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Does anyone have experience with getting the school to agree to not use the “preferred” name and use birth name? We have a 12 year older daughter that just announced last month she is nonbinary after showing NO sign during childhood. She has been in middle school for 5 months and a part of GSA. She has already changed her name at school and we want to undo this for now.
Our position is that we are not rushing to make big changes like name until she has lived in this space for some time. Her friends may call her whatever they like, but in any formal setting she will use her birth name.
How should we approach the school with this? How do we make sure this is being unforced?
Thank you
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There are parents on the board who have dealt with this personally. I hope they will share what helped or didn't help.
I think these points are important, though I have not dealt with this personally:
1. Social transition (name and pronouns, using opposite sex restrooms, being placed in opposite sex PE and sports teams, etc.) is not harmless and makes it difficult for a child to walk back from the trans identity if they would later like to. Rather, social transition helps solidify the trans identitify, leaving less room for the child to change their mind.
2. As the parent, you have decided it is not in your child's best interest to be affirmed as the opposite sex or be socially transitioned and/or treated like the opposite sex.
3. Teachers are not medical professionals and therefore they have no qualifications to make decisions regarding the treatment of a child's medical or psycholooogical condition. As Genspect puts it, "Teachers should not be socially transitioning children- especially without their parents' knowledge and consent! Social transition is a serious intervention which puts a child on a medicalized pathway. It is not the right- or the role- of teachers to facilitate such interventions."
There are some organizations that will help. One is Genspect as mentioned above. They will advocate for you as described here: https://genspect.org/advocacy/
Genspect also has some information Guidance Notes booklets you can download and email to school officials and teachers, or print out and hand to them in person. https://childparentrights.org/school-resource-guide/
The Parent & Child Rights Campaign also has some similar handouts. https://childparentrights.org/school-resource-guide/
If your child has a doctor or therapist who does not recommend social transition for your child at this time, you may be able to have them write the school to instruct them to stay neutral with the child regarding the child's gender identity issues (make sure you are copied in on the letter and confirm district employees received the letter and all teachers were copied in on the letter. At least one school went against such a doctor's recommendation and went along with socially transitioning a child, despite the doctor stating it was not in the child's best interest, and I believe the school is now being sued with the help of the Parent & Child Rights campaign.
My daughter who is only 10 was caught up in the transgender craze after her father had bought her an IPhone. She started 5th grade at a new elementary school and had cut her own hair with scissors in the bathroom. She started wearing beanies and only masculine clothing. I found out about 3 weeks into the school year that she had changed her name. When I had to pick her up at school because of having been a close contact to a child who tested positive for COVID, a staff member called her by this new fictitious masculin name. I was completely shocked as I have never heard anyone call her that before but it made me finally realize what was really going on. She was trying to be a boy. I never could have imagined this because until only recently she had always been a typical girl. I made an appointment with her teacher and I asked if she was using feminine pronouns at school and she said yes. I told the that I was against having my daughter being called a fake name at school and that we were considering taking her out. We made an agreement that the teacher would help tell the class that she had tried out a new name for a while and now she was going back to her real name. This did happen. However I did find out that the district policy is to change a child’s name and/or pronouns upon a child’s request and the parents will not be notified unless the child gives permission. This applies to kids as young as 5 years old. We are keeping our daughter in this school until the end of the year but are seriously considering a private middle school in the fall.
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[quote pid='54174' dateline='1645393739']
My daughter who is only 10 was caught up in the transgender craze after her father had bought her an IPhone. She started 5th grade at a new elementary school and had cut her own hair with scissors in the bathroom. She started wearing beanies and only masculine clothing. I found out about 3 weeks into the school year that she had changed her name. When I had to pick her up at school because of having been a close contact to a child who tested positive for COVID, a staff member called her by this new fictitious masculin name. I was completely shocked as I have never heard anyone call her that before but it made me finally realize what was really going on. She was trying to be a boy. I never could have imagined this because until only recently she had always been a typical girl. I made an appointment with her teacher and I asked if she was using feminine pronouns at school and she said yes. I told the that I was against having my daughter being called a fake name at school and that we were considering taking her out. We made an agreement that the teacher would help tell the class that she had tried out a new name for a while and now she was going back to her real name. This did happen. However I did find out that the district policy is to change a child’s name and/or pronouns upon a child’s request and the parents will not be notified unless the child gives permission. This applies to kids as young as 5 years old. We are keeping our daughter in this school until the end of the year but are seriously considering a private middle school in the fall.
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Hello, guest.
I'm sorry to hear about the school going behind your back to affirm your daughter's opposite-sex identity. This is happening more and more as schools adopt this approach as their official protocol which teachers must follow. If you do change schools, I recommend researching any new school's policy in advance, because you may find the new school is just the same as the one you are leaving.
I hope you will join the board as a registered member. You'll find support here from like-minded parents. If you join then you can post in the board's members-only area where you will likely get a better response to your posts, because board members don't frequent this public area of the board too often.
To join, click on the word "join" in the black bar at the top of the page, and follow the prompts. Once you've created your account, you'll have to wait until a moderator manually activates your account before you have access to the members-only area.
Best wishes.
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Hi Guest & others:
I would not assume that a private school would have a more balanced approach than the public school.
Examine their policies carefully before you choose to enroll.
In the US, there are "privacy rights" of children that are pushing these anti-family school policies, and
many private schools follow the same guidelines. Maybe a religious school would take a different approach.
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(22-Feb-2022, 04:11 AM)MomToTroubledTeen Wrote: Hi Guest & others:
I would not assume that a private school would have a more balanced approach than the public school.
Examine their policies carefully before you choose to enroll.
In the US, there are "privacy rights" of children that are pushing these anti-family school policies, and
many private schools follow the same guidelines. Maybe a religious school would take a different approach.
This is great advice, MomToTroubledTeen.
Parents should not assume anything. It is best to outright ask and investigate before enrolling your child. It is also a good idea to investigate the school's health/sex-ed/science curriculum to see if gender identity pseudoscience (born in the wrong body, sex spectrum, etc.) is taught as factual science. Keep in mind, though, that often these ideas are introduced in other classes, for example during anti-bullying programs or by activist teachers who teach unrelated subjects.
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(03-Feb-2022, 06:11 PM)sunny Wrote: Does anyone have experience with getting the school to agree to not use the “preferred” name and use birth name? We have a 12 year older daughter that just announced last month she is nonbinary after showing NO sign during childhood. She has been in middle school for 5 months and a part of GSA. She has already changed her name at school and we want to undo this for now.
Our position is that we are not rushing to make big changes like name until she has lived in this space for some time. Her friends may call her whatever they like, but in any formal setting she will use her birth name.
How should we approach the school with this? How do we make sure this is being unforced?
Thank you Going to the school is the wrong move, like going to HR at your work. They are not there to support you.
Some advice,
- Adopt the right attitude immediately, you are in the fight of your life and your daughters.
- You are already nearly too late to the battle and you are surrounded by the enemy (school, friends, internet, counselors, doctors, legal, politicians) don't assume anyone is on your side, most won't be.
- You daughter is hurting, find out why and do your best to address it. It could be a combination of real mental health issues, bulling and just the social environment. Getting help with the real mental issues without getting the wrong help for the gender issues will be the main challenge (it's near impossible be very careful). Most mental health professionals won't even take on minors with these issues and the ones that do likely support the ideology.
- Limit and control the phone and internet as much as possible. Get a flip phone with no internet access. This is the primary source of the issues.
- Consider having one parent quit and be stay at home maybe even home school. It's a hardship but it might just be your only hope. This issue is very likely going to get real bad without a major effort.
- Expect your child to lie, cheat, steal, self harm, and develop other issues. Logic and consequence will go out the window and they will do things you won't believe.
- Don't try to impose too much control or expect quick results. I can't tell you how difficult this is going to be this is a hostage negotiation it takes an incredible combination of approaches and tactics and you are going to have to study and learn like it's your full time job.
- If things improve don't let your guard down. It is very likely to come and go and could come back worse at any time.
- Consider that your daughter may have a real issues with dysphoria, gay, even trans issues don't assume it's just outside influence. The key is getting to root of issue and slowing things down until you both fully understand and hopefully agree on how to go forward.
- Do everything you can to keep her off hormones and surgery these are the red lines.
- Be very careful about clothes, hair style, makeup, nails, etc. She will use all of these to drift into the dysphoria. Some could be ok to negotiate to help her deal with her issues but never assume any change is innocent and get to the real reasons for a change.
- Keep your family together at all cost, even if you lose the battle.
- Try to keep a positive attitude, never give up, pick yourself up and carry one no matter what.
- Support your spouse, hopefully you both have the same views on your daughter
- Do other things with your Daughter to have fun and not focus on gender, its very easy to get target lock and forget to develop all the other areas of life.
- Enforce chores, schoolwork, manners ruthlessly. These will be hard to focus on with the elephant in the room but are essential. Make sure your child is ready to take care of herself and be a productive member of society regardless of the gender issue.
Hope some of this helped or made sense. I may not have the right ideas but I've been through a lot for a long time.
I'm the step-dad of a 14 year old boy who has had severe behavioral problems and mental health issues throughout the 7 years I've known him. At various points he was basically unable to attend school due to violent tantrums and disruptive behavior. He was eventually assessed by a child psychologist and diagnosed with ADHD and depression (pre COVID). He was put on medication, which worked wonders, but a year ago one of his (overly involved) grandparents convinced him to stop and its been a downward spiral ever since.
At the end of the last school year, we were informed by the guidance counsellor that his friends were gravely concerned that he was suicidal. Unfortunately, the doctor who was following him closed her practice, so we had to take him to the local children's hospital, where he was assessed. They diagnosed him with severe depression and nearly admitted him as an in patient, but at the last minute sent him home for out patient care. He has since refused to any follow up appointments with their team, while his condition is steadily getting worse, including leaving the house in the middle of the night and disappearing for hours. We are completely in the dark, as he refuses to talk to any family members. All we know is that there was drama in his friend group last year and persistent bullying at school, which we didn't know about.
This month he started high school and has been skipping classes every day for reasons no one will tell us about...because of "confidentiality." Now, of course, his guidance counsellor, who's known him for all of 5 minutes, and certainly is not aware of the full extent of his mental health history, has called in the school board's "gender" counsellor. That was her immediate go to solution. He has never exhibited any gender dysphoric behaviors or interests, until this past summer when he started buying pink clothes and wanting to get his ears pierced.
Like I said we are completely in the dark and aren't being told anything, so we don't actually know what's going on. But based on everything I've read about the trans phenomenon, my step-son is fits the exact demographic of kids that get pushed down this ideological pipeline. So I'm very concerned where this all is going and that there is no way to prevent it once the school system gets involved.
I've always been very liberal and open minded about sexual orientation and gender identity issues. My step-daughter came out as gay a few years ago and we have been very supportive of her in that journey. However, her friend circle, which my step son is part of, is made up primarily of gender non-conforming kids, so I feel like there may be social pressure involved. I generally don't care about how people (especially adults) want to express their identity (through appearance or pronouns or names, etc), but I have very serious reservations about the more extreme elements of the ideology and the risk of medicalization, which is a road of no return.
At the same time, I'm just the stepdad. No one really takes my point of view seriously. Even though I'm an academic and am immersed in this ideology on a daily basis and have read about it extensively. My wife, his mother, is desperate to find a magic bullet solution after years of heartache and struggle. I don't expect anyone will care about my take on this issue and I don't want to make myself the enemy or have it destroy my marriage. So maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. That being said, there are certainly things I just won't be able to get on board with.
Like I said, I don't really know what's going on. I'm just concerned we're on a precipice and that once things are in motion, which I suspect they already are, there's no way to course correct.
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