Advice please - TIM teacher just arrived at DD’s school

[KnottyAuty]

DD reports that the new teacher has asked to be referred to as she/her and Ms Smith. They are obviously male. DD isn’t happy about the power imbalance of potential behaviour points and detentions for non compliance.

I’ve got no idea how to advice DD how to handle this but obviously know from reading here that using this language is a safeguarding problem. Ms Smith should follow the same rules as all the other male teachers. If everyone must use this language, then it looks like the school is unable to tolerate GC beliefs.

Suggesting that DD respectfully avoids pronouns doesn’t seem workable as using the teacher’s name will include “Miss”….

Is there a gender neutral way of referring to a teacher like “Professor”?!

What do I advise DD so she can work within her GC beliefs? And what should I write to the school to say about this?

eta clarification

So you do understand that the feelings and sensitivities of one male person in a girls school in no way outweigh the rights, dignity and protections of hundreds of female students not to be gaslighted by a man wearing thick make-up ( that the female staff and girls are not permited to use themselves) and prosthetic breasts.

A respectful male teacher would tell girls never to deny reality simply to please a man and that if a teacher told them to do so that they should raise this with the school safeguarding lead immediately.

I'm with the call people what they want to be called view - as long as said teacher is not using single sex spaces - for example, they should not be policing the loos or if they are a PE teacher, they should absolutely not be entering the girls changing rooms.

But if you feel differently, it may be an opportunity to have a discussion with the school about it. Speak to the head about how you / your daughter doesn't feel comfortable calling this teacher Miss as you see it as compelled speech which following the Supreme Court ruling, is a perfectly acceptable position. Make it clear that you would not expect her to be marked down for bad behaviour on that basis.

However, tell then that despite those beliefs you both want to be respectful to the teacher and the way they choose to identify, and ask if there is a way forward that would be respectful to both the teacher and your daughter.

A good compromise may be that the children who don't wish to use the teachers preferred pronouns can use their first name instead, or another title that is relevant (Dr, professor etc)

We don't allow adults in areas where children might be vulnerable unless they have additional needs that include personal care. In the context of a student/teacher relationship, this is all moot. There isn't anything a female teacher should be routinely doing with students that a male teacher should not. The sex of the students is irrelevant.

Disagree. Forcing people to lie, no matter what distress it causes them, is indeed harmful.

It would be as harmful as if a pupil was made to say that 2+2=5. No, it doesn't necessarily change that pupil's inner belief and knowledge that 2+2=4, but it DOES undermine that pupil's self-belief. They'll doubt everything. What is real, what is allowable to say, what is not?

Despicable behaviour from a person in a position of authority. He doesn't have to do a damn thing more to cause harm.

Both ICD and DSM are political as much as they are clinical.

I never came across such usages being imposed in the way that "preferred" pronouns are now demanded. And the ideological implications were far less far-reaching. Ms was introduced by feminists wanting their marital status to be treated in the same way as men's. An alternative would have been a return to the Master/Mister usage for unmarried and married men, but the abbreviation Mr didn't distinguish these, so by analogy Ms was invented to stand for both Miss and Mistress.

Sorry your DC has no choice but to respect the teacher’s beliefs and call her whatever she wants ti be addressed as. Everyone is free to have their own beliefs but we address people depending on what they want to be addressed as and not what we want to address them as. Your DC will not be able to find a job or work if she can’t do that. There have been people sacked at our work place for refusing to address people as they have requested.

Also noting that the ICD, the manual that the NHS etc refers to, explicitly says that paraphilic disorders must be excluded before a diagnosis of gender incongruence can be given.

'OPCS-4 and ICD-10 are clinical classifications standards. Both are mandated nationally for use across the NHS and consist of groupings of concepts (codes), plus definitions and business rules for their use.'

https://digital.nhs.uk/services/terminology-and-classifications/clinical-classifications#:~:text=OPCS%2D4%20and%20ICD%2D10,business%20rules%20for%20their%20use.

Gender incongruence

Foundation URI: http://id.who.int/icd/entity/411470068
Description
Gender incongruence is characterised by a marked and persistent incongruence between an individual’s experienced gender and the assigned sex. Gender variant behaviour and preferences alone are not a basis for assigning the diagnoses in this group.
Exclusions
Paraphilic disorders(6D30-6D3Z)

It's a bit weird that people think this is an observation that can't be made.

It's not a slur, or outrageous, to quote from the ICD manual.

In this case j wouldn't like the teacher using the same toilet facilities as female students, wouldn't like their influencing of vulnerable students, and wouldnt like them calling another student a slag. All of these are highly objectionable. The pronouns are not the issue but all this other stuff is. It would be an issue even if a male teacher or indeed a female teacher did the same.

Agree 100%, but this is what we have to go on at the moment. I've actually just noticed that although ICD 11 is the most current version, the NHS seems to only mandate !CD 10....

You’re completely wrong.

Pronouns were also very much an issue. It is total gaslighting to expect girls to refer to an obviously male teacher ( albeit very camp and in full make-up) as 'Miss'.

I don't see the issue of this teacher being 'trans' as a threat. I see the implications of students and parents having to act as if they believe that this male teacher is female as being harmful.

Yes, I understand that you, personally, don't believe there is any harm in people using female language for a male person.

I and others are trying to point out that your ideal 'happier' world is not happier for some of the people who feel pressured to use the language that they feel is wrong. Do you understand that perspective?

FWIW it's quite possible that the teacher OP describes is diagnosed with Gender Incongruence and is NOT a transvestic fetishist. The diagnosis of the former is rarer than the latter, but it's quite possible.

My issue is that we do not know his motivation.

She absolutely does not need to do this. The law is clear. If your work have sacked people for not participating in someone else’s belief then they have been unlawfully discriminating against them and hopefully will be taken to tribunal soon.

Really? People at your work can ask to be addressed as whatever they like, and you have to comply? That’s unusual.

Given that it’s an all girls school, would the school allow male children to enroll should they ID as girls? It’s happened before. This isn’t just about this one teacher, it’s understanding the schools policy on single sex spaces and education in an all girls school. I appreciate Op question related only to pronouns but I do think this whole discussion should start with the schools approach to the winder issue.

So, when the male teacher says to anyone who questions them about using female single sex provisions, 'but you use female language for me, so you obviously believe that I am a female. It is cruel to exclude me from this female provision while you are using female language for me,' what would you expect a policy maker to say and do (providing it is within that policy maker's ability to allow that male person to use female single sex provisions)?

https://classbrowser.nhs.uk/#/book/ICD-10-5TH-Edition/vol1/block-f60-f69.htm+F64.0

I have found the NHS version of ICD 10. For accuracy's sake. Interestingly, they still use the term 'transsexualism'.

'Transsexualism

A desire to live and be accepted as a member of the opposite sex, usually accompanied by a sense of discomfort with, or inappropriateness of, one's anatomic sex, and a wish to have surgery and hormonal treatment to make one's body as congruent as possible with one's preferred sex.

F64.1 Dual-role transvestism

The wearing of clothes of the opposite sex for part of the individual's existence in order to enjoy the temporary experience of membership of the opposite sex, but without any desire for a more permanent sex change or associated surgical reassignment, and without sexual excitement accompanying the cross-dressing.
Gender identity disorder of adolescence or adulthood, nontranssexual type

Excl.:
fetishistic transvestism ( F65.1)

...

F65.1 Fetishistic transvestism
The wearing of clothes of the opposite sex principally to obtain sexual excitement and to create the appearance of a person of the opposite sex. Fetishistic transvestism is distinguished from transsexual transvestism by its clear association with sexual arousal and the strong desire to remove the clothing once orgasm occurs and sexual arousal declines. It can occur as an earlier phase in the development of transsexualism.

Transvestic fetishism'

The dignity and respect of the daughter absolutely nowhere in some of these comments. Everyone knows it's the thin end of the wedge. Everyone knows it is coercive due to the environment, the power imbalance AND the male-female social dynamics.

Sorry I don't have any advice OP but I understand the difficulties in dictating to your daughter that she must comply and, to her eyes, lie. I would have a hard time with that also. How I personally approach interactions with trans identified people on a professional basis is a very different thing to telling my daughter to do the same.

His motivations are irrelevant to the fact he is a man asking girls to address him as if he were a woman and in doing so both destroy the meaning of language women and girls need to describe themselves, and reduce the girls existence to a set of regressive sex stereotypes.

I'll say again, what on earth were the school thinking?! A new teacher, forcing classes full of girls to swallow their discomfort, to lie, to call a MAN she and her and miss? And they can't say no.

I'll reserve judgement on how that'll make him feel - seeing as I suspect voicing my opinion on that matter got me reported!! But I imagine that I will be far from alone in my appraisal 😏

Generally curious: how do you pronounce "Ms", when spoken? wouldn't it be "Miss" anyway?