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)

Tbh I've assumed that TPA comes in here and rages at us because she can't rage at the ppl she wants too

I don't think it's good for TPA mental health to keep coming here but 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well, I'm just going to have to agree to disagree with a lot of posters then.
I don't think TPA has changed her family details.
She's the relative of two trans kids - the mother of one of them and the cousin-once-removed of the other.
No confusion there.
MrPrettyDamnCosmic misunderstood.

Where I do agree with posters here is that TPA's posts are mostly hyperbolic, vitriolic, misguided and anti-women.

I really hope TPA's account is fictional. If not then what a number trans activists have done on her and her family. To be convinced that sexual, violent bullying of kids who think they're trans is so widespread that you just give up on a school dealing with it or finding a better school. This is another tragic side of the Stonewall victim narrative. The reality in most schools is very different.

Of course it's absolute bollocks blaming mumsnet for male on female sexual violence in schools. We're the ones that want girls to be kept safe however they identify.

If you think your female child would have been safer if TRAs had their way and everyone actually pretended she was a boy and encouraged her to use the boys loos and changing rooms then you're deluded. Single sex spaces are a needed safeguarding measure. We had sadly seen the consequences of this when taken to extremes, there was a recent case where a young woman was raped on a men's locked mental health ward.

Erg should not have reacted.
OP thank you for updating and it's good to hear that nobody's making a fuss about children using the language that comes naturally to them. Sounds like maybe a bit of a holiday-induced obsession that wears off when other people just aren't that interested.

I disagree. The statement “Mum of three kids, relative of two trans kids who were both bullied our of school by transphobia.” cannot be parsed to mean that they have a “ trans” kid. It’s stating they have three kids none of whom are “trans” & that they are the relative of two “trans” kids. A parent would never describe themself as “relative of two kids” if one of those kids is their own child.

We can’t know the truth of anyone’s family, but your conclusion makes as much sense as anyone’s (especially given their user name).

We can know the what people say directly though and TPA has claimed over time:-
To be a cis woman.
To not know what it is to be trans as they aren’t trans.
That there is no element of social contagion in transgenderism.
That transwomen have been women their whole life.
That they, TPA, are non-binary.

There are obvious glaring contradictions in all that.

It’s notable also that despite being NB, TPA frequently uses first person plural pronouns when talking about issues facing women. Usually when she is telling feminists they aren’t feministing right.

A parent would never describe themself as “relative of two kids” if one of those kids is their own child.

Of course they might! It's ridiculous to say "never" as if you know what every parent would say.

You have misunderstood the meaning of the two sentences taken together. One of the two trans kids can be understood to be ALSO one of the three kids mentioned first.

I read "relative of" as a shorter way of saying "I am related to" or "I am the mother/parent of one and the cousin once removed of the other" because that's a bit of a mouthful.
TPA simply didn't phrase it as some posters here might have phrased it. That's all.

Looping back to this one...

This is such good news.

I'm still scratching my head as to how your complete pronoun avoidance approach can apparently translate to wishing a child harm.

Interestingly, my daughter (not my autistic previously gender questioning daughter - her younger sister) seems to think it's hurtful to the person in question if I don't use any pronouns... so I guess TPA is not alone here.

I tried every which way I could to explain that I can't be hurtful to someone by not saying something. Her reasoning was that the person would notice that I wasn't using their preferred pronouns and would find this hurtful and disrespectful.

To me, it's as mad as a Christian expecting a Jew (or me) to agree with them that Jesus was the son of god - and that if they won't agree to this, they are being disrespectful. Nobody should expect anyone else to actively use words that they don't believe, just to show "respect" to them.

On a plus note she does understand why I don't use preferred pronouns for children and thinks that gender questioning children probably do have underlying issues. Her beef with me (to use her phrase) was more about a theoretical situation where someone has been through completely neutral therapy and still believes themselves to have a gender identity that differs from their sex.

Sadly, her school has conditioned her to think that only active use of preferred pronouns counts as being respectful, despite me saying that not using any pronouns is my way of being respectful.

Is thst what thr fuss was about?! Dear lord. I had a quick look but decided I couldn't be bothered in the end. Thanks for saying.

No problem. We're all anonymous here and anyone could be making up anything. But, as GreyskySexRealistsky has said, your posts and your username all seem consistent.

It wasn't me that asked what the odds might be that two people in the same family would identify as trans. Given you said you hadn't seen each other in a long time, this does sound coincidental in their case.

Yes, I've heard of the Wachowskis. As PPs have said, Lily openly talks about porn being what sparked the realisation of a need to transition. Autogynophilia is a completely different root cause than social contagion though. Although someone can discover autogynophilia via social contagion e.g. via online forums where "eggs" are cracked by older autogynophiles encouraging adolescent boys to see themselves as sexy in female form.

Just a mum, who's seen the violent effects of transphobia.

Being bullied at school for being different is awful. Children can be so cruel. The problem here though is the definition of "transphobia". Presumably me not using preferred pronouns is "transphobic"? That's ridiculous. It's no more transphobic than me not going to church every Sunday is Christianphobic. I do not share your or your child's belief in gender identity (or a Christian's belief in god for that matter), so I'm not going to pretend that I do.

But they are, and I'm going to be someone they rely on, a safe space for them to be themselves, as long as I live.

How can it be a safe space if being within it means that people like me are positioned as harmful and hateful? It sounds like a scary place, where the people within it are told that they need to be protected from "nasty" people like me.

Edited to add a clarification about autogynophilia. Hopefully all within talk guidelines 🤞

TPA: Perhaps you've heard of the Wachowski sisters?

The Wachowski brothers admitted they wanted to be women after watching sissy porn. Yuck. Not an example for your family I hope.