by I will never forget the moment I opened my classroom door to find a 13-year-old trans student who had cut herself with a razor she had smuggled into the school. Or the sight of a painfully anxious 15-year-old boy – slim and thin from an eating disorder – arriving at school one day wearing a skirt. I have met many such students, most of whom were bullied for being attracted to the same sex, who suddenly adopted a trans identity in the hope that doing so would make their problems go away. They really believed that a feminine gay boy could be a “straight girl”, and a lesbian tomboy could be a “straight boy”.
At the time I didn’t really understand what was happening and I would just smile and confirm. I couldn’t ignore a child who was in trouble, especially because the protection law requires teachers to take interest. In the case of trans-identifying teenagers, my view was that if changing pronouns and cutting hair reduced the risk of self-harm and depression, then so be it. And because no one supported me when I was navigating my sexuality in the early 2000s, it seemed like the right approach. When I was 12 or 13 years old, the word “gay” meant dying of AIDS, a life of isolation and under siege, and something to be suppressed and ignored. Some reassurance from an adult would be greatly appreciated.
After about five years of teaching trans-identified teenagers, my perspective changed, and that’s why I decided to speak out. It was clear that we were speaking a different language. When I used the word “boy” or “girl”, I understood those words to refer to a neutral biological fact about a person’s sex. For my students, these words referred to stereotypical versions of “feminine” and “masculine”, expressed in hairstyles and clothing. I also noticed that most of them were attracted to the same sex before the move – which the Tavistock scandal confirmed. And I didn’t realize that changing pronouns and hairstyles – known as the social transition – is the first step in a process that ends with irreversible surgery and artificial hormones.
What I needed five years ago, as a classroom teacher, was a dictionary. It may seem strange, but so much of this situation would be clearer if we were using words the same way. What is “sex” and what is “gender”? What does “transition” really mean and involve? How can a boy redefine himself as a girl, seemingly overnight? How can you be “just” one day and “reasonable” the next? If you knew how these words changed for people under 30 years old things would be much clearer – and easier to deal with.
I would also appreciate an explanation of why rigid gender stereotypes are back in fashion. To be a woman is to imitate Kim Kardashian through surgery and filters, and to be a man is to imitate the strange performances of muscle-bound brats like Andrew Tate. I suspect that we are witnessing the result of two decades of immersion in sex-obsessed media and the widespread availability of hardcore pornography. Little wonder that many want to withdraw from this whole nightmare by calling themselves ‘non-binary’.
Linked to this is the clear correlation between the almost total use of smartphones and the mental health crisis we are experiencing now. Since 2010, angry, hypersensitive narcissists have been shunned by smartphones: we shout and scream through words at screens, while filming and documenting every aspect of our lives in a digital version of “Keeping up with the Joneses” . I’ve lived it myself and seen the effects on my friends, family and, more recently, the children in my care.
Children are the most vulnerable to these technological, societal and cultural changes because they are working out who they are in whatever context they are growing up in. This context is now set by the hell of the online world in the 21st century. They are then taught that men who violently attack women are good sex, that imperfect faces and bodies should be surgically and chemically altered and that it is necessary to block, delete and harass anyone who is not -you agree with him. Together we have created a world so vicious that children would rather reject their own bodies.
For those teenagers who may be in the process of discovering that they are attracted to the same sex, the stakes are now higher. For whatever reason, people of the same sex tended not to conform to certain gender stereotypes. This is of course why many people are bullied and, as I have seen, it is still a problem in many schools. The difference now, however, is that a confused teenager is given a simple loophole in this situation: if you want to be more like Tate, you’re probably a boy, and if you want to be more like Kardashian, you’re probably that you are. girl – regardless of the reality of your body.
I think of all this when I read about the details of the government’s upcoming transgender guidance for schools. Civil servants must find a compromise between two fundamentally irreconcilable perspectives: either you accept that a person has a gender identity independent of and more significant than their biological sex, or you don’t. No wonder it has taken them five years.
Commentators seem to think that the publication of the guidance will put an end to the transgender debate in schools. They are wrong. Firstly, the guidance aims to help schools protect children so that teachers can get on with teaching – without settling a complex and highly political debate. Imagine telling a Leaver that they had to be a Waster because government guidance said so. Second, even the best guidance dissolves when it comes to reality. If a child is slitting their wrists outside your classroom, your emphasis on using preferred pronouns suddenly diminishes.
On this basis, I hope that the guidance will include a glossary of definitions, a clear process involving parents and clinicians and a presumption against social transition. Where it is decided that a child should be allowed to transition socially, this should not result in access to single-sex spaces and sports. This is the common sense. And teachers should not be penalized for objecting to the use of different pronouns: the family and the child in question should be prepared for that possibility.
*The Telegraph is not naming the history teacher to protect the identities of their former students
