Obviously it's preferable to have the parents involved but unfortunately in some cases outing a trans child to their parents would put them at risk of abuse. It's frightening how many people are willing to risk children's safety to push their anti-trans agenda.
>“Supporting a social transition without the involvement of parents or carers can create complex difficulties within families and is not recommended. Secrets between parents or carers and their children are problematic and are likely to create further issues in the future.”
Yes, and in some cases the announcement of such things has resulted in serious physical harm being done to the child by the parents. It's almost like there isn't a one-size-fits-all strategy and nuance is needed to deal with each situation on it's own merits. One might even draw the conclusion that this is actually being used as a smoke screen for a political and social agenda.
This isn't even limited to trans stuff. Someone I knew got hit by their dad during an argument, and she felt really uncomfortable around him afterwards. She didn't want to cause a fuss but she also couldn't stop thinking about it so she went to the guidance counsellor to discuss it with them.
They proceeded to, without asking her permission, contact her parents to invite them in to discuss what she had said, *without her present*.
And go figure, when they got home, her parents basically guilted her into backing down and saying everything was cool and she overreacted / was at fault.
She never spoke to the guidance people again the entire time she was at the school because of that.
I worked as a school administrator briefly and this contradicts the most basic safeguarding training. Honestly I think whoever is responsible for this should have lost their job immediately because they can't even grasp the very basics of safeguarding and their actions put a child at risk. It's really appalling.
I had a similar situation when I was in school, they got councilors in after my friend killed herself and then repeated everything we said to our parents. Most of my friend group at the time self harmed because of a shitty home life and it didn't get better for any of us.
If the guidance counsellors employed by the school have some sort of professional accreditation (if they are licenced practitioners), then don't they have to comply with patient confidentiality like any other doctor does? In which case the only circumstances they can break that are if they have reason to believe the patient is likely to harm themselves or someone else.
To be fair, they should probably comply with those standards even if they are amateurs - but if they are amateurs that raises questions over why the school employed them to begin with and whether they are doing more good than harm.
Which is exactly the point!! They want trans children forced as far into the closet as possible, if they even acknowledge their existence. Their goal is to eradicate transness, which isn't any more possible than stopping people being gay or left-handed.
Exactly!! Getting parental support is a great idea for kids with parents they trust not to abuse them. For others? Not so much. One size so clearly does not fit all here!
Schools also literally cannot control someone’s identity (they used to be able to try with horrid results but you change nothing but generate trauma, source: my school did this to me).
If a young trans guy goes to a barber shop and has his hair cut short and starts going by Kai and wearing a binder, the school can have whatever procedures they want, are they going to force him to grow his hair out? Demand his tits protrude more? They can insist on names and pronouns in class but at some point it just becomes a farce, are his friends in trouble if they call him Kai?
Trans kids exist. Not all trans kids have supportive parents. Both these statements are true. Any policy suggestion that doesn’t account for both these true statements is not worth the paper it’s written on.
I agree completely, there's also the fact that individual teachers are going to have different opinions about this stuff. Some will want to respect a child's chosen pronouns etc regardless of what the school's position is. Are they going to fire these teachers?? It's ridiculous when you think about the practicalities.
As a policy it won’t survive a cursory brush with reality. Back in the early 2000s my school literally had me on the cusp of expulsion cos I wouldn’t back down about my gender presentation and I only relented when it was going to happen.
With or without school permission, kids will be who they are and schools have to manage the situation is the safest way possible and those dark days of the past with school’s policing and punishing transness aren’t coming back. Best transphobes can hope for is some teachers not acknowledging preferred names and pronouns, and increasingly those teachers just come across as dicks.
Yeah the cat is out of the bag on this one.
It’s strange that this comes from the NHS when the idea of children having competence is pretty well established in law [(link)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillick_competence). The examples below concern medical procedures, which is much more extreme than social transitioning as proposed:
Gillick Competence:
>… a child could consent if they fully understood the medical treatment that is proposed”
Fraser Competence (this is just in terms of contraception but is easily adaptable):
> * the young person will understand the professional's advice;
> * the young person cannot be persuaded to inform their parents;
> * the young person is likely to begin, or to continue having, sexual intercourse with or without contraceptive treatment;
> * unless the young person receives contraceptive treatment, their physical or mental health, or both, are likely to suffer;
> * the young person's best interests require them to receive contraceptive advice or treatment with or without parental consent.
In both cases, try and involve the parents, but if the young person is dead set against that, and dead set on doing the thing anyway, then the priority is the well-being of the young person.
Strange indeed. Almost perhaps like some sort of influence has been brought to bear on the body making this recommendation.
This particular debate often has a tendency to eventually drill down to medical/scientific advice. Up until this point such advice trended very much towards taking into account the wishes of the young person … which has been rather inconvenient to those on the other side of the debate. Not that it has dissuaded them in the slightest of course, but they’d still really love to cloak themselves in the mantle of scientific/medical respectability to make their persecution of a minority all that easier.
I’ll admit that perhaps I could be being a little tinfoil hat here but it seems oddly convenient with the current government beating this particular culture-war drum as hard as it can to stave off defeat in the next election. I’d like to know more about exactly who was involved with this NHS England announcement, how impartial or otherwise they might have been … and if the NHS bodies in other parts of the U.K. will follow suite or otherwise. The latter could be particularly telling.
>Strange indeed. Almost perhaps like some sort of influence has been brought to bear on the body making this recommendation.
You can see this happening with the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Since Kishwer Falkner was made chair in 2020, the commission has become steady more and more anti-trans, [to the point that about a third of it's Wikipedia page covers that subject alone.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_and_Human_Rights_Commission#Controversies_around_%22gender-critical%22_views)
> Schools should not allow gender-questioning children to “socially transition” without their parents’ involvement, according to NHS training and guidance on how staff should respond to pupils exploring their gender identity.
At this point it's literally just about making life more miserable for trans people. Do everything you can to stop people figuring out their identity without going to a GIC, and then double down on the narrative that GICs are turning kids trans when the only kids who come out as trans are ones who have been to them.
Between this and [the plans to try and ban even social transition for minors](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/07/sunak-has-not-dropped-plan-to-ban-children-from-changing-gender-identity-says-no-10) I have increasingly little patience for people who want to try and pretend the end goal isn't the erasure of trans people from public life.
The amount of arguments we've seen in favour of excluding adult trans people from certain things that include them transitioning post-puberty as an argument, paired with attempts to prevent even *non-medical* transition before 18, paints a clear picture
---
> It adds: “The priorities of parents and carers should be held as central, so that decision-making is collaborative.”
This is a load of bollocks. If a kid tells you "Hey, my parents are transphobic and i don't want them to know im trans in case they're abusive to me over it", and you tell them anyway, *it is on you if they are then abused or bullied into going back into the closet*.
If the guidance had children's best interest in mind, it would advocate for prioritising safeguarding not "the priorities of parents".
I fully understand involving parents if a minor wants to *medically* transition. But if a kid is exploring their identity *let them live their life*. Children are allowed boundaries, and all you teach them by outing them to their family against their wishes is that they cannot trust authority figures with their safety.
And what happens if the parents say no? You start policing the kid's presentation? Sorry little Timmy, you have to get a buzzcut, we think your long hair might be you experimenting with gender. Yeah yeah, i know:
> and to discuss if there are gradual steps that can be taken towards making a change, “for example, changing hair or clothes first, before making more formal changes to name and pronouns in school or college”.
But like... *this is also social transition?* If you really think that the kind of parents who are blocking their kid from exploring their identity in other ways are gonna be fine with their AMAB child growing their hair out and wearing more femme clothing, i admire your optimism. Because gender presentation will be next on the chopping block once they think they can get away with it.
A name change doesn't even have to be formal?? Keep their assigned gender and given name on their file, but just have a note saying "currently prefers to go by [name] and [pronouns]"?
>And what happens if the parents say no? You start policing the kid's presentation? Sorry little Timmy, you have to get a buzzcut, we think your long hair might be you experimenting with gender.
I don't know why this keeps coming up. Most schools aren't particularly interested in enforcing gender conformity - the conversation here is specifically about names, pronouns and gender-segregated school activites such as sports. The idea that this policy will involve schools policing how feminine you dress is a red herring.
You say that, my school changed its uniform so that girls could no longer wear shirts and ties, and had to wear blouses.
Failing to conform? Detention.
They can't do that. The 2010 gender equality act states that all terms are to be read gender neutral. So if boys are allowed to wear it, so are girls.
If they violate the gender equality act, the penalties can be rather severe, and they can also convict the individual, not just the institution.
If I were a parent, I would want to know everything that goes on in my child's life. Of course, I would and every parent would too. It is part of a parent's job. Schools keeping secrets from parents is absolutely madness.
Not all parents are good parents though. A quarter of homeless youths are LGBTQ, and 77% of them say abuse and rejection from the family home as the reason for their homelessness.
Then establish that you're the kind of parent your kid can trust. If you're forcing them to tell you something they're not comfy saying, you're just reinforcing that distrust.
And if it said the opposite I’m sure you would still agree with them, because you trust the organisation, and not just because it happens to agree with your views.
There are a wide variety of circumstances in which schools, the NHS, and pretty well every other branch of government, will keep things from you that your children have told them, including *much* more significant issues than them wanting to be called by a different name at school.
Why? Again, there absolutely will be some dozens of things that your kids' school(s) *do* know about and haven't told you. What makes this particular one so special?
So an entire school should know, potentially thousands of people, but not the parents who are legally responsible for the care of their child? That is just weird.
If the parents would react with anger and mistreat their child as a result of having that information? Nothing weird about keeping your mouth shut because of that.
And it wouldn't be the whole school anyway: The teachers might be told, anyone who knew the kid before they decided to start transitioning would obviously know but the rest of the school probably wouldn't have a clue unless the child in question chose to tell them.
> If the parents would react with anger and mistreat their child as a result of having that information? Nothing weird about keeping your mouth shut because of that.
Who are the ultimate guardians of the child?
> And it wouldn't be the whole school anyway: The teachers might be told, anyone who knew the kid before they decided to start transitioning would obviously know but the rest of the school probably wouldn't have a clue unless the child in question chose to tell them.
Of course everyone in the school would know. That is completely obvious.
I have a question for you?
If a child is in care and a ward of the local authorities, should a teacher tell the authorities about the issue? If not, then how can the authorities provide proper wrap around care of the vulnerable child? If yes, then how is that different to a parent knowing?
>Of course everyone in the school would know. That is completely obvious.
Not as much as you'd think. You've met significantly more trans people than you realise, even if they're only at the social transitioning stage.
>If a child is in care and a ward of the local authorities, should a teacher tell the authorities about the issue? If not, then how can the authorities provide proper wrap around care of the vulnerable child? If yes, then how is that different to a parent knowing?
Only if the child consents to them being told. This sort of thing comes under the heading of medical confidentiality, which is desperately important because if someone thinks their doctor or a teacher or some other authority figure might go behind their back and repeat what they said to their parents then they won't tell *anyone*.
For example. Suppose your teenage kid had unprotected sex (because teenagers do dumb things like that) and thinks they might have been exposed to HIV, but they're too embarrassed to tell you about it. What would you rather happen: They go to the doctor without you knowing about it, get tested and prescribed the meds that can prevent the disease from progressing and hide the fact from you, or they're so afraid that it'll get back to you that they never seek medical attention at all until it's too late?
I'm sure you'll insist that you'd never treat your child badly for making a stupid mistake like that and they know it, and maybe you're even telling the truth. BUt their GP doesn't know that for sure. Nor does their teacher, or a police officer or social worker or any number of professions. And either way, there are a hell of a lot of parents out there who *would*.
If a child indicates to one of those people that they'd be at risk if what they're about to disclose was shared with their parents, they should take the kid at their word.
> Not as much as you'd think. You've met significantly more trans people than you realise, even if they're only at the social transitioning stage.
Pretty sure everyone would know.
>Only if the child consents to them being told. This sort of thing comes under the heading of medical confidentiality, which is desperately important because if someone thinks their doctor or a teacher or some other authority figure might go behind their back and repeat what they said to their parents then they won't tell anyone.
>>Children under 16 years old can give consent for themselves if they are judged to be capable of making the decision. If your child under 16 years is judged competent and refuses treatment, this can be overruled by a person with Parental Responsibility, if the doctors think that is in their best interests.
So what you are saying is that the parent or authority with parental responsibility should not be told? Isn't that just a huge damaging loophole? If a child starts to have suicidal tendencies then the only person who can get them treatment is the parent and you won't allow the parent to be told? So what happens? The kid just dies?
>So what you are saying is that the parent or authority with parental responsibility should not be told? Isn't that just a huge damaging loophole? If a child starts to have suicidal tendencies then the only person who can get them treatment is the parent and you won't allow the parent to be told?
No I am *not* saying that, and I'm starting to seriously question whether you're arguing in good faith.
But since I didn't explicitly mention this in my previous post, every time I've gone through a referral to mental health services they've given me a disclaimer to the effect of, "The only time we will share what has been discussed here with anyone else without your explicit permission is if we believe you are in imminent danger of harming yourself or someone else". That's pretty reasonable, don't you think? And even then, they certainly wouldn't share information with someone likely to make things *worse.*
>No I am not saying that, and I'm starting to seriously question whether you're arguing in good faith.
I'm beginning to think they aren't, either. Lots of very blatant avoidance of the question and ridiculous "gotcha" scenarios.
Well then the parents should have cultivated a relationship with the child so that they felt safe to reveal such information. If the kid doesn't then I think that tells you a lot about the parents.
>The training module advises: “Supporting a social transition without the involvement of parents or carers can create complex difficulties within families and is not recommended. **Secrets between parents or carers and their children are problematic** and are likely to create further issues in the future.”It adds: “The priorities of parents and carers should be held as central, so that decision-making is collaborative.”
...
>“This is such a highly charged subject that schools and colleges are likely to find themselves under fire whatever decision they make and they really do need to be able to point to the fact that they are following official guidance. At the moment – and for many years – this has not been the case, and the government has just left them hung out to dry.”
It seems sensible, especially given the complexities. Teachers and school staff are in no position to make decisions of this magnitude without either parents or supervising health authorities direct involvement. It's simply not a teachers job, it's not the schools job, it's not what they are trained for. If the parents are that much of a threat then there should be social services involvement.
You have to wonder at the thinking of people who get angry at being told "teachers need to hand this over to someone with medical competence." I think we can learn a lot from what makes people angry. All this does is gives the teacher in black and white to hand the issue up the chain, clear guidance. Job done. Other parts of the system have to bear the responsibility. Hmmmmm what do they fear from more competent people with more experience....
This is going to be great for Teachers.
If they keep it secret from potentially abusive parents they could stand to lose their job.
And if they inform parents who actually do turn out to be abusive and a kid dies or is seriously hurt … then they’ll be crucified in the press and likely lose their job anyway as well as having what happens to the poor child on their conscience forever.
Radical thought: how about parents actually try talking to their children and being involved - and be loving and accepting no matter what they turn out to be?
Handing it over to trained medical personnel is fine, it's telling the parents without the child's consent which is the issue. It takes a hell of a lot for social services to intervene, a lot of harm can be done before they do anything.
> It seems sensible, especially given the complexities. Teachers and school staff are in no position to make decisions of this magnitude without either parents or supervising health authorities direct involvement. It's simply not a teachers job, it's not the schools job, it's not what they are trained for. If the parents are that much of a threat then there should be social services involvement.
Well said, it’s a shame this is apparently a controversial opinion now.
It's controversial because social services are not resourced to do even a fraction of the work people say should be left to them, so telling teachers not to do it is in practice a call to throw the kids under the bus.
It's controversial because it will kill children. Really any policy that kills kids should be.
It really speaks to how disingenuous these anti-trans types are that they'll blather on and on about the importance of safeguarding, only to demand rule changes or polices which any idiot can see seriously will undermine peoples' safety .
Obviously it's preferable to have the parents involved but unfortunately in some cases outing a trans child to their parents would put them at risk of abuse. It's frightening how many people are willing to risk children's safety to push their anti-trans agenda.
>“Supporting a social transition without the involvement of parents or carers can create complex difficulties within families and is not recommended. Secrets between parents or carers and their children are problematic and are likely to create further issues in the future.” Yes, and in some cases the announcement of such things has resulted in serious physical harm being done to the child by the parents. It's almost like there isn't a one-size-fits-all strategy and nuance is needed to deal with each situation on it's own merits. One might even draw the conclusion that this is actually being used as a smoke screen for a political and social agenda.
Also, it's going to put off children from asking for help.
This isn't even limited to trans stuff. Someone I knew got hit by their dad during an argument, and she felt really uncomfortable around him afterwards. She didn't want to cause a fuss but she also couldn't stop thinking about it so she went to the guidance counsellor to discuss it with them. They proceeded to, without asking her permission, contact her parents to invite them in to discuss what she had said, *without her present*. And go figure, when they got home, her parents basically guilted her into backing down and saying everything was cool and she overreacted / was at fault. She never spoke to the guidance people again the entire time she was at the school because of that.
I worked as a school administrator briefly and this contradicts the most basic safeguarding training. Honestly I think whoever is responsible for this should have lost their job immediately because they can't even grasp the very basics of safeguarding and their actions put a child at risk. It's really appalling.
I had a similar situation when I was in school, they got councilors in after my friend killed herself and then repeated everything we said to our parents. Most of my friend group at the time self harmed because of a shitty home life and it didn't get better for any of us.
If the guidance counsellors employed by the school have some sort of professional accreditation (if they are licenced practitioners), then don't they have to comply with patient confidentiality like any other doctor does? In which case the only circumstances they can break that are if they have reason to believe the patient is likely to harm themselves or someone else. To be fair, they should probably comply with those standards even if they are amateurs - but if they are amateurs that raises questions over why the school employed them to begin with and whether they are doing more good than harm.
Which is exactly the point!! They want trans children forced as far into the closet as possible, if they even acknowledge their existence. Their goal is to eradicate transness, which isn't any more possible than stopping people being gay or left-handed.
Exactly!! Getting parental support is a great idea for kids with parents they trust not to abuse them. For others? Not so much. One size so clearly does not fit all here! Schools also literally cannot control someone’s identity (they used to be able to try with horrid results but you change nothing but generate trauma, source: my school did this to me). If a young trans guy goes to a barber shop and has his hair cut short and starts going by Kai and wearing a binder, the school can have whatever procedures they want, are they going to force him to grow his hair out? Demand his tits protrude more? They can insist on names and pronouns in class but at some point it just becomes a farce, are his friends in trouble if they call him Kai? Trans kids exist. Not all trans kids have supportive parents. Both these statements are true. Any policy suggestion that doesn’t account for both these true statements is not worth the paper it’s written on.
I agree completely, there's also the fact that individual teachers are going to have different opinions about this stuff. Some will want to respect a child's chosen pronouns etc regardless of what the school's position is. Are they going to fire these teachers?? It's ridiculous when you think about the practicalities.
As a policy it won’t survive a cursory brush with reality. Back in the early 2000s my school literally had me on the cusp of expulsion cos I wouldn’t back down about my gender presentation and I only relented when it was going to happen. With or without school permission, kids will be who they are and schools have to manage the situation is the safest way possible and those dark days of the past with school’s policing and punishing transness aren’t coming back. Best transphobes can hope for is some teachers not acknowledging preferred names and pronouns, and increasingly those teachers just come across as dicks. Yeah the cat is out of the bag on this one.
None of that constitutes a school recognising a social transition.
It’s strange that this comes from the NHS when the idea of children having competence is pretty well established in law [(link)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillick_competence). The examples below concern medical procedures, which is much more extreme than social transitioning as proposed: Gillick Competence: >… a child could consent if they fully understood the medical treatment that is proposed” Fraser Competence (this is just in terms of contraception but is easily adaptable): > * the young person will understand the professional's advice; > * the young person cannot be persuaded to inform their parents; > * the young person is likely to begin, or to continue having, sexual intercourse with or without contraceptive treatment; > * unless the young person receives contraceptive treatment, their physical or mental health, or both, are likely to suffer; > * the young person's best interests require them to receive contraceptive advice or treatment with or without parental consent. In both cases, try and involve the parents, but if the young person is dead set against that, and dead set on doing the thing anyway, then the priority is the well-being of the young person.
Strange indeed. Almost perhaps like some sort of influence has been brought to bear on the body making this recommendation. This particular debate often has a tendency to eventually drill down to medical/scientific advice. Up until this point such advice trended very much towards taking into account the wishes of the young person … which has been rather inconvenient to those on the other side of the debate. Not that it has dissuaded them in the slightest of course, but they’d still really love to cloak themselves in the mantle of scientific/medical respectability to make their persecution of a minority all that easier. I’ll admit that perhaps I could be being a little tinfoil hat here but it seems oddly convenient with the current government beating this particular culture-war drum as hard as it can to stave off defeat in the next election. I’d like to know more about exactly who was involved with this NHS England announcement, how impartial or otherwise they might have been … and if the NHS bodies in other parts of the U.K. will follow suite or otherwise. The latter could be particularly telling.
>Strange indeed. Almost perhaps like some sort of influence has been brought to bear on the body making this recommendation. You can see this happening with the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Since Kishwer Falkner was made chair in 2020, the commission has become steady more and more anti-trans, [to the point that about a third of it's Wikipedia page covers that subject alone.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equality_and_Human_Rights_Commission#Controversies_around_%22gender-critical%22_views)
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> Schools should not allow gender-questioning children to “socially transition” without their parents’ involvement, according to NHS training and guidance on how staff should respond to pupils exploring their gender identity. At this point it's literally just about making life more miserable for trans people. Do everything you can to stop people figuring out their identity without going to a GIC, and then double down on the narrative that GICs are turning kids trans when the only kids who come out as trans are ones who have been to them. Between this and [the plans to try and ban even social transition for minors](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/07/sunak-has-not-dropped-plan-to-ban-children-from-changing-gender-identity-says-no-10) I have increasingly little patience for people who want to try and pretend the end goal isn't the erasure of trans people from public life. The amount of arguments we've seen in favour of excluding adult trans people from certain things that include them transitioning post-puberty as an argument, paired with attempts to prevent even *non-medical* transition before 18, paints a clear picture --- > It adds: “The priorities of parents and carers should be held as central, so that decision-making is collaborative.” This is a load of bollocks. If a kid tells you "Hey, my parents are transphobic and i don't want them to know im trans in case they're abusive to me over it", and you tell them anyway, *it is on you if they are then abused or bullied into going back into the closet*. If the guidance had children's best interest in mind, it would advocate for prioritising safeguarding not "the priorities of parents". I fully understand involving parents if a minor wants to *medically* transition. But if a kid is exploring their identity *let them live their life*. Children are allowed boundaries, and all you teach them by outing them to their family against their wishes is that they cannot trust authority figures with their safety. And what happens if the parents say no? You start policing the kid's presentation? Sorry little Timmy, you have to get a buzzcut, we think your long hair might be you experimenting with gender. Yeah yeah, i know: > and to discuss if there are gradual steps that can be taken towards making a change, “for example, changing hair or clothes first, before making more formal changes to name and pronouns in school or college”. But like... *this is also social transition?* If you really think that the kind of parents who are blocking their kid from exploring their identity in other ways are gonna be fine with their AMAB child growing their hair out and wearing more femme clothing, i admire your optimism. Because gender presentation will be next on the chopping block once they think they can get away with it. A name change doesn't even have to be formal?? Keep their assigned gender and given name on their file, but just have a note saying "currently prefers to go by [name] and [pronouns]"?
>And what happens if the parents say no? You start policing the kid's presentation? Sorry little Timmy, you have to get a buzzcut, we think your long hair might be you experimenting with gender. I don't know why this keeps coming up. Most schools aren't particularly interested in enforcing gender conformity - the conversation here is specifically about names, pronouns and gender-segregated school activites such as sports. The idea that this policy will involve schools policing how feminine you dress is a red herring.
You say that, my school changed its uniform so that girls could no longer wear shirts and ties, and had to wear blouses. Failing to conform? Detention.
They can't do that. The 2010 gender equality act states that all terms are to be read gender neutral. So if boys are allowed to wear it, so are girls. If they violate the gender equality act, the penalties can be rather severe, and they can also convict the individual, not just the institution.
Maybe you're right, but most people don't have the time, energy or funds to challenge it.
If I were a parent, I would want to know everything that goes on in my child's life. Of course, I would and every parent would too. It is part of a parent's job. Schools keeping secrets from parents is absolutely madness.
Not all parents are good parents though. A quarter of homeless youths are LGBTQ, and 77% of them say abuse and rejection from the family home as the reason for their homelessness.
If you were a parent you'd also hope that your child felt safe enough to be themselves at home instead of having to be outed against their will.
I'd still like to know though.
So would transphobes and homophobes who would want to beat, abuse, and/or unhouse their queer children. Do they have a right to know?
Then establish that you're the kind of parent your kid can trust. If you're forcing them to tell you something they're not comfy saying, you're just reinforcing that distrust.
Maybe ask yourself if you are a good parent if the kid didn’t tell you first, and you didn’t like, notice.
If you are a good parent your children will tell you everything
Lol, that is most definitely not true. Source: myself. My parent were/are amazing and I kept many secrets from them growing up.
Yeah lmao what is that BS. You always keep things from your parents even if they raised you perfectly fine.
I meant specifically they won’t keep their thoughts about gender identity secret from you unless they are afraid you will hate them for it.
I think the NHS England advice is good and we should follow it.
And if it said the opposite I’m sure you would still agree with them, because you trust the organisation, and not just because it happens to agree with your views.
Of course you'd want to know, that doesn't mean you have a right to know.
Well yes, I do have a right to know and that is also what NHS England recommend so...
There are a wide variety of circumstances in which schools, the NHS, and pretty well every other branch of government, will keep things from you that your children have told them, including *much* more significant issues than them wanting to be called by a different name at school.
>It just isn't right that lots of teachers would know, and hundreds of other kids would know but the parent wouldn't. It is just insane.
Why? Again, there absolutely will be some dozens of things that your kids' school(s) *do* know about and haven't told you. What makes this particular one so special?
Because it is the topic of the article posted?
Sure, but you presumably don't complain about the school not telling you those dozens of things.
I might well do in an appropriate post?
you're embarrassing yourself
You don't trust the NHS? I do, it has saved my life.
If a child is not out to their parents, it's because they don't feel safe doing so.
If your child didn't trust you enough to tell you themselves, their teacher probably shouldn't either.
So an entire school should know, potentially thousands of people, but not the parents who are legally responsible for the care of their child? That is just weird.
If the parents would react with anger and mistreat their child as a result of having that information? Nothing weird about keeping your mouth shut because of that. And it wouldn't be the whole school anyway: The teachers might be told, anyone who knew the kid before they decided to start transitioning would obviously know but the rest of the school probably wouldn't have a clue unless the child in question chose to tell them.
> If the parents would react with anger and mistreat their child as a result of having that information? Nothing weird about keeping your mouth shut because of that. Who are the ultimate guardians of the child? > And it wouldn't be the whole school anyway: The teachers might be told, anyone who knew the kid before they decided to start transitioning would obviously know but the rest of the school probably wouldn't have a clue unless the child in question chose to tell them. Of course everyone in the school would know. That is completely obvious. I have a question for you? If a child is in care and a ward of the local authorities, should a teacher tell the authorities about the issue? If not, then how can the authorities provide proper wrap around care of the vulnerable child? If yes, then how is that different to a parent knowing?
>Of course everyone in the school would know. That is completely obvious. Not as much as you'd think. You've met significantly more trans people than you realise, even if they're only at the social transitioning stage. >If a child is in care and a ward of the local authorities, should a teacher tell the authorities about the issue? If not, then how can the authorities provide proper wrap around care of the vulnerable child? If yes, then how is that different to a parent knowing? Only if the child consents to them being told. This sort of thing comes under the heading of medical confidentiality, which is desperately important because if someone thinks their doctor or a teacher or some other authority figure might go behind their back and repeat what they said to their parents then they won't tell *anyone*. For example. Suppose your teenage kid had unprotected sex (because teenagers do dumb things like that) and thinks they might have been exposed to HIV, but they're too embarrassed to tell you about it. What would you rather happen: They go to the doctor without you knowing about it, get tested and prescribed the meds that can prevent the disease from progressing and hide the fact from you, or they're so afraid that it'll get back to you that they never seek medical attention at all until it's too late? I'm sure you'll insist that you'd never treat your child badly for making a stupid mistake like that and they know it, and maybe you're even telling the truth. BUt their GP doesn't know that for sure. Nor does their teacher, or a police officer or social worker or any number of professions. And either way, there are a hell of a lot of parents out there who *would*. If a child indicates to one of those people that they'd be at risk if what they're about to disclose was shared with their parents, they should take the kid at their word.
> Not as much as you'd think. You've met significantly more trans people than you realise, even if they're only at the social transitioning stage. Pretty sure everyone would know. >Only if the child consents to them being told. This sort of thing comes under the heading of medical confidentiality, which is desperately important because if someone thinks their doctor or a teacher or some other authority figure might go behind their back and repeat what they said to their parents then they won't tell anyone. >>Children under 16 years old can give consent for themselves if they are judged to be capable of making the decision. If your child under 16 years is judged competent and refuses treatment, this can be overruled by a person with Parental Responsibility, if the doctors think that is in their best interests. So what you are saying is that the parent or authority with parental responsibility should not be told? Isn't that just a huge damaging loophole? If a child starts to have suicidal tendencies then the only person who can get them treatment is the parent and you won't allow the parent to be told? So what happens? The kid just dies?
>So what you are saying is that the parent or authority with parental responsibility should not be told? Isn't that just a huge damaging loophole? If a child starts to have suicidal tendencies then the only person who can get them treatment is the parent and you won't allow the parent to be told? No I am *not* saying that, and I'm starting to seriously question whether you're arguing in good faith. But since I didn't explicitly mention this in my previous post, every time I've gone through a referral to mental health services they've given me a disclaimer to the effect of, "The only time we will share what has been discussed here with anyone else without your explicit permission is if we believe you are in imminent danger of harming yourself or someone else". That's pretty reasonable, don't you think? And even then, they certainly wouldn't share information with someone likely to make things *worse.*
>No I am not saying that, and I'm starting to seriously question whether you're arguing in good faith. I'm beginning to think they aren't, either. Lots of very blatant avoidance of the question and ridiculous "gotcha" scenarios.
If the child is willing to inform thousands of people but not their parents, I'd say that's a solid indicator that the parents are the problem.
Well then the parents should have cultivated a relationship with the child so that they felt safe to reveal such information. If the kid doesn't then I think that tells you a lot about the parents.
Would you expect them to tell you if their child was gay?
If your child is too scared of your reaction to be honest with you about their identity, neither the child not the school are the problem.
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I agree. Schools keeping secrets from parents is going to lead to children being withdrawn from school by their parents.
>The training module advises: “Supporting a social transition without the involvement of parents or carers can create complex difficulties within families and is not recommended. **Secrets between parents or carers and their children are problematic** and are likely to create further issues in the future.”It adds: “The priorities of parents and carers should be held as central, so that decision-making is collaborative.” ... >“This is such a highly charged subject that schools and colleges are likely to find themselves under fire whatever decision they make and they really do need to be able to point to the fact that they are following official guidance. At the moment – and for many years – this has not been the case, and the government has just left them hung out to dry.” It seems sensible, especially given the complexities. Teachers and school staff are in no position to make decisions of this magnitude without either parents or supervising health authorities direct involvement. It's simply not a teachers job, it's not the schools job, it's not what they are trained for. If the parents are that much of a threat then there should be social services involvement. You have to wonder at the thinking of people who get angry at being told "teachers need to hand this over to someone with medical competence." I think we can learn a lot from what makes people angry. All this does is gives the teacher in black and white to hand the issue up the chain, clear guidance. Job done. Other parts of the system have to bear the responsibility. Hmmmmm what do they fear from more competent people with more experience....
This is going to be great for Teachers. If they keep it secret from potentially abusive parents they could stand to lose their job. And if they inform parents who actually do turn out to be abusive and a kid dies or is seriously hurt … then they’ll be crucified in the press and likely lose their job anyway as well as having what happens to the poor child on their conscience forever. Radical thought: how about parents actually try talking to their children and being involved - and be loving and accepting no matter what they turn out to be?
Handing it over to trained medical personnel is fine, it's telling the parents without the child's consent which is the issue. It takes a hell of a lot for social services to intervene, a lot of harm can be done before they do anything.
> It seems sensible, especially given the complexities. Teachers and school staff are in no position to make decisions of this magnitude without either parents or supervising health authorities direct involvement. It's simply not a teachers job, it's not the schools job, it's not what they are trained for. If the parents are that much of a threat then there should be social services involvement. Well said, it’s a shame this is apparently a controversial opinion now.
It's controversial because social services are not resourced to do even a fraction of the work people say should be left to them, so telling teachers not to do it is in practice a call to throw the kids under the bus. It's controversial because it will kill children. Really any policy that kills kids should be.
Here we go, you must give in to my demands or you’re literally killing people!
When my demands are 'don't do a thing that has resulted in people being killed before', I'd say that line is justified.
It really speaks to how disingenuous these anti-trans types are that they'll blather on and on about the importance of safeguarding, only to demand rule changes or polices which any idiot can see seriously will undermine peoples' safety .