Teachers will be forced to tell parents that their child is questioning their gender even if the young person objects under new guidance for schools in England, the equalities minister has indicated.
Kemi Badenoch said that the guidance, which is expected to be published this week, will ensure that parents know what is “going on with their children” at school.
Under the new plans, headteachers are expected to be told that parents must always be consulted if a child wants to be called another name, or wear a different uniform. It has also been suggested that schools will not be able to use the child’s new preferred pronouns until parents give their consent.
The guidance advises teachers that any pupil who wants to self-identify as a different gender should first undergo a period of reflection, according to reports.
In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show, Badenoch said: “We are producing guidance for schools to know how to deal with children who are experiencing gender distress.
“There’s quite a lot of confusion about what the law says and it is important that parents are aware of what’s going on with their children and what’s happening to them at school, so what we’re doing is making sure we have robust guidance that’s going to be able to stand up to scrutiny. That will be coming shortly.”
When told it might be possible that trans students feel teachers are “outing” them to their parents against their wishes, Badenoch replied: “The fact is that this is not a trivial thing; this is very different from sexual orientation and what is right is that parents know what is going on with their children at school.”
Schools have faced an increase in the number of children questioning their gender in recent years, and teachers have called for more clarity on how they should support trans children.
In 2021-22, the NHS reported more than 5,000 referrals to the gender identity development service run by the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust, up from just under 250 a decade earlier.
skittlebog on July 17th, 2023 at 14:09 UTC »
Everyone goes through a time of questioning their identity: personal, sexual, religious, political. There is no crisis, there is no problem to solve. It is part of being alive. Their parents went through it, the kids go through it, their grandchildren will go through it.
rorzri on July 17th, 2023 at 12:58 UTC »
This blind trust a lot of kids have for their teachers is bizarre to me as someone that had mostly horrible and at times outright abusive teachers
davidwb45133 on July 17th, 2023 at 12:42 UTC »
Back at the height of the Goth era I had a boy who really went all out - long black hair, extreme makeup, skin tight black clothing, Doc Martins, the whole package. Apparently the transition happened between home and school because at parent teacher conference night a hyper religious teacher told mom about his dress and makeup and suggested he might be gay. Next day the boy’s head was shaved, he had no makeup, and he was wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt. He also had significant bruising. He refused to talk to me about it but Teacher Karen was thrilled by her interfering results. I called children services but they didn’t get involved until after he attempted suicide. So the state can kiss my lily white heinie when it comes to outing any of my students.