I found out my daughter had changed gender when teachers called her ‘he’ at parents’ evening

A mother has told how she only discovered that her daughter had been allowed to change gender at school when teachers called her “he” at a parents’ evening.

The 13-year-old was allowed to change her name and pronouns at school despite her mother Sarah warning that she felt that it was a one-way path to sex change hormones and surgery.

Sarah, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, believes that schools are “collecting diversity brownie points” and pretending being trans is “all glitter and unicorns” without warning children about the long term physical and mental impact.

Her daughter’s West Country school started referring to the teenager by male pronouns without Sarah’s permission after she decided at 13 that she had been born in the wrong body.

“The school started affirming her and behind my back and I only found out that the teachers were using male pronouns during a parents’ evening, when she was being referred to as a he,” Sarah said.

“I raised concerns about social transitioning and explained that it seems to be a path to medical transition. I explained the dangers and lifelong ramifications of that – the fact that if my child goes down the medical route, she won’t be coming back the same.

“They say that it is all about being kind, but I think it is cruel. They only have to deal with her until she reaches 16 and I will have to pick up the pieces when they have long since forgotten her.

“It is very short-sighted, the schools are just trying to collect brownie points for diversity and inclusion and they are not thinking about the long-term effects.

“They know that there are girls in their school wearing breast binders. I said to them if you found a child attending your school was having their feet bound, would you do anything?

“If my child was of African heritage and you found out they were having their breasts bound, would you do anything? Because breast ironing is illegal as a form of female genital mutilation.

“Because she is a white, middle class child, because she identifies as a boy, it is somehow OK.”

Sarah has raised concerns with teachers, citing the most comprehensive study of the impact of binders to date, which found that more than 97 per cent of adults who use them suffer health problems as a result.

But the school said that they “cannot know that they are wearing them”, she noted, adding: “You can get away with all kinds of safeguarding failures under this trans umbrella, my child’s safety has been neglected because she identifies as a boy.”

Sleep in the boys’ dormitory

On one occasion, Sarah received a phone call asking if her daughter could sleep in the boys’ dormitory on a school trip because she identifies as a boy, a request she refused.

“I asked them what kind of safeguarding risk assessment that they had done, and no answer was forthcoming,” she said. “I asked if they could not see that there is a potential for underage sex, non-consensual sex, teenage pregnancies.”

Sarah believes that the children, often those with autism spectrum disorders, are made to “feel special” if they are trans, allowed to use the toilets and uniforms of their choosing.

“They get validation from a new trans status,” she said. “Even if it doesn’t help them to fit in, then it does help them to feel that they are more important. Before they were just the joke or the nerdy kid but now, they are the trans kid, which is special.”

She has spoken out as the investigation by The Telegraph raises concern about the number of schools in the West Country that are misrepresenting equality laws and presenting controversial trans ideology as fact.

One trust which runs nine Church of England primary schools, has a Stonewall approved “school script” on how to talk about LGBTQ+ issues, it has emerged.

Different schools use identical language in their policies and a number employ the training services of trans rights campaign groups.

Some say that they will “support any social transition” and allow children to “self-identify” whilst others vow not to sit children boy-girl and avoid gendered uniforms.

According to Colyton Grammar, which caters for children from 11 to 18, and West Exmoor Federation, which runs three primaries: “Sex refers to a person’s understanding and experience of their own gender identity, it is their internal sense of self.

“Everyone has a gender identity; for some people, it corresponds with the gender assigned at birth, and for some others, it does not. Gender identities are expansive and do not need to be confined within one collectively agreed-upon term.”

Colyton, regarded as one of the best state schools in the country, vows to “take every opportunity to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion” and says that gender identity will be addressed in assemblies, literary programmes and personal, social, health and economic education.

The policy, due to be reviewed next year, states that “school policies and information” should use “gender neutral pronouns” and children should be taught that it is “unacceptable” and “harmful” to misgender their classmates. The school did not respond to a request for comment.

Sarah added: “For schools being trans is all about celebrating diversity, it’s a big party, it is glitter and unicorns. There is no talk about the life long pain from osteoporosis, or the fact that you might want children one day and not be able to have them.”

Involve parents in any decision

Long-awaited draft Government guidance for schools on trans children, published in December, states that schools should not accept all requests for pupils to change their gender through using different pronouns or facilities, and should involve parents in any decision that is made. However, it is not legally binding.

Sarah said that new Government guidance for schools “is just not strong enough” and it “needs to be law as this ideology is now in every area of school life”.

Her concerns were echoed by Tanya Carter, a spokeswoman for campaign group Safer Schools Alliance who said that there has been “a complete dereliction of duty, of care, not only in individual schools but also but also from the Government.”

The campaign group is not surprised that so many schools are misrepresenting equality laws as they “have been warning about this”, she added.

“This is a safeguarding and a lobbying scandal, and a public inquiry is needed to find out how we got to this point,” Ms Carter told The Telegraph.

“We would recommend that any parents whose school is misrepresenting safeguarding rules, or the Equality Act contacts the Department for Education, Ofsted and their MP.

“We know that these issues are widespread and yet there are constant denials of how widespread, there are even denials that it is happening at all. We are facing a massive national scandal and people are pretending that nothing is going on.

“A lot of children are learning misinformation online and then go into classes where you would expect schools to challenge misinformation but in actual fact they are reinforcing that misinformation.

“In a lot of cases we are coming across parents who think that the original introduction to their children’s belief that they are born in the wrong body was in the classroom.

“We expect this to be a major issue in the upcoming election as parents will be asking candidates what their party is going to do to safeguard children.”