‘While subject teachers all want to make sure they’re doing their best pastoral care, they can’t be making decisions around social transitioning’ , an investigation which ultimately confirms a fundamental shift in the treatment offered to children and adolescents who are questioning their gender,and switching to a more holistic treatment pathway that will consider questions of gender alongside other possible issues in the child’s life.
I have since 2017 had at least 10 girls – all the children talking about being trans in my school have been girls – in my class who have said they want to be boys. All of them but one have had considerable mental health issues, and some of them have been diagnosed with autism. The one without mental health issues or autism lived as a boy for two years and then changed their mind and said that they would like to go back to being a girl.
After all, we’re not qualified professionals or mental health experts, and while subject teachers all want to make sure they’re doing their best pastoral care, they can’t make decisions around social transitioning, and how to handle this issue when it comes to parents. Especially when it comes to children who are clearly traumatised, have backgrounds of abuse, have autism, or generally bad mental health.
I believe that a gender questioning child who is socially transitioned by the adults around them has that identity cemented, finds it harder to step back, is more likely to be put on a medical pathway .