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

did your colleague require you to use language that affirmed their beliefs, or could you just avoid the topic?

Why would the op be misgendered? It’s glaringly obvious which sex 99.99999% of people are

Hard to know what to do in practice. My principles would say don't address them, except by saying ' excuse me' but in practice can she get away with that?

What evidence have you got that this is actually going to happen? Are you envisaging a scenario where the teacher stands over your DD saying 'call me miss or detention'?

Because otherwise your DD can just avoid calling the teacher anything at all. The teacher has requested to be called X which they are perfectly entitled to do. Your DD doesn't want to, so just avoids this by not referring to the teacher as anything, which she is perfectly entitled to do.

She's not referring to the teacher as sir or Mr so it shouldn't raise any eyebrows or get into any confrontation. If it does, then you can take it up with the school.

Your daughter needs to address the teacher how she has been told to. If the teacher is in her toilets or changing room, that is a problem. The teacher isnt, they are teaching the class. Your daughter's personal views about gender and pronouns are totally irrelevant. Don't make her believe that her opinions are more important, especially to others, than they really are.

Um. I’m not sure you meant to make that argument but well done. I agree.

In this case the “belief system” is that a man in a dress is a woman. The “social convention” is that we use male forms of address for male people and female forms of address for female people.

Absolutely; we should not allow belief systems to trump social conventions because social harmony breaks down if we do. See the last 10 years of utter madness for the proof.

This is complete nonsense.

If anyone wants to back-up with evidence the idea that MN is transphobic they can just use this thread where an entirely unknown teacher is being described as a disgusting pervert wanting to bully girls merely because they are trans.

"The “social convention” is that we use male forms of address for male people and female forms of address for female people."

You appear confused. The context of discussion is the social convention of preferred pronoun usage. IE people generally get to choose how others address them not the other way round.

If we start telling children that they don't have to respect teachers then we are set for a bad path. The idea that someone has to live life in a way that you agree with for you to respect them is incredibly flawed. This counts doubly where a child has to learn to be led and do taaks as delegated by a leader. In this case a teacher.

You're teaching your child that unless they agree with the person leading, they don't have to respect them and therefore, don't have to be led by them. They will find adulthood very hard with that outlook and quite frankly, they won't be a person many want to be around.

Yes it is hate speech to be frank. I cannot believe a big site like this who is so reliant on advertising would allow blatant hate speech like this. Yeah sure speak about your gender critical views but calling trans people perverts and the like is way too far.

Saying a man is not a woman is not transphobic.. You are free to believe gender is important and people can change their gender but I and the op and their daughter do not. If a man says he is a woman we should not be compelled to call him a woman. And yes, men dressing up as women is a known fetish. That is the truth.

Is this a secondary school? So she will be with this teacher a couple of hours a week?
If that’s the case I would hate it (so would my DD) but I would advise to address the teacher directly as little as possible.
Obviously any inappropriate behaviour should be reported as she would with any male teacher

The whole scenario is uncomfortable. Him being an AGP is not “nonsense”. He might not be but there’s a good chance he might. But no the risk is taken in his favour because men’s feelings are as ever prioritised over girls - even in a girls school 🙄🙄🙄. Men’s right movement. Same dominance different guise.

AGP is a recognised condition. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22005209/ It is not hate to raise concerns.

"IE people generally get to choose how others address them not the other way round."

That's how the gender ideologues would like to have it. But you don't change social covention par ordre de mufti, especially when most of society think it's bullshit at best and coercion at worst.

That fetishes exist isn't a justification to impugn an entire group. And in any case that aAGP explains all trans people has been long debunked as pseudoscience by major medical associations.

The issue here is that what is considered respectfully of this teacher is being reset.

No one is encouraging a child to shout 'dickhead' when they out their hand up, they supporting the child not to address a blatant male as if they were female.

It is not fair to put children under pressure and stress like this, like telling them they need to refer to the cat as a dog from now in under pain of punishment, and relabel them struggling with the mental struggle required as rude or unkind.

You are hilariously naive

Sure. It doesn't mean all trans people have it.

So you just want to shut down this person's opinion,?