When I was a young teacher – a long time ago now – I was lucky enough to learn from older, more experienced colleagues. As a rookie teacher, with almost no classroom management skills myself, I remember my sense of awe at the shrewd tactics of those veteran practitioners.
One of these wise mentors once told me about reintegrating a child into school after an accident left her with severe burns to her face and hands. She realised that the children might feel uncomfortable with their classmate’s changed appearance and unsure about how to relate to her, but she also knew precisely what to do about it: teach.
Visiting the family at home, she helped the girl to make some videos for her young classmates. Before the girl came back to school for the first time the children watched the videos in class, and talked together about their friend. By the time she came back to school, they were ready.
The teacher accepted they might feel uncomfortable, or even afraid, but she did not accept that those feelings were unchangeable – nor that they should be pandered to. She knew their discomfort must not be allowed to affect the children’s behaviour towards their classmate. Instead, she taught them to examine their feelings, to understand they had a choice to re-examine their reactions, and gave them a crucial opportunity for growth.
The novel/film ‘The Help’ gives us another, similar example from a little further back in history than the start of my teaching career. The ‘mean girl’ white character feels a visceral fear at the idea of sharing a toilet with the black women who prepare her food, clean her house and raise her children.
This time, though, there is nobody there to help her examine her feelings: instead they are accepted as natural, and on this foundation she builds a complex narrative of ‘science’ until she believes her fear is based on evidence and medical fact. Her prejudice goes unchallenged: she never asks whether she is truly unsafe, or just uncomfortable.
And so to the threats from Susan Smith (For Women Scotland organisation) about school toilets and changing rooms.
If you believe that trans children should not be allowed to use the facilities that match their gender, take a moment before you line up next to “For Women” Scotland. Instead, please examine your feelings about this. If you encounter parents who express these views, help them to examine their feelings, too.
It should go without saying that everyone using toilets and changing rooms must be kept safe. It’s essential that schools do all they can to see that privacy is ensured. Help must be immediately available whenever there is bullying or crime. We all know of settings where children are afraid to use these facilities, and in this day and age such a situation is unacceptable.
In fact, fear of using toilets at school is disgracefully common, and it causes all kinds of misery, including UTIs. Those with genuine concerns about children’s well-being know and care about this. It’s no good pretending to vulnerable girls that excluding trans girls will magically make school toilets safe. And, actually, most women would like their boys to be safe at school, too. For this reason, school leaders across Scotland are investing in tackling the real issues: they are making sure that toilets are no longer unsupervised, hidden corners of the school, where hygiene is poor, substances are abused, and (same-sex) bullying is rife.
All assessments of risk must be based on actual risk. Does the presence of a trans child actually make other children unsafe, or does the presence of a trans child just make some people feel uncomfortable?
If parents and other pupils are afraid, teachers need to help them articulate the precise nature of that fear. If they fear voyeurism, or perhaps even sexual assault, questions must be asked. Tragically, we know that children sometimes do commit such crimes: what systems does the school have in place to protect pupils? If any kind of inappropriate or bullying behaviour is taking place in toilets and changing facilities, this must be dealt with as the serious safeguarding issue that it is.
But no child, and no adult, must ever be allowed to assume that being transgender is evidence that a child is a sexual predator. All the evidence now available shows that trans children are far, far more likely to be the victims of bullying than the perpetrators of any kind of inappropriate behaviour anywhere, and especially in toilet and changing facilities. And we also know that, when trans children are accepted and included as the people they are, they can grow, flourish and enjoy their childhood.
It’s a big ask. The children in my mentor’s class found it hard to admit they felt fear and revulsion over the injuries of their friend. But as soon as they did, they were able to see those feelings for what they were, reject them, and move forwards. Because they were taught not to exclude their classmate, every child in that class became a better person.
At the time in history when The Help was set, it was too hard for many people to admit that their feelings were not based on fact or truth, but were learned in a society whose values we now accept were terribly wrong.
If you are a good, decent person it can be hard to admit that some of your feelings don’t bear scrutiny, that you are acting not out of logic or sense but from a place of unjustifiable fear.
But what better learning opportunity could there be?
By Josie Hervey
