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

I'm not playing games. State your point.

Feel free to pop onto trans Reddit and make your brilliant suggestion of all unisex toilets and changing rooms 😂

Privacy, dignity AND safety

What healthcare roles can they not assume at all (other than performing mammograms)? There are some roles that might have a gender criteria, but where relevant, there will be a role for both male and female service users. So a male specialist nurse for the men and a female one for the women.

I expressly said that I still wouldn't be going along with the title and pronoun nonsense, but yes, I do tend to feel more favourably towards someone who isn''t exercising every iota of his male privilege while still expecting to override womens' rights and boundaries. Oh, and by the way it's quite easy to spot the autogynephiles -they're overwhelmingly the ones who expect to still pursue relationships with women.

So do you think a female teacher is discouraged from the boy's changing rooms in case the young men attack her, or because she is an adult and should not observe them in a state of vulnerability?

That's weird because toxic masculinity is said to be an issue among transmasc people, obviously including trans men.

FlirtsWithRhinos · Today 12:50

I don't know. Is it reasonable to expect someone to respect a belief system that actively demeans them?

What if he was a Christian fundamentalist? If he demanded that the girls wear head scarves? And not speak in class, on the grounds that Paul commanded the women to learn in silence?

They're also philosophical beliefs. Who would be OK with forcing them onto a girl pupil? It's not any different to demanding to be addressed as if he were a woman.

As I said, most heroin addicts started on cannabis, doesn't mean that most stoners are on their way to a needle

Nor am I. Show me where I said that.

Do you understand the meaning of the word ‘and’?

He’s more likely to be sexually predatory than a woman is, as a man, because men commit 98% of sexual crimes, and it’s quite possible for any man to be gaining sexual gratification from this type of role play. It’s a boundary violation, coercive control, harassment situation in some cases, IMO.

Youve already been directed to look up autogynephilia. Maybe do that.

Yes I am asking in that situation, whose safety is it about?

Yep.

Not all cross dressers decide to 'transition' and take it full time, no. See Grayson Perry, who writes on the subject from a position of experience.

I cannot believe the naivety of some posters here.

Let’s be honest. Safeguarding screening, DBS checks etc all exist to safeguard against men.

For every one sexually-predatory woman they exist to filter out there are 50+++ sexually-predatory men to keep out.

How likely is it that we’d have such procedures at all, if men’s offending rate were the same as women’s?

I cannot believe the naivety of some posters here.

Yes it is pretty unbelievable

Cappibarra · Today 12:56

There exists no policy or procedure that can guarantee no one is 'upset'. Resilience and tolerance are two helpful concepts for children in these instances.

It's even more applicable in the case of the teacher, he may tell his charges to learn resilience, but appears to be a wilting flower; it's hypocritical. Likewise, he ought to be tolerant of the fact that many people will be made uncomfortable by being coerced into referring to him as female.

I disagree - the only language related to identity that is sex based is male (from the latin masculus) and female (from the latin femina which has a derived meaning of to suckle) and woman is as it refers only to adult human females.

Man isn't sex based in and of itself because it just means human and only means male when coded within a gender relevant context.

Mrs comes from the word mistress which is the feminised form of master and has its root in the word meg - which means great.

That it relates to females is based on solely on the fact that it is a linguistically the feminine form of master and is used to denote status, achievement and nothing to do with biology or sex. Historically only women with status had Mistress as a prefix. It was not common to all women until the 17th century - it was a societal evolution, not a biological one.

The modern association of Mrs with women is a result of cultural coding around gender norms, not inherent biological meaning which makes it gender-coded not sex-based.

If men were really that high risk, we wouldnt allow them out or in most of the roles they assume. A minority of men are responsible for the majority of violent crime and sexual offences. The majority of men are not predatory or violent. The majority of trans women arent just men with a fetish.

Most “cross dressers” would now be considered “trans women” though. That’s why Stonewall has fairly recently removed it from its definition of “trans”, because these men don’t call themselves “cross dressers” now when they can be “gender fluid” or some such bollocks instead.

Why do you think we have single sex spaces to begin with?

Are you advocating getting rid of single sex spaces entirely?

If you say so. Other opinions are available.

Do you have any inkling of the reasons that females are more vulnerable than males? (Males tend to be bigger and certainly stronger; and females can become pregnant). Male sexual response is programmed differently to the female sexual response.....and this is one of the reasons that paraphilias and fetishes are far, far more common in males than in females.

Have you ever been the victim of voyeurism, or of a man touching you up, or masturbating or exposing himself in front of you?

Why do you think we have single sex spaces in the first instance?