Teacher upset with my child questioning about trans child

[sarahandsage]

Was Called into school today.
My daughter has just started reception in September, it’s a lovely village school, and she’s made lots of friends and settled in really well.

Yesterday I was called into have chat with her teacher.
Was informed my child has a trans girl in her class, and that my child is questioning the teacher every day about this.
That all the other children accept this child was born in the wrong body, yet my daughter is questioning ‘too much’.

I said we encourage curiosity amongst our children, so am
not surprised.

The teacher then said that my child was taken to one side and read a couple of books :
My name is Jazz
and one about a crayon that feels like a different colour.
Which was astonishing to me, because really singling out a child to (as the teacher said ) “Get her on board”, feels very pushy.

My daughter is very kind, and plays with all the children in the class including the trans girl.
The teacher is not concerned with unkindness, but that my daughter is not accepting enough, and she has asked us to reiterate pronouns and that this child is a girl.

This is the first school experience for us, as previously my daughter was at a childminder

It feels very wrong to single out a child, and read books that introduce a concept that we haven’t broached with our children yet.

That struck me too

I would also ask which facilities he is using and refer them to 'Keeping children safe in education 2026'

Quite possibly a mixed sex loo off the Reception classroom. These are very small children.

In reception?! Ffs

It is mixed, which is normal in schools isn't it ?

I assumed you were American.
I assumed too, perhaps wrongly, that this post was an attempt to influence attitudes rather than something real. A message from anti trans group or political wing of MAGA or similar.
They do appear on such forums as this disguised as a real issue. Apologies if I am wrong.
There are girls, there are boys, there are intersex children who are not sure where they fit.
I would be worried about a child who repeatedly questioned a teacher, repeatedly, new or not to the school, about another child in the class. The other child is other parent’s and authorities business. I am sure no harm with come to your daughter. At all.

and one about a crayon that feels like a different colour.

😀

Hmmm your disability is a fact though.
A trans 5 year old is not.

Children will keep asking questions if they keep seeing inconsistencies. That isn’t surprising and it doesn’t paint OP’s child as difficult, daft, or any other insult.

For the moment, OP, explain to your DC that sometimes things are complicated and confusing and this is one of those times. That it’s ok for something to be unclear, and to have to wait for things to get easier to understand. That it’s ok to make mistakes. That she, the other children in the class and the teacher all make mistakes occasionally, and that is ok.

There are times when we wonder about things, and don’t ever get to know the answer. This might be one of those times where you don’t get a proper answer that makes sense to you.

You have got two things to deal with- firstly managing your daughter and her feelings and behaviour.
The school’s behaviour towards your daughter is also something to keep an eye on. This could be a genuinely intended, helpful response of answering your DDs questions with a related book. It could be an attempt to make your DD conform to a set of behaviours that aren’t appropriate. Time will tell.

All this in a reception class?

Seems mad to identify a child as trans so early. Maybe they are, maybe they are not.

Children are curious so you have one child asking questions and one child finding their way and questioning themselves.

Neither are in the wrong.

Thank you.

This is really helpful.

I was really unprepared for this to come up so early.

No, I'm not American.
Nor am I trying to influence anything.

Thank you to the helpful comment about other similar threads.

I'm going to leave this thread now, as I've had some helpful answers, and different perspectives which is useful.

This is a daft question. My three year old knows the difference between boys/men and girls/women:
Boys/men have a penis. Girls/women have a vulva. Both can dress and play with whatever they want.

Presumably you think I should be teaching her that boys have short hair, girls wear dresses, and genitalia is taboo? Is that what you mean by “gender”?

It is hard to believe this happens until it comes to your school. I’m sorry your child is having to navigate this so early. I told my child people believe different things. This is what we believe. And ask her to save her questions for home.

I don't think it is helpful to tell your daughter that she is making a mistake. Because she isn't. The situation is confusing because it does not make sense. The boy is a boy. No-one else's pronouns get corrected or confused because the right pronouns are used for them which reflect their sex. Its gets mixed up with this boy because people are asked to use pronouns which are wrong.

She keeps asking questions as the situation doesn't make sense, so none of the answers make sense either.

Don't gaslight your child. Tell her the truth. This child is a boy but he thinks/ his parents think he is a girl and they want other people to call him a girl. Tell her that he can never stop being a boy but he can dress like a girl and change his name if he wants. Tell her that she does not have to call him she/her if she does not want to but she should use his chosen name.

Its deeply wrong to confuse young children like this by requiring them to say things which are not true.

If the teacher says "she" and the male-born child corrects it to "he" then who has transitioned this child against his will??? If this is real, surely the teacher should be questioning what's going on here.

😂

This just shouldn't be happening with very young children. They are far too young to grasp the consequences of social transition. The adults in their lives are letting them down. The parents may not have a clue about this but professionally trained people like teachers, social workers, youth workers, HCPs, psychologists, therapists, counsellors etc should be very aware of this and should be advising caution. https://www.transgendertrend.com/socially-transitioning-child-primary-school/

It may seem harmless when it's just a case of a boy of 4 being allowed to wear the girls' uniform and be referred to by a different name than the one on his birth certificate. But eventually puberty is going to kick in and at that point if this same boy is using the girls' loos, changing rooms and so on that is a safeguarding risk for the girls - and for him. Boys should not be placed in a position where they are seeing girls in a state of undress. They should not be sharing rooms with girls on school residential trips.

If this little boy is struggling with what he thinks is expected of him as a boy, or what he believes will be expected of him as a man, he should be reassured that he is fine just as he is. He can have long hair if that's what he wants, he can wear what he likes, he can play with any toys, he doesn't have to take an interest in sport, he doesn't have to go out and climb trees and engage in rough and tumble. None of that is necessary for him to be a 'real' boy. He just is a boy, by virtue of his genes.

Bullshit. My DC is misgendered all the time. To me, their gender and genitalia are irrefutably matched. But not to the general public. Sometimes DC or I correct people, sometimes we don't bother. And my DC is lot older than 4.

I don't understand why your child is asking questions every day. There's only a limited number of questions anyone can ask in a situation like this, especially at that age and given that the class was presumably given an age-appropriate explanation on day 1. Is she repeating the same questions? Is she getting a bit obsessive about it?

if it was any other fact the teacher consistently got wrong, I'd expect some types of children to keep questioning. They would be trying to understand why the teacher is saying something that clearly isn't true.

This. Maybe the OP should be concerned about that. I would be if it was my child.

Ten years since this court judgement where the judge found that once this child was given a choice about how to dress by his father he reverted to dressing in stereotypical boys' clothes, in spite of his mother's assertion that he was identifying as a girl by choice. The child was removed from his mother's care, and quite right too, going by the facts in the judgement. Yes, the teachers should indeed be questioning whether what's happening is in this child's best interests. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/21/boy-living-life-as-girl-removed-from-mothers-care-high-court-judge

I'd agree that it sounds like an obsession IF she is being given proper (age-appropriate) answers to her questions, and she keeps on coming up with more and more questions...

BUT if she's just being gaslit and constantly told "Jenny is a girl - and that's all you need to know" - when she knew the same child at nursery as John and (very understandably) can't get her head around such an obvious logical breakdown, of course she will keep asking probably the same question each day.

She knows that baby boys become little boys, then bigger boys, and eventually men. She's an intelligent child and she knows that something is obviously awry.

It would be the same if the teacher brought her pair of (male and female) hamsters in and told the children that the girl hamster was pregnant and they were going to have a baby together... and then she brought in a labrador puppy and told them that she was the hamsters' baby.

Intelligent curiosity and an interest in logic should be welcomed and encouraged in young children; not crushed and gaslit out of them.