My daughter’s sixth form told me that all students would enrol in their legal sex, using a passport as evidence. However, she enrolled as male. I was told that the reason for this is that the entry is “gender”, and the Department for Education allows children to self-select.
They were not able to provide a risk assessment or clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria, or explain how this would affect their own data and funding.
I explained that they had socially transitioned my child without parental consent, but did not ask them to reverse this in order to avoid her feeling humiliated.
They told me they were a Stonewall Champion, and also told me that they had reported all of my concerns to my child as part of a “transparency” policy. When this led to weeks of her refusing to speak to me, they said it was not connected.
Eventually, they referred me to social services because our home was “unsafe” and because my daughter reported that we were failing to use her new name and pronouns.
Following that, they told me that my correspondence – which has been polite, and contains information from reputable sources on the law, medicine and policy – amounted to harassment. They also said – underlined – that I was not allowed to share any of my daughter’s mental health history, or allow her private therapist to contact them.
She is now meeting regularly with an activist counsellor at school, who told her that we were causing her “harm”. When I asked for the broad outlines of their work, I was told it was none of my business and that I should trust the school. The counsellor told me that the Cass Review and new NHS England guidance were “had nothing to do with” my daughter’s situation.
The case continues…