Dr Natacha Kennedy: "The government’s guide to harming trans children in school"

Words by Dr Natacha Kennedy, a trans academic from Goldsmiths University 

There’s no point in beating about the bush, the government’s new anti-trans “guidance” for schools is about harming trans children in the same way its puberty-blocker ban has already harmed many of them. Probably the worst headline measure being introduced is permitting transphobic teachers and classmates to legally abuse trans kids by misgendering them constantly, because they apparently have the right to “gender-critical” beliefs. In my view any teacher who does this should never work with minors again. Horrific, but the rest is as bad.

The government wants people to use the term “gender-questioning, instead of “trans” for trans kids. In effect it is trying to enforce as standard the decades-old “just a phase” myth used against cis LGB people. If the state-supported bullying was not enough, trans kids will be constantly forced to use the wrong toilet and effectively banned from school sports and trips. Additionally schools will, in effect, be required to teach transphobic rhetoric and will be allowed to ban children from socially transitioning (that is a non-medical transition involving changing appearance, name, pronouns etc). 

The “gender questioning” designation is not just the institutionalisation of Just A Phase but it makes false assumptions about trans children. My own research has shown that, by the time a child has got to the stage where they are coming out to any adult, almost all are well past “questioning” their genders usually by many years or months, they have thought about it and know who they are; the very low rate at which trans children stop being trans is clear evidence of this. This false “questioning” designation also tries make their lives permanently precarious and to justify this inhuman treatment of them. In my view all school staff should avoid using this term except in the very rare instances where a child is genuinely questioning their gender. 

Then there is the issue of minority stress. Ilhan Meyer, in the 1990s, found that members of any minority group experience a higher level of background stress than members of non-minority groups. This can affect children too and can result in absenteeism and lower attainment in their schoolwork. Research published in 2016 however, showed that supporting trans children in their gender identities; correctly gendering them, for example, eliminates minority stress  almost completely. So the government’s transphobic “guidance” is actively harming them academically as well as psychologically and socially. 

Ambient Conversion Therapy

As an academic, this has brought me to theorise what I am calling “Ambient Conversion Therapy”. Along with ramping up their minority stress and designating their identities permanently “just a phase” there are also plenty of other transphobic measures from this most transphobic government ever that will affect trans children, such as the puberty-blocker ban and the way it has effectively not banned conversion therapy. In my view these combine to form a kind of wraparound conversion therapy designed to pressure trans children into not being trans and to doubt their identities 24/7. So schools, the NHS, social services and even their social lives become part of a cruel system that pressurises them into believing they are cis. 

As is well known, even on its own terms conversion therapy is always unsuccessful. It does not make gay people straight or trans people cis, all it does is produce traumatised and suicidal victims (and there is no other term for those who have been subjected to conversion therapy). This psychological harm can last well into adulthood. To me this feels like government ministers trying to proxy-bully and proxy-torture children into not being trans. 

The government’s own data suggests that young trans people are many times more likely to die by suicide than cis children. This is by far the main problem for trans children and main worry for their parents. A responsible government would be making suicide prevention for trans children its top priority, instead it seems to be doing the complete opposite. 

I don’t believe this is accidental. The government’s action fails to acknowledge that the main problems faced by trans children are society’s transphobia, instead they seem to be trying to make out that any mental health problems these kids have is somehow inherent in being trans, which is ridiculous. Can abusing, psychologically harming, segregating, and undermining any group of children in the way this “guidance” does really be intended to cause anything but harm? In my view nothing can possibly justify the harm that will be caused to these children.

Labour’s anti-trans “guidance” is many orders of magnitude worse than Margaret Thatcher’s Section 28 ever was - I know, I was a teacher all the way through that period. When Section 28 was repealed I worked hard to introduce the concept of the Rights Respecting School to where I was working. This guidance will negatively affect all children because, in my view it means the Rights Respecting School is now effectively dead and buried; I can’t imagine trying to teach about respecting children’s human rights while being forced to deny some children theirs. 

Finally, anyone who thinks Ambient Conversion Therapy will only be restricted to trans kids urgently needs to re-read the poem.