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

Why does it have to be a teacher?

The question you are asking is whether a woman would avoid using men's single sex facilities to protect herself from risk or to protect the dignity and privacy of the men.

The answer is both.

No they exist to make sure that people are not at too high a risk of exploiting their role to commit criminal acts. They're used as much to ensure someone does not have a history of theft or fraud as they are violent offences. In fact, there are some jobs you could not get with a history of theft, but could with a history of violence.

Actually come to think of it, I know someone who was turned down for the police due such a history, yet we now know many of them have a history of violent crime.

No I'm asking about why we prevent teachers from being around children who are undressed.

What a horrible position to put children in. I don't agree with using preferred pronouns to be "respectful". A man impersonating a woman hasn't earned my respect, and he certainly isn't respecting us when he expects and demands to be addressed as though he's one of us.

Pronouns are Rohypnol: a good read

So you’d agree it’s important to understand who these extra-elevated risk men are then.

I’m still curious what your answer is to your own question.

What do you think explains the extraordinarily high share of the UK’s trans prisoners who are convicted for sexual crimes?

Privacy, dignity and safety

Yes. I also know that we have growing reports of female teachers abusing children in their care. Particularly teenagers where they claim it was an equal relationship or even that the child was the initiator or abuser in the situation.

This

We dont have a high number of trans people convicted of sex crimes. We have a large number of men on the prison population who transition after being imprisoned for sex offences. They weren't trans identifying at the time of conviction.

A fetish is when you obsess about an object or about certain items of clothing, a certain set of actions.

Men who adopt feminine trans identities make a fetish out of what they imagine it is to be female. They tend to wear hyper feminine or sexualised clothing; spend inordinate amounts of time on hair and make -up and 'getting ready'. They practice poses and mannerisms. This is fetishistic behaviour. It is thoroughly incongruous and makes the presence of that man in a female space a very uncomfortable experience.

I see such men around my city on a frequent basis and it is clear that much of it is sexually motivated, whether they are gay or straight.

So you are saying being trans is something that comes and goes and not something innate?

I should have prefaced my post with “When it comes to the topic we are discussing….” but I felt that was taken as read.

From now on, please read all my posts as if they start as such.

There are many men who have adopted trans identities and then who have been arrested or charged with violent or sexual crimes, including against children. Reddux is an excellent resource which collates examples of this.

Earlier, you said that you were new to this, and now you're referencing 'research'.

Quick turnaround.

It’s possible. That trans identification is widely abused by predatory men for their own purposes. Is there data for that? What should we do with such knowledge if that is the case?

Someone else who thinks if they destroy the meaning of a word in one context they won’t then find the meaning has also been destroyed in other contexts that matter to them.

How do the children benefit from having to lie about the sex of this teacher.

Who is being centred here? The man or the children he teaches?

Probably because they want to pass as women. That isn't the definition of a fetish by the way.

Apply it to the populations for which it is relevant. In this case, prisoners .

Google is really quick.

Receipts please.

It is nowhere near the number of men.

I also understand where you are coming from, and I agree that the OP needs practical solutions - which I'm not really able to offer sadly, I wish I could help.

I'm just angered by the compelled language in a girls school. I do feel it's indoctrination. It does go against Cass recommendations, as other PPs have rightly pointed out compelled pronouns are not a neutral act.

Dependant on OP's situation, I'd be inclined to fight this, while looking for another school just in case. I'd want to get answers to all the questions posed in this thread from the school first off, and I'd go in armed with all the resources and knowledge from this thread to back me up.

It shouldn't be like this, but on balance I think the harm of exposing my young female child to this dangerous ideology which requires compliance and silence from women is greater in the long term than the upheaval of a change of school - This is all dependant on OP & her DD's circumstances obviously! I can see where there may be circumstances where the change of school would ultimately be more damaging to the DD too.

All this with the disclaimer of it's really easy for me to say all this, it's not happening to my DD, I understand in practice this is possibly a long and stressful road ahead for the OP and her DD.

@KnottyAuty for you and your daughter, this is a really shite position to find yourselves in. I'm angry for you both, and I hope you manage to figure out the best way to deal with it for you.

I am saying that we have no reason to distrust trans people in the general population.

So why are LGBT+ organisations are telling us we can’t trust such men to stay out of women’s spaces?

However we have no reason to treat them differently to other men