School's out

Why the social transition of a student is a big deal that teachers should not keep secret from parents

Photo by note thanun on Unsplash

Sandra Pertot

For many young gender-questioning people, gender-affirming care began long before they arrived at a gender clinic. The first public expression of the belief they are transgender is often at their school, and in countries that have embraced modern gender ideology, schools have adopted gender-affirming policies allowing immediate social transition.

Typically, this allows the student to adopt their preferred name and have all records changed to that name, to use the uniform they prefer, to use the toilet and change facilities and be housed in the dormitory of the preferred gender, and to be involved with peers of this identified gender in any activities segregated by sex, such as sport and health education.

While it is usually recommended that the parents are informed and involved in any decisions, school policies have the option not to inform parents if there are “reasonable grounds” to believe this is not in the student’s “best interests”. The reasons for keeping the parents in the dark can range from evidence of a court order removing the father or mother from parental responsibility, to the student stating they don’t want the parents to know. Many parents are blindsided to learn weeks or months later that their child has been socially transitioned.

These policies are based on the assumption that a student’s self-declared trans identity is to be accepted without question, and that if a student doesn’t want their parents to know, that means the parents would be at best not supportive, at worst abusive.

The practice of affirming a child or adolescent based only on their self-report is the subject of considerable debate. Gender-affirming care is the dominant approach for gender-questioning clients, and is based on the principle that even little children “know who they are.” While gender clinics might claim that they don’t automatically affirm a young person, the tone is already set when the initial interview begins by asking for pronouns.

Video: Therapists Sasha Ayad and Stella O’Malley discuss the seriousness of social transition

Root causes

It is widely acknowledged that gender-questioning youth have a higher-than-average incidence of autism, depression, ADHD, social anxiety and other mental health problems. Despite this, health professionals disagree about the need for a comprehensive mental health assessment. Gender-affirming care is based on the assumption that these mental health problems have arisen because the young person has not been able or allowed to express their preferred gender, while other health professionals take the view that the young person is using transition as a possible solution to these unrelated problems.

This conflict is clear in the latest standards of care (SOC-8) from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), where the authors swing between advising an assessment and insisting that mental health issues should not be a barrier to gender-affirming care. The argument continues—what comes first, emotional distress leading to gender dysphoria, or gender dysphoria causing emotional distress?

A major flaw in the school policy allowing social transition is that there is no assessment required, not even the most basic questions about history, family life, mental state, possible stressors and, obviously, no input from parents. Teachers would likely have been encouraged to take this approach during workshops from Pride training organisations which advocate that affirmation is the only safe and respectful option. These organisations emphasise the “live trans child versus dead cis child” narrative, even though there is no evidence to support the belief that gender-questioning young people are any more at risk of suicide than any other group with mental health problems. These lobby groups embrace the paradoxical position that gender and sex are not the same, yet “affirmation” typically requires medical treatment to bring a young person’s sexed body into alignment with the new gender.

Given this type of pressure, it is understandable that school authorities have adopted social transition policies. Against this background, any teacher who openly challenges the policy can find themselves disciplined, and possibly lose their job.

Video: The UK has issued guidance on social transition at school, but it hasn’t ended the debate

Towards a medical path

My concerns about affirmation at school come from my experience as a clinical psychologist. One 15-year-old female I saw had been socially transitioned at school for months before her mother found out. Her mother had only learnt of this after the girl saw her doctor to ask about hormone therapy. The mother’s attempts to discuss her concerns with the school were, of course, rebuffed. As with other parents, this mother told me that there had been no indication of any kind that her daughter believed she was a boy.

My doubts about the safety of this young person’s stated wish for testosterone began when she described her history of easy access to the internet from age 10. Naturally curious, she began exploring sexuality and gender sites. By age 13, she had decided she was a butch lesbian but eventually realised she wasn’t attracted to girls, so by the time she saw me, she had come to the belief that she was a trans gay boy. She said she had decided this because she didn’t like her thighs and wanted a deeper voice—and she was attracted to boys.

In addition to anxiety and mild OCD, she had physical health problems which left her tired and unable to concentrate at school. After a gentle discussion, I suggested she was gender non-conforming and there was time in the future to see how this might go. Surprisingly, she was happy with that “diagnosis” and gave her mother the thumbs up when she went back to the waiting room. So, no “dead child versus a live trans child” response. Despite acceptance of gender non-conformity, she wanted to continue social transition at school, as she had several friends who identified as non-binary.

Her original referral was to a gender-affirming clinic in a major city, but as she lived in my rural area, I was considered by her medical practitioner to be the next best option. I saw her for several sessions before I retired, and I worried that if her next health provider followed the gender-affirming care approach, this young woman would be immediately shepherded down the medical pathway. Therefore, I wrote lengthy reports to her doctor about my concerns, stressing the need to have her mental and physical health problems addressed before any gender-affirming care. My caution was based on her lack of a persistent and consistent history of gender dysphoria and the rise in young people regretting their medical transition.

For many years, detransitioners kept their story hidden for fear of being labelled as traitors by the trans community that had previously embraced them. Because of this, many simply dropped out of the medical system and so were not identified in any research into regret.

A 2022 special report from Reuters makes a telling point—

“Understanding the reasons some transgender people quit treatment is key to improving it, especially for the rising number of minors seeking to medically transition, experts say. But for many researchers, detransitioning and regret have long been untouchable subjects.”

While argument continues about the prevalence of regret, sound health policy requires all cases of adverse outcomes to be investigated. This has led to recent major revisions to the use of puberty blockers in several countries, and reinforced the need for a comprehensive assessment before any treatment is initiated.

Dr Hilary Cass, the independent reviewer of youth gender dysphoria care in England, has made the point that social transition is not without risk. As the organisation Sex Matters observed—

“[Dr Cass] rejected the ideological label of ‘trans children,’ which suggests a well-defined category delineated by some objective characteristic and wrote instead of ‘gender-distressed and gender-questioning children’—young people who may be going through a difficult developmental stage and are likely to be harmed if a potentially transient personal identification is treated as stable and permanent. She observed that social transition is not a neutral act but a major psychosocial intervention that may affect whether a child’s gender distress disappears or becomes long-lasting.”

This calls into question the wisdom and safety of the education policy of automatic affirmation which allows students to socially transition, not only without the parents’ knowledge and consent, but without assessment by an appropriate health professional. This is outside the professional expertise of educators and it seems likely that schools are leaving themselves open to litigation if the young person eventually regrets not only the school transition but any following medical and surgical interventions.

Video: US parents discuss social transition at school in a webinar hosted by the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism’s Monica Harris

Secret but not for long

The most significant glaring flaw of the ‘transition in secret’ policy is that the parents will eventually find out. Clearly if the child has transitioned at school, a lot of other people are going to know about it. Some schools will go so far as to make sure any communication with the parents will refer to the student in the usual name while maintaining the preferred name at school, but sometimes there is a slip up, and the parent wonders who the student with this strange name is.

Other students who obviously know that the student is now identifying as the other gender will tell their own parents, which puts those parents in a difficult position if they are friends with the kept-in-the-dark parents: should they disclose what they know, or is that at best interfering, at worst, dangerous for the child? How humiliating for the parents of the gender-questioning student to eventually learn they were regarded as so untrustworthy that the school chose to keep their child’s social transition from them.

Consider what would be the normal reaction of a caring parent when they do find out how the school has betrayed their trust: calmly accepting—or embarrassed, hurt, distressed, angry? And given how deeply their child is now embedded in the new identity, what else can the student do but react with defensiveness and hostility if the parent expresses any level of doubt?

This school action is a recipe for disaster far greater than anything that could have happened if the parents had been included from the beginning. Perhaps the parents would indeed refuse to support any transition, and it needs to be acknowledged that this might be for a very good reason, as the emergence of detransitioners attests.

The other concerning aspect of the transition policy is its total rejection of the rights of other students and how they might be affected by being expected to accept that the trans student is the same sex as them. Schools should at least acknowledge that, for example, females, and especially adolescent females, have the right not to want to share change facilities with males, regardless of how they self-identify. It makes sense that female students are more likely to be troubled by a male being included in their spaces and sports, but boys may also find it uncomfortable if someone they had always related to as a girl is now wanting to be accepted as a boy.

The one-sided nature of the situation is causing considerable angst, particularly when the parents of girls become aware of the situation. Of course, gender-questioning students need support, but so do the other students, and the covert manner of affirming students doesn’t help gain understanding and support from the parent group. Some students may be of a religious faith that forbids them from mixing with the other sex without a chaperone; some may suffer from anxiety, depression or other mental health problems; and some may have been the victim of sexual abuse. Parents of female students have reason to be concerned about the motives of an adolescent boy who suddenly identifies as a girl, particularly given the reports of cases of trans-identifying males assaulting female students.

Again, however, this is a complex issue where generalisations are unhelpful. What are the trans student’s expectations of transition? Do they believe they actually become the other gender/sex, and therefore will fit in with their preferred group? What of the evidence that when students socially transition, they are also at increased risk when using their preferred facilities.

Trans supporters will argue that society has to adjust to trans people in the same way gay rights have been slowly accepted across most of western society. Trans activists therefore use this argument to try to promote easy and early acceptance of trans rights.

The global law firm Dentons co-sponsored a 2019 report advocating for the right of children to choose their gender in social and legal terms. Under the heading “Good practices for NGO advocacy,” the report outlines activist strategy—

Target youth politicians; de-medicalise the campaign; get ahead of the government agenda and the media story; use human rights as a campaign point; Tie your campaign to more popular reform (emphasis added); avoid excessive press coverage and exposure; be wary of compromise

Trans is not the new gay

It doesn’t take much thought to recognise that the school situation of a gender-questioning student is different to that of a sexuality-questioning student. If a student reveals to a teacher that they are gay, nothing else changes. That can remain confidential between the teacher and student until the student feels ready to share it with family, school friends, other teachers, and so on. Importantly, if the teacher takes a neutral stance—doesn’t challenge or affirm, but listens—the young person isn’t being shepherded down an irreversible path.

Trans ideology pushes the idea that parents who aren’t instantly affirming their child are hateful bigots. Jeffrey Marsh, who identifies as a non-binary LGBTQ activist, posts on social media including TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. His target audience is gender-questioning young people, and he attracts tens of thousands of followers. He conflates a parent’s reluctance to immediately accept their child’s statement that they are trans with having toxic parents who don’t love them. On his website, he says—

“Hello Lovely, Welcome to a space where you rediscover you. I’m Jeffrey, and I’m here to encourage you on a journey to embrace your true self, with all your unique colors and strengths.”

He openly encourages young people to detach themselves from parents who don’t support the young person identifying as trans, telling them—

“Hi beautiful, if you do not have a family that loves you, I’m going to be your family… I love you so much… your sensitivity is so beautiful; I think it’s the best thing about you.”

I find his presentations disturbing, as in this video—

Demonising parents

The move to alienate young people from their parents hasn’t come about by chance. The Dentons report declares that good practice for gender-question youth proposes the following—

Allowing youth to change their gender marker is a human right; eliminate the minimum age requirement; states should take action against parents who are obstructing the free development of a young trans person’s identity in refusing to give parental authorisation

The automatic assumption has quickly become that any parent who expresses any concern, any doubt, about a sudden trans declaration is transphobic and a risk to the young person’s mental health. It isn’t a big leap from that view to the position that parents who don’t immediately affirm their child are abusive and must be subject to legal sanctions. However, many of the new, relevant laws are unclear and open to interpretation. While information may say parents will be open to criminal prosecution only if their challenge to their child’s desire to transition causes “injury or serious injury”, these terms are not defined. Nevertheless, some children have been removed from their parents’ care.

The idea that a shocked and concerned parent might have a better idea about what is happening to their child than do the teachers at school in entirely discounted. Every parent is guilty without any right of challenge. So where does this leave the parents? As some parents will attest, they are left heartbroken, sad, frustrated, angry and powerless. However, as concern about this issue is growing, new legislation banning gender transition for minors (under 18) in the US is spreading.

Teachers have a front-row seat to observe the power of peer pressure and social trends on young people, especially adolescents. Some teachers have told me of friendship groups where several students concurrently “come out” as trans, non-binary, or one of many other gender identities. There is no reason to believe that adopting a trans identity is somehow separate from any other social trend, such as benign preferences for dress, music, food, or more serious conditions such as deliberate self-harm, eating disorders, suicidality and other behaviour spreading through peer groups. The evidence for the power of social influence from platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, is compelling.

Trans lobbyists have long argued that social contagion is not a factor in the dramatic increase in young people identifying as trans. The argument has raged back and forth since the publication of Dr Lisa Littman’s controversial paper on what she termed rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD).

Nevertheless, SOC-8 from WPATH acknowledges the possibility of social influence, and recent work does provide support for the ROGD position.

When children’s educational guardians don’t know the difference between theory, opinions and beliefs versus facts, every parent has the right to challenge those professionals who are influencing their child to deny biological reality. Concerned parents might consider checking the following—

Pronouns: Is every student required to state their pronouns? What happens if a student refuses? Or misgenders a gender-questioning student?

Personal development programs: How is sex and gender discussed? Are they taught that gender is innate and immutable; and they may have been “born in the wrong body?” Are gender-neutral terms used instead of long-accepted gender terms; such as “child” instead of girl and boy. Have mother and father become “parent?”

Mainstream subjects such as biology: How is human biology, including reproduction, taught? Are the terms female and male used? Are children told a person’s sex is “assigned at birth?” Are they told that sex isn’t binary, but a spectrum, that a person can change sex, and therefore there is no clear difference between a man and a woman? Is the definition of a woman as an “adult female human” considered transphobic?

What are individual teachers saying: Unrelated to their subject, do they discuss gender ideology beliefs as facts?  

What material is available in the school library: Is there gender ideology material? If so, are books on biological reality also on the shelves?

Policy for facilities, sports, etc: Are they now unisex in that trans students are allowed to access the spaces associated with their stated gender, not sex? Are parents aware of this policy?

Parents will find Genspect’s recently published Gender Framework useful for this exercise. The document addresses the assumptions underpinning gender ideology and includes proposed drafts for school policies that would provide a safer environment for gender-questioning students, the school community, teachers, and parents.

Genspect’s framework sums it up this way: “In short, once all stakeholders to the school’s policy are considered, it becomes obvious that the affirmative approach to gender identity creates significant problems concerning privacy, freedom of thought and expression, parental rights, and the future health of gender non-conforming students. Schools must not exclude consideration of those issues and viewpoints when adopting policies to protect trans-identified youth.”

Dr Sandra Pertot retired not long ago after 50 years of practice as a clinical psychologist specialising in human sexuality, including sexual dysfunction, sexual orientation and gender diversity