean to say he, but I can’t lie. I just can’t. Especially not to my daughter. I will take the risk of being seen as bigoted if it means keeping her safe and enabling her to have boundaries.

But anyway to my question. How do I navigate this when questions come? What do I say to be truthful but also not to hurt other people?

I think you’ve handled it the right way, no need to make a big deal but answer questions truthfully.

My DDs are older (10 & 14) so will talk to them
a bit more - so with the 14 year old will discuss it in more depth and discuss some of the issues. I have also told her he doesn’t have to use preferred pronouns (she is GC too, as are her friends)

I will always say to DD10 that humans can’t change sex and that boys/girls can wear and like anything and it doesn’t mean they’re “born in the wrong body” or any nonsense like that.

We have never enforced gender stereotypes on either of them anyway

I would actually be extremely uncomfortable with a male nursery worker asking toddlers to use female pronouns, massive safeguarding red flag. I’d probably move them somewhere else. It’s not the same as a man working in a nursery, asking young children to lie is just wrong.

@Tofufuton I am often offended by this to be honest. But I do also worry about causing offence because that’s just my weak lily livered nature!

@Leafstamp and @someepeopleareniceYes I don’t know how they communicate with the children. I’d be very surprised if they were trying to encourage them to use wrong sex pronouns. At this age they’re misgendering left right and centre anyway because they’re still figuring out language. I guess something to be mindful of but I also don’t want to assume problems before there are any. As I say it’s all mixed sex anyway they have always had male workers as well as female so I don’t have any concerns about safeguarding.

Thanks all though for useful thoughts. I’m trying to prepare a script in my mind. It’s like my instinct to be honest and keep my daughter (8yo) safe as she gets older is in conflict with my instinct to be kind and understanding towards others.

Sorry just to clarify I know about the female pronouns because of an email to parents referring to this worker as ‘she’, not from how I’ve witnessed conversations with the children.

Mine are older now, but I can try to imagine how I'd feel if they were younger.

I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable about someone with such a strong obvious untreated mental health difference having responsibility for my child. To be focused on acting a stereotypical role must take so much energy and commitment.

Also what does he say when the children ask him what he's doing?
(Children being honest will ask questions!).

I’ll put money on this man (the nursery worker) being unhappy with the children calling him he, him, or a man, which of course the children will be doing.

There may also be other staff members who believe in this nonsense.

@quickquestion12345 sorry to press the point, but in order to protect your child, I really think you should be getting clarity from the person in charge of the setting as to what the children are being told and what is expected of them. Eg are other staff referring to this man as “she” in front of the children? Are other staff members telling them he is a woman?

I couldn’t give two straws about hurting people if those people expect my child to deny reality.

When DD started secondary there was a girl (it’s always a girl) who wanted they/them pronouns. DD kept forgetting (obviously) and she would apologise to this girl.

NO, I said. NO NO NO. You NEVER apologise for using the right words. That girl doesn’t get to demand people use the wrong words.

Some time after I asked if this girl was still demanding the wrong pronouns. Yes, said DD, only she (DD) wouldn’t use them and if challenged would shrug and say “I forgot” and wander off.

This was 4 years ago and it’s become less of thing over those 4 years. The kids are fed up of it.

@Leafstamp Ok thanks. I’ll think about it all. I really don’t know how other staff refer to him in front of the children. But honestly I’d be amazed if he were to get upset at 2-4 year olds calling him he! it’s not the vibe I get from him though. He seems sweet and kind with the children. He’s physically slight with a calm and gentle personality. I mean he’s unmistakably male, and honestly I wouldn’t have even noticed any trans identity if it hadn’t been for seeing pronouns in communications with parents about staff updates etc. But I do get your points and I will reflect. I’m just aware that it’s probably not easy being in the position he is in, and I don’t want to make life harder or make him feel uneasy by raising concerns before I have any reason to.

Oh and the nursery workers are young and no doubt just go along with it all. (Also. I live in a well known gay capital on the south coast…)

OP, how does it work with dealing with toileting?

I have to admit that I don't know but I'd assume that only female staff can help girls with toileting/ changing nappies?

Does this staff member help the girls with toileting?

Would you expect female workers not to change boys nappies?

This I’m quite blunt about it all. If a child is confused about accurately describe the person caring for them (i.e. being compelled to use wrong-sex pronouns) then this is a safeguarding issue.
I would also be very aware that paraphilias (autogynaephilia in the case of this man) cluster…and be less #BeKind and more #BeAlert.

I knew someone would say that.

I guess that would not be practical!

Women who commit sexual assaults are vanishingly rare.

Keep it simple. He is a man who likes to pretend he is a woman/girl all the time. Sometimes grown ups like to pretend to a bit like you pretend to be a superhero but he likes to do it all the time. Boys can’t change into girls bit some of them like to pretend and that is fine.

I think you’re right not to lie and acknowledge he’s a man who wishes he could be a woman. I have used that language with my 7 and 9yr old for a few yrs. Like pps I’ve always said boys and girls can dress or play with what they like.

I found it interesting when my older one asked what non binary meant, she heard the person who won Eurovision was. Last yr? Think she was 8. I said someone who doesn’t feel they fit in with the idea of what a man or a woman is, but they are a man or a woman because they were born that way. She simply said ‘if I thought I had to be a frilly girly girl, then I’d say I was non binary too’.

Yes, this. The concern about the feelings of others is a very one way street with many transactivists, basic manners do fine if it's both ways but I'm not entertaining pablum

Not true. It's less rare than you'd like to think. Rarer than men, but not insignificant by any means and I get a bit tired of people assuming that women are safe.

“Some people aren’t very well in their minds and think they’re boys or girls when they’re not”

Mine are a bit older

Since they were very small, I’ve always just approached gender tropes with mild puzzlement, and asked them a question. I’m still finding it a useful strategy.

“Pink is a girls’ colour? How can colours belong to people? Do I have a colour? so who owns yellow?”

Or the catchall: “why?”

I’ve found that listening to their thoughts on things first, before answering their questions, usually gave me a good hook, or at least a bit of time to think through the answer. “That’s an interesting question. What do you think?”

Often a question doesn’t need an answer, as much as it needs a chance to express their own confusion or discomfort and have their feeling sense checked by a trusted adult. If you rush in, even with a wise answer, that opportunity can be missed.

My dc are now in a stage of life where their default position is that parents don’t understand very much of anything. They don’t put much store in my opinions or wisdom, so I don’t waste my breath sharing them, except as context for my struggle to grasp the finer points of the modern world.

They don’t always recognise, or admit, when logic fails, except to reiterate the futility of trying to explain things to such an out of touch creature as the parent of a teenager, and I just agree because …

I grew up at a time when wearing jeans and docs, and cutting your hair short was not a particularly unfeminine thing to do. When the received wisdom was that sexuality was a spectrum, and gender was a construct, and both were differentiated from identity.

This is exactly the approach I took.

When they hit their teens, I asked them to read jkr's essay and then discuss with me.

They still skew 'be kind', but they're young and one has a TIM friend so to be expected. I don't think they think I'm an evil witch.