My work insisting I refer to a 9 year old as they/them

[TheMadGardener]

I work in a British primary school. Just started new term. Long standing pupil, a girl, is starting Year 5 now so she is 9 years old. No issues until now although parents are quite "alternative/new age."

Headteacher has informed staff that according to the child and her parents this girl has decided to be non-binary. Staff are now to refer to her as they/them and she is now using a gender-neutral shortened version of her name (think Alex instead of Alexandra or Jo instead of Joanna).

I am extremely uncomfortable with this and will definitely not be using they/them - I will be referring to the child by her chosen abbreviation to avoid using pronouns (at least it's a shortening of her real name rather than a made-up name).

Serious question: I thought new legislation discouraged schools from getting on board with this sort of thing? Or is it only they can't let children do it without parents knowing?

I'm finding it very hard to keep my mouth shut on my actual opinions in the presence of headteacher. (Colleagues I've spoken to on the quiet all think it is bullshit too)

I simply don't believe any school would have 11year olds still changing in front of the opposite sex. If they did it would be all over the tabloids.

At 11 some kids still look really young, but some girls for example have definite breasts. It would be totally inappropriate

What this thread showcases is the unhinged and abusive behaviour of some parents. Obviously the vast majority of parents are distraught that their children have been groomed online or by dubious adults about this.

However, on this very thread someone has been exceptionally offensive to other posters in now deleted posts claims to be the parent of an "NB " child and boasts of taking it into their professional role.

It's well established that self invested adults (often parents) can have a chilling impact on discussion & policy in the workplace. They're unable to be objective and resort to abuse, insults and wild accusations. So colleagues remain silent rather than face accusations of bigotry.

This is why until very recently schools, support services like education psychology and social work failed to intervene when young children falsely claimed to be the opposite (or neither) sex. Fortunately the new safeguarding guidelines (KCSIE) have recognised the harm being caused. Children may no longer be taught that gender identity is a fact with single sex changing, toilets and dormitories now being the norm.

That's not bigotry - that's ensuring that choldren are educated with facts and reality being centred.

Sorry to break it to you but there are a number of schols who try this. This parent is taking a Brighton school to court for doing precisely this to teenage girls. To date the school has doubled down insisting that teenage boys who claim to be girls are entitled to undress alongside girls

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5507367-mixed-sex-changing-rooms-in-a-brighton-secondary-school-part-3-were-really-cooking-now

I should be immune by now, but this still shocks me.

How can anyone cheer this on? It is a disgraceful safeguarding failure.

in this instance, 'they/their' is used in the abstract. Not the same thing.

I would be careful about using that word “normal”.

Most human beings define themselves as binary. therefore being binary is the accepted norm.

If you want to fling out statements like “ being non binary is normal” then be prepared for someone to push back, explain why it isn’t and assert that being non binary is abnormal.

Maybe in the 50s 60s it was waaaay less accepted.

I should say so. Until 1967 male homosexuality was illegal.

Perhaps zero is also a countless number.

Most human beings define themselves as binary. therefore being binary is the accepted norm.

do they? I define myself as a women because I am one ie an adult human female other than that I define myself as me. What does define yourself as binary mean exactly ? Your sex is your sex, it's not a definition it just 'is'. All nb ppl are either male or female and all the rest is personality & performance

15 year olds feeling that they're very special and different in a way no one understands or has ever been before is normal so I'll cut NB teenagers some slack

full grown adults wanging on about being NB are frankly embarrassing

What does define yourself as binary mean exactly ?

Sounds rather repressive.

I think it might have something to do with being a trad wife.

Obviously you can no more self define your sex than you can self define your blood type.

The social contagion aspect of this needs re-emphasising. Through the use of they/them pronouns, the school is introducing the whole class to the framework of gender identity ideology. By using they/them pronouns for one child, the school is overtly promoting the idea that this child is somehow special and different. The other children are learning that there is a framework that they can adopt that will lead to them being treated as special and different. For some children, and for a variety of reasons, this will be a very attractive proposition. Hence the situation that a PP, somewhat inadvertently, signposted; a friendship group forming and growing, comprised of children whose access to this group is via adoption of the NB identity.
Would this have mattered if the identity had been 'Goth' instead? No. However, an NB identity can ultimately lead to binders, some level of cross-sex hormones and even double mastectomy.

@TheMadGardener Please go back to SLT and ask them to have a pastoral meeting involving all staff who teach this child, where SLT should be open to honest questions from staff and be prepared to explain how this policy fits with new KCSIE guidance and how the other children are to be protected from social contagion.

Quite.

We arent allowed "views" at work. Political, religious or otherwise. I can see how this is essential in healthcare. I would certainly say something if I was forced to share a changing space with a man who was a colleague but with patients its different.
My job is to provide healthcare not my opinions.
I often have to sit through treatments where the other psrty rants on about feminism or immigrants. I cannot comment. I just have to try and change the subject.
Sometimes its really hard.
But I have 2 years before I retire and I need my full pension.

I mean define themselves as being members of a species which is binary in nature. So yes, I too identify myself as a woman because I recognise that I am a female human being not a male human being .Humans are binary like most of the other species of life on the planet be it other mammals, plants, amphibians, insects, reptiles, birds and fish et al . Though most of them don’t bother analysing and fretting over it, they just know what needs to happen to reproduce their species.

So if a child decides the earth is flat, it's your considered opinion you have to go along with it?

Aren’t you a delight.

I’m not tiptoeing around my child. At no point did I say this was being enforced by my child or being demanded. It’s a preference that they have expressed and we laugh together when I ‘mess up’

we have a lovely relationship thank you and I am a wonderful mother (one who grew up in a seriously messed up house where NO ONE could be themselves or even breathe the wrong way who could do without being called messed up on the internet when I just try to softly suggest that someone just tries saying 2 words which are in the English Dictionary when referring to someone who they’ll only be teaching for a year)

If you’re a primary educator, you need to improve your comprehension ability as those articles don’t say what you think they say.

Your actual quote validates this and reinforces concept: the child can believe what it wants… so can the teacher. The child however force the teacher to align with any set of beliefs, in the same way, the teacher can’t force the child to align with any set of beliefs.

better educate yourself on the actual articles you band around.

And where does it say that you have to express them, too?

And what about the rights of the other children to express their beliefs? When they express their belief that Alex is a girl, and are told that they are not allowed to express this belief, how will their rights have been protected or respected?

1. An atheist could choose to utter a prayer but they'd be dishonest in doing so. Do children benefit from teachers lying?
2. I don't know whether it's classed as aphasia or as situational mutism, but I go non-verbal in situations where the expected behaviour is to lie. I think it's part of how autism manifests in me. A world in which I could lose my job for not lying is a disablist world.

Hi, OP here

I'm not a troll, I just haven't been back to this thread since last night because a) I've been teaching all day and not browsing Mumsnet, and b) when I finally got home from school I was so knackered I fell asleep under a cat! Finally got a chance to look at my phone and was staggered to see how much the thread had grown in my absence!

Having read through the whole lot, I can see that most comments broadly agree with me that parents claiming their 9 year old daughter is non-binary is frankly ridiculous and potentially damaging to their daughter as it will confuse her as she heads towards puberty.

Far better in my opinion to explain to her that it's absolutely fine not to be a "girly girl", that sex stereotypes don't have to be abided by and that she should challenge any of her peers who say, "girls can't play football," "girls can't have short hair," etc. Far better to provide her with examples of strong, talented women excelling in careers and activities which have traditionally been male-dominated. Far better to teach her that as a woman she can have any hairstyle, clothes style, career, hobby, friends etc and she shouldn't feel her choices to be limited by her sex. She's a very bright girl who is very interested in a hobby (not sports) which is quite male-dominated.

She may turn out to be lesbian or she may be heterosexual. What she won't grow up to be is a male, or a person of no gender. And personally I think it is dishonest to confuse children by teaching them that something untrue can be true. As a teacher I can challenge sex stereotypes in the classroom and give the girls examples of strong female role models. It's not my place to sit down with this girl and tell her her parents are wrong, and I won't be doing that.

As I said in my original post, I will be calling her by her name in place of using they/them. If one of the other children refers to her as "she" or "her", I won't be telling them off and telling them to use they/them.

I won't be shouting at this girl that she's being ridiculous and pointedly saying SHE and HER loudly in front of her to embarrass her and make a point (some misguided poster on this thread appears to think I'll be doing this). That would be abusive, unkind and unprofessional.

I will, in fact, be treating her very kindly because I feel very sorry for her that her parents have decided to take this course. I hope as she gets older she will be able to see her way forward more positively.

I would like to thank all the posters who have made thoughtful comments.

I think we need to end the thread with Op’s well worded post + A Photo of the Cat 🐱 🥰

All very sensible, nice one