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.

True, I did ask, but didn't get an answer

That same teacher is teaching a class full of 4/5 year olds that one of them was born in the wrong body… I’d remove my child from there with all possible speed.

No, the teacher is breaking the rules, it would appear. I'm wondering why she's playing fast and loose with her career?

Children will, on the whole, see male and female people and animals, old and young, disabled and able bodied and people of different ethnicities and religions around them. They may also see gay couples. They are very likely to ask questions about these things. My DD is mixed ethnicity, DS is White, both have children of different ethnicity in their school. It's pretty obvious and not something to be ashamed of.

Would be good if they came back and clarified - mentioning kindergarten it sounds like the US.

They already did, they are in the UK but don't have English as their first language.

Yes, in which case the advice and guidance won't be helpful.

Ok, thanks - must have missed that.

And if this child had been told they were a boy and nothing could change that, what would have happened? We'll never know.

Probably be as unhappy as gay people who were told they were straight and that being gay was a sin as well as a criminal offence.

I don't believe this for a second.

The school would have made parents aware of the trans pupil so they could speak to their children at home. I wouldn't think very well of a school that omitted to do this.

My own son was very good friends with a trans person (Elliot) at secondary school, parents were informed by letter and an assembly was held to formally tell the school. The pupils would have been 11 years old then and there was absolutely zero drama around the whole thing after that.

Total non event, actually and my son is still very good friends with Elliot now.

I doubt very much that OP's child is questioning this so much. Most children just accept what they are told and get on with their day. Which is exactly what should happen.

How is being gay or mixed race remotely like gaslighting a five year old ? No child is “born in the wrong body”.

Yes, and a teacher telling a 5 year old girl to "get on board"?

Quite.

I think this is made up rubbish but for the sake of argument, my son identified as a lion for a while.

What a load of tosh.

This. Any school or individual teacher behaving in this way is committing a very serious breach of the statutory safeguarding guidance (KCSIE) which explicitly states schools should not be socially transitioning children.

Teachers, who are in a position of power, should also not be imposing their ideologies on children and telling them they're wrong if they don't believe the same things as the teacher does - that's within the definition in KCSIE of emotional abuse.

The books described are also a breach of KCSIE, the RSE guidance, and the political impartiality requirement on teachers because they push only one side of a contested ideology.

I would be looking for other schools that can following safeguarding law and guidance properly. If they don't follow the law on this, what else will they see as optional?

Headteacher first, then reporting to the safeguarding governor and Ofsted if the Headteacher's response is inadequate.

Or maybe they’d have accepted reality as they matured and all the adults around them weren’t indulging their fantasy?

There would have been a time that I would have thought the OP was made up, but I know for a fact there are schools that have done this. There is now an extensive evidence base.

It doesn't really matter whether we can verify it's true, the very fact KCSIE now recognises the safeguarding dangers of adults in schools imposing this unscientific belief on children shows how prevalent it has been.

Any teacher should have read KCSIE / been trained on safeguarding and the changes already by this point in the term, the teacher in the OP obviously hasn't or has decided adhering to it is optional or the school SLT has decided it's optional - either way, it's a serious safeguarding breach.

So ive read a summary of tge kcsie guidance on transgender and cant figure out whst part of it you think the school is breaching?

It really depends on the staff member. I personally know a year 4 teacher who started calling a boy Vanessa in class to ‘respect his wishes’ (he was being called that by other boys to tease and his response was he actually likes it).

Luckily, the boy genuinely just seemed to like the name (or thought it’s a good defence strategy to teasing) and moved on now. However, it could easily be something very confusing to a child growing up, encouraged by a school staff member, and the parent was none the wiser.

If true, the child who will be most harmed is not the OP's daughter it's the child who's been told by his parents that he can be a girl. He can't and that will become painfully and traumatically obvious at puberty.

However there is also harm to those children lied to by adults.

Article in the Times about the impact on children of telling them lies. Thankfully the DfE and KCSIE guidance has now changed and gone back to protecting ALL children and telling the truth and protecting mental wellbeing.

https://archive.ph/tkxGM

There's nothing wrong with boys wearing dresses or playing with what some people say are 'girls' toys. They're still boys. We need to get back to that.

The bit where they shouldn't socially transition a child and can't compel other children to play along with the lie?

But thankfully their mother adored her child and didn't think they were a freak the way trans people are treated on here. So now she is happy. A lot happier than the people on here denigrating trans people day in and day out.

Your post would have been aimed at gay people back in the day. You know the days where gay young men died alone in case anyone caught Aids from them?

As it was their fault? Due to their fantasy?

That was and IS reality for people that are different and have people who spend their whole lives calling them mentally ill fantasists.

It's also true that the new guidance requires children to use toilets and changing facilities associated with their sex, for obvious safeguarding reasons. Why would you encourage a child in the belief they're the opposite sex and then wait until they're 8 for it to be revealed that actually they have to use a different toilet to the one they're expecting (or be separated out from all the other children), why can't they just be a feminine boy?

Sounds a lot like section 28.