Parents have accused schools of ‘actively’ hiding children’s gender switches as teachers vowed to ignore new government rules.
Families spoke of their alarming experiences as the Department for Education finally published guidance stating that pupils should only be allowed to change pronouns in exceptional circumstances.
A new ‘parents first’ approach also makes clear parents must told at the earliest opportunity if children ask staff about shifting gender – although they can have ‘questioning’ discussions without informing relative.
In almost all scenarios, teachers must not be compelled to use different pronouns for pupils – after some were sacked for holding out.
And the guidance, which will be subject to a 12-week consultation, insists they can still refer to children collectively as ‘girls’ or ‘boys’.
Education Secretary Gillian Keegan said the rules ‘remove any confusion about the protections that must be in place for biological sex and single-sex spaces’.
However, some schools are already saying they will shun the guidelines – which are only advisory rather than having legal force.
And critics including former PM Liz Truss gace warned that the advice ‘does not go far enough’ and must be put on a legal footing.
Gillian Keegan (pictured left) has released long-awaited gender identity guidance for schools (right) today
Kevin Sexton, executive headteacher of Chesterfield High School in Liverpool told Sky News : ‘I’m not going to change what has worked for our school for the last 10 years.’
The guidance has been delayed by government infighting for months and stops short of the total ban on social transitioning at school favoured by some Tory MPs.
The document states that teachers do not ‘automatically’ need to alert parents when children are merely ‘questioning their gender’ rather than asking to socially transition.
‘If there is no change being requested, teachers can listen respectfully about a child’s feelings without automatically alerting parents, but, for safeguarding reasons, cannot promise confidentiality,’ the advice states.
Primary school age children should always be referred to by their biological pronouns, and there will only be ‘very rare occasions’ when older children can change them.
In these instances, parents should be consulted and schools should only go ahead if they are ‘confident that the benefit to the individual child outweighs the impact on the school community’.
The guidance makes clear that teachers and pupils should not be pressured to adopt a child’s chosen pronouns and should not be punished if they get them wrong.
Schools are being told to protect single-sex spaces, like toilets and changing rooms, and to keep boys out of girls’ sport.
Ms Keegan said: ‘Parents’ views must also be at the heart of all decisions made about their children – and nowhere is that more important than with decisions that can have significant effects on a child’s life for years to come.’
Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch said the gender issue had been ‘hijacked by activists’.
‘This guidance is intended to give teachers and school leaders greater confidence when dealing with an issue that has been hijacked by activists misrepresenting the law,’ she said.
‘It makes clear that schools do not have to accept a child’s request to socially transition, and that teachers or pupils should not be pressured into using different pronouns.
‘We are also clear how vital it is that parents are informed and involved in the decisions that impact their children’s lives.’
However, Ms Truss said the draft guidance – which will now go out for consultation until March – ‘does not go far enough’.
The Tory MP has put forward her own legislation to mean that would mean social transitioning is not recognised by schools or the state in children and puberty blockers and hormone treatment for gender dysphoria would be banned for under-18s.
‘During the many months we have been waiting for its publication, it has become increasingly clear that non-statutory guidance will provide insufficient protection and clarity, and that a change in the law of the land is required,’ she said.
‘That is why I am today asking the Government to back my Private Members’ Bill which would change the law in this area to ensure children are fully protected.
‘I fear that activists and others will be able to exploit loopholes in the guidance and the existing legal framework to pursue their agenda, leaving children at risk of making irreversible changes and with single-sex spaces not sufficiently protected.’
Unions complained that the document leaves ‘many questions unanswered’.
NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: ‘The ongoing delays to this guidance due to political wrangling have been a source of significant frustration, and it is far from ideal for it to be published right at the end of term, after some schools have already broken up for Christmas…
‘Upon an initial look, it would appear this guidance leaves a lot of questions unanswered, meaning school leaders will continue to be placed in an incredibly difficult position.’
Kevin Sexton, executive headteacher of Chesterfield High School in Liverpool told Sky News: ‘I’m not going to change what has worked for our school for the last 10 years.’
Chesterfield is a mixed comprehensive with 1,600 pupils – about 30 of them identifying as transgender, non-binary or genderfluid. It has gender neutral toilets and uniforms.
Before the formal publication of the advice, Mr Sexton said it has made up its own policy while waiting for the government.
Challenged on how parents might feel about not being informed about their child exploring a different gender identity, Mr Sexton said: ‘Children come to our school and hopefully we have a positive experience.
‘If we don’t create a positive experience, they won’t come to school, and they will be more unsafe, and more likely to make bad choices.’
The school insists parents should only be notified if there is a safeguarding risk.
Penni Allen, Chesterfield’s director of wellbeing, told Sky News: ‘If I picked up the phone and had to tell a parent… your child has just asked this question today. Your child is feeling like this today. We’d never be off the phone. We would have a hotline.’
One parent, named as ‘Rachel’, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme how her 16-year-old was allowed to ‘socially transition’ at school without the family’s knowledge.
‘She asked that she could be called by a different name and pronouns at school,’ the mother said.
‘The school went along with it, apparently with no questions asked but they didn’t tell the family – they didn’t tell me – and they actively hid it from me for about four months despite me being in touch with the school and expressing concerns about my daughter’s wellbeing. They kept it hidden from me.’
The parent said they became ‘very concerned about things that were going on, her dress and behaviour’.
‘I reached out to the school, and they told me to wait until she felt ready to talk to me. I had several conversations with them over the course of a few months. At no point did they tell me what was actually going on…
‘She had said nothing to us at home, she had given no indication that she felt that way. After talking to the school I was trying to give her opportunity to open up and talk to me.
‘But it didn’t happen and the school just kept telling me to wait. They did say they were encouraging her to talk to me but it just didn’t happen and they weren’t honest at all.’
The mother said the guidance must ‘make sure that parents are included in whatever is going on with their children’.
‘At the end of the day she is still a child, I have parental responsibility, it is up to me to care for her, her wellbeing physical and mental,’ she said.
‘I have to say I am completely horrified that the school did this and kept me in the dark.’
When the school were challenged about refusing to inform family, they apparently ‘claimed that their lawyers had implied that they could be sued by my 16-year-old daughter’
‘I find it completely ridiculous, but that is the excuse they gave,’ she said.
The parent added that her daughter had now reverted to her original pronouns and seemed ‘happier’.
‘I just think it was all a big mistake on how the school handled this,’ she added.
The guidance, and the reaction of schools, has already sparked a furious debate on sites such as Mumsnet.
One parent said: ‘Lots of teachers are very young and therefore cheap. It should come as no surprise given what universities are indoctrinating their students with, that teachers fresh out the oven are spouting the same bulls**t.
‘It’s not that they think they get to decide everything, is that they think identity IS truth.’
School leaders have been calling for guidance for months to clear up what one called ‘a public minefield of strongly held and opposing views’.
Ministers have been alarmed by the approach taken by some schools in pandering to pupils who claim to have changed gender.
Maths teacher Joshua Sutcliffe was banned from the profession this year after misgendering a trans pupil and sharing his Christian beliefs in the classroom.
Today’s guidance is likely to disappoint Tory MPs who wanted a total school ban on social transitioning – when boys adopt girls’ names, pronouns, uniforms and hairstyles, and vice versa.
Rishi Sunak was said to have been sympathetic to such calls but the legal advice was that this would need a rewriting of the Equality Act.
It comes as couples getting married will be asked if they want to be called ‘husband and wife’ under woke church guidelines.
It is part of new ‘inclusive language’ advice published by the Methodist Church. Old-fashioned terminology ‘makes assumptions about a family or personal life that is not the reality for many people’, it warns.
The guide advises ministers to use gender-neutral language such as ‘folks’ to avoid ‘subconsciously using phrases that may be misinterpreted as us favouring one sex over another’.
A spokesman for LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said: ‘This guidance, which we have not yet seen in full, needs to first and foremost make sure that trans and gender-diverse youth are supported to be themselves and have an environment where they can learn and thrive.
‘There is considerable evidence that social transition improves the mental health of trans children and young people and from what we are hearing about this guidance their needs have not been properly considered.’
Teachers who have been sacked over pupils’ pronouns
Joshua Sutcliffe
Maths teacher Joshua Sutcliffe was banned from the profession this year after misgendering a trans pupil and sharing his Christian beliefs in the classroom.
The 33-year-old who taught at The Cherwell School in Oxford, was found to have failed to treat the pupil ‘with dignity and respect’ by addressing them by a female pronoun when they identified as male.
In what was believed to be the first case of its kind in the UK, the married father of one was prohibited from teaching indefinitely by the Teaching Regulation Authority (TRA).
Maths teacher Joshua Sutcliffe (pictured) was banned from the profession this year after misgendering a trans pupil and sharing his Christian beliefs in the classroom
He told the Telegraph in May: ‘The TRA has said, you don’t feel enough remorse for not going on with the pronouns.
‘Well, I’m sorry, but that’s the Christian position. I wasn’t going to say: ”I’m going along with this’. I’d rather die to be honest. Obviously that’s quite extreme but that’s how I feel.’
‘Hannah’
A teacher reportedly faced having to remortgage her home to cover legal costs after losing a dispute over a transgender pupil earlier this year.
The woman, who could be named as a result of a court order, was suspended by a primary school after she refused to use a student’s preferred pronouns and name.
The pupil, who was born female, had been placed in her year 4 class and used male pronouns and had a male name.
After arguing that it could be harmful to encourage the child’s belief that they were ‘in the wrong body’, the teacher was sacked last year when she continued to challenge the school’s policies.
Speaking to The Times in June, the teacher, referred to as ‘Hannah’, said: ‘Teachers are being bullied not to question trans-affirming policies when evidence shows that the actual result of the approach is to put the welfare of children at serious risk.’
Kevin Lister
A teacher at a further education college in Swindon had enjoyed an unblemished 18-year teaching career before he was dismissed for ‘gross misconduct’ in September last year.
Kevin Lister, a maths teacher, refused to refer to a biologically female student, aged 17, by their preferred male name and he/him pronouns in A-level lessons.
He told The Mail on Sunday he was concerned the ‘out-of-the-blue’ request amounted to social transition, which could put the teen on a pathway to irreversible medical treatments.
‘I wanted at least to make sure that my student had parental support and was making an informed decision,’ he said.
‘As a parent myself, I would have been furious if my child had taken this step and I hadn’t been told anything.’
Kevin Lister, a maths teacher, refused to refer to a biologically female student, aged 17, by their preferred male name and he/him pronouns in A-level lessons
Mr Lister said he was ‘gobsmacked’ when he approached the safeguarding officers and was told the parents would not be informed about the student’s wish to identify as male in the classroom.
The school’s guide to supporting transitioning students states that staff should ‘maintain confidentiality and only tell others about the person’s trans status with their permission’.
The 60-year-old father-of-two later found some students had made accusations of transphobia against him and he was suspended, pending an inquiry, and escorted off the school grounds.
A disciplinary hearing subsequently upheld three complaints, namely that he had ‘subjected a gender-transitioning student’ to ‘transphobic discrimination’ and ‘harassment’ and ‘refused to use’ their preferred name and he/him pronouns.
Mr Lister took legal action against the school for unfair dismissal, and blamed ‘weak’ heads who are being influenced by ‘trans activist teachers’.