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)

But people are being hurt though - that is the point.

ETA - meant to add, we don't have to demonstrate or quantify hurt at every turn. The potential for hurt (whether to dignity, privacy or safety) is enough for the application of SSS and for effective safeguarding and for just saying no.

In less than a decade, we'll be looking back on a huge medical scandal where young adults have removed body parts, altered their endocrine systems irreversibly with cross-sex hormones and potentially suffered brain damage from puberty blockers that were given in childhood before these were restricted.

Many people will be scratching their heads, wondering how we got there without professionals seeing it and stopping it from happening.

Eyes will be on the medical profession for providing the surgery and medication but also on schools for not protecting children from entering this affirmation pathway.

But if they are not hurting anyone in in doing so

They are doing. This is harming thousands of children and young adults in the UK. Even more worldwide.

Is it still meh?

People are being hurt though.

You seem happy to dismiss the point about women being incarcerated with men because it won’t happen to you, but there are women in this very position across the world right now. It’s not a theoretical concept to them.

That’s not to mention women who can’t now have access to single sex domestic violence shelters, rape counselling, intimate care if they need it.

Then there’s the wider implications of dismantling our scientific understanding, language and safeguarding structures as we pretend men can become women.

It strikes me that you haven’t given this any thought at all.

So 1 (possible) example of our 7Bn+ suggests we’re not binary….?

Come one. The other 7Bn - 1 might be proof we are….

@TheKeatingFive I may have given it too much thought and ended up with no conclusion. I can’t imagine a situation when I wouldn’t respect someone’s naming/pronoun preference. Nevertheless, thanks for sharing your views, which are very interesting.

@MarieDeGournay thank you for sharing your views, which you expressed eloquently and persuasively. I can’t imagine a time when I would not follow someone ‘s wishes about their pronouns and name . But I do appreciate your views which have provided food for thought.

@ExpectMore I do believe there are more people than Caster who have this condition.

And even those, as noted by many posters above, don’t prove anything.

Yes there are. And other types of dsd too. There are nevertheless only two sexes in humans. That is the very basis of our continued existence as a species.

@soupycustard OK but if this condition causes you to feel you’re different to your assigned sex , do you live a life of never feeling your identity is right? I’m not preaching, I am nonplused! I just can’t see why people will go through the whole trauma of changing gender for no good reason. I’m assuming you mean people can’t be a different gender to their biological sex, apologies if you’re not meaning to say that.

No offence but I don’t think you can claim you have given it ’too much thought’ when you stopped at ‘I don’t intend to end up in prison, so not my problem’.

And don’t you think, having had had some discussions that upholding women’s sex based rights might be more important than just doing what a man demands re pronouns, without thinking through the consequences?

You could only conclude that your ‘identity is not right’ if you’ve internalised there’s a right way to be male or female.

Acceptance of regressive stereotypes are the problem, not people’s identities.

With regards to pronouns, because I find this point very interesting.

Do you always just do what people demand? Without thinking about how reasonable the demand is? Or the long term and second order consequences?

I just don’t really understand why this is positioned as a good thing.

I wouldn’t call a child Satan or Lucifer (for instance) but not would I refuse certain pronouns if that’s what I was asked to do.

How far are you going to take that though. Would you use ‘your highness’, or ‘your excellency’ if asked?

Thanks for the reply, SYH.
Not everybody has to get worked up about 'hideous things', esp if they feel there's FA they can do about them, so fair enough.

But this particular board, 'Feminism: Sex and gender discussions', is by definition actively non-meh about things that do hurt other people, and society in general, so meh is bound to get some pushback.

Ha! Good one, I’d avoid that situation 🤪

I actually do enjoy reading things by clever women. What could be better?

What a nine year old needs are consistent boundaries.

Adults can respect a child’s feelings and opinions without trampling on them, and without allowing the child to trample over others.

If your ‘inner feelings’ are different from the physical evidence of your biological sex…

why would you consider that the right approach to aligning them is body mutilation and taking of chemicals?!

why would you not instead consider that working with that person’s mental health and cognitive dissonance might be the right route?

there is only one reason why society would consider butchery of what is scientifically obvious and accurate into a poor facsimile of something false to deal with mental health issues and that is because somewhere there is an agenda driving that approach…

so consider what agenda might drive an approach of:

• puberty blockers to make those of legal age still look like small pre-pubescent children
• mutilation to try and make men look like women so that they can access women and girls in their safe spaces…

now let’s re-evaluate the discussion…

Children will often try to discover what makes their adults say “No. Stop.” Verbally or non-verbally. They are discovering the boundaries within which they are safe. A child with no boundaries becomes more and more extreme their search for security.

very cool thoughts. I’m not a girly woman. I NEVER wear skirts, I have one dress for chucking on after swimming and that’s it. I literally, in this mixed up, shook up world feel more like a bloke if I wear a dress!

Sometimes I look at the fashion threads and click on dresses and… just actually CAN’T. I just can’t do girly. There’s a bag of brand new makeup unopened and unloved because I just don’t know what to do with it. I know I’d just look a prat.

I don’t know how to measure for curtains, put a duvet cover on or sew a button on.

I’m as strong as as ox, I do everything myself, I love football and I drink pints. With the men! I feel more comfortable with men despite being a feminist.

I just missed Being a Woman 101!

yet I’m a straight cis woman. Never felt need to say I was male and never questioned being female. I’m 100%

I don’t think it’s as simple as not feeling the stereotype? But you tell me, interested to know!

Well what is it then?

Many people believe many different things about their identity: that they have a soul, that their soul is immortal, that they are re-incarnated, that their identity can be classified by gender (social expectations of how a man or woman should behave) and that this has an impact on their sex.

That is all fine because we are a pluralistic society and we tolerate many different beliefs.

The problem arrives when somebody insists that because of something subjective and intangible, (their perspective on their own identity) material reality becomes irrelevant.

Life is certainly harder for people with a DSD, all other things being equal, as it is with any other health condition. For Semenya and other male athletes competing in female events, it is also unfortunate that the scouts who find them and the training set ups which support them, are - whilst fundamentally cheating - also offering a way out of poverty. But, in using males with DSDs in this way, bear in mind that a woman, probably equally poverty-stricken, is denied her chance to join the team and compete her way to a different life, and all the other women beaten by the male have had to lose their chance too.
So the question is why some people think we must be 'kind' to the male, but not 'kind' to the females.
Life is difficult sometimes, more so for some than for others. But no man, however sad, has any 'right' in my view to, say, run in the women's 800m. I'm afraid sometimes we all have to accept that we can't be excellent at everything we do.
As to genders, I don't believe that that last sentence really means anything, as I am 'gender critical' so I guess the answer is No I dont think that. I have on a number of occasions posed questions on gender to TRAs on threads, but they never answer. My view, fwiw, is that there could be any of the following: 0, because it's meaningless nonsense and/or a cultural construct; 2, ie male and female (which some trans people believe, hence transing from 1 to the other); 3, ie adding 'non-binary', which I understand TRAs believe is a thing; or maybe 5 if you add in 'pan' or 'queer' (again, I dont really know what they're meant to be but TRAs argue this sometimes); or 8 billion, because we're all individuals and all different.
I think everyone should just live however they like, as long as it doesn't impinge on the rights of my sex class.