'Teachers must tackle sex and gender issues with tolerance and common sense'
It was National Thank A Teacher Day on Wednesday with pupils and parents urged to send cards applauding their classroom heroes.
It got me thinking about my own inspirational mentors and one particularly brilliant biology teacher.
Aged 14, I asked Mr B during a lesson on reproduction “if a man who has surgery to become a woman can enjoy a normal sex-life.”
I’d watched a ground-breaking documentary called “A Change of Sex” about Julia Grant, the first transgender person to share their story on TV.
But my question caused a right hoo-ha in a Roman Catholic school in 1979.
Several classmates insisted a man could never become a woman as it wasn’t what God intended, while some girls were shocked to hear the suggestion that intercourse could be enjoyable.
Mr B let us argue, admitted he didn’t really know the answer and steered us back to the male and female diagrams.
But the following week, in general studies, a younger teacher used the same TV documentary to get us talking about gender dysphoria, identity, and discrimination.
I knew Mr B was responsible and I’ve always been grateful for his tolerance, adaptability and common sense.
Qualities clearly not displayed by the teacher at a Rye College in East Sussex who tore into two 13 year old students for stating beliefs about gender identity that didn’t conform with hers.
Reports claimed the row erupted over a fellow pupil identifying as a cat, but the school denies this, insisting “no children at Rye College identify as a cat or any other animal.”
Yet the teacher was recorded calling the girls “despicable” after one claimed “if you have a vagina you’re a girl and if you have a penis you’re a boy - that’s it.”
She told them this was “not an opinion” as “gender is not linked to the parts that you were born with”.
An investigation was launched and Women and Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch has now raised safeguarding concerns.
Last Wednesday marked National Thank A Teacher Day (Getty Images)And as more stories emerge - apocryphal or not - of pupils identifying as dinosaurs, moons and holograms, the hoo-ha is causing real concern for parents, pupils and the wider public.
It’s clear that teachers have been left floundering, forced to make individual judgements over affirming kids’ identities.
When what they really need is clear training on how to teach biology and gender issues in a fact-based, non-discriminatory way.
The school at the centre of the row agrees. It welcomes draft guidance expected soon from the Government, hoping this will “ensure staff feel confident, well-equipped and well-prepared to address these issues.”
The world has moved on in the 44 years since I asked Mr B that awkward question but today’s teachers still don’t have the answers.
They need to learn quickly, with tolerance, adaptability and common sense, to become those classroom heroes of the future.
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