The Daily Telegraph - Saturday

Church school trans row is no fairy tale but a real-life nightmare

- The Telegraph, All names have been changed to protect identities.

Allison Pearson

Once upon a time, four little girls started in the same class at primary school. Katie, Zoe, Bobby and Ella. The four-year-old girls were happy in their friendship group, enjoying playdates at each other’s houses, until one day, something strange happened.

Katie whispered to Zoe: “Bobby has a dark secret. Bobby’s a boy. But you’re not allowed to tell anyone.” Ella didn’t know the dark secret, but she had her suspicions. “Why does Bobby have a willy?” she asked her mum, “Why does she wee standing up?” “Don’t be silly, Ella,” the mother replied, “Of course, Bobby doesn’t have a willy, she’s a girl. Stop making things up!”

By now, Ella was an imaginativ­e seven-year-old. She believed Bobby had wanted to be a girl and, one night, he went to bed and when he woke up in the morning, all his boy bits had gone and he was a girl: “Magic!”

The three girls became unwell. Their parents took them to the GP numerous times. They had trouble sleeping, tummy aches, Zoe got chronic constipati­on, others had horrible urinary infections.

Maybe it was because they didn’t want to go to the toilet at school. Ella told her parents Bobby said there were dark spirits in the toilet that would suck out your soul. Then, towards the end of last year, the friendship group turned toxic. Bobby, who had shot up to become the tallest child in the class, was boisterous with her friends. Worse than boisterous. She was physically mean, Zoe told her parents, twisting fingers, grabbing her by the arm in the lunch queue; she even punched poor Ella in the stomach. “I just don’t get why she’s being like this,” Zoe told her mum, “except Katie told me this secret in Year One that Bobby is really a boy. Is that true, Mum?”

Zoe’s mother, who had worked at the school and knew the secret, but thought she’d get into trouble, maybe even lose her job, if she revealed it, realised it was time to own up. “Sorry, yes, it is true.” Zoe sat there in silence before saying, “I don’t want to hold hands with boys. I was only holding Bobby’s hand because I thought she was a girl.” A bright, perceptive child, Zoe grew distressed and started making angry accusation­s. “In assembly, you told us lying is sinful,” she told her teacher. “The teachers are lying to us about Bobby being a girl.”

The teacher replied, “Yes, Bobby has a penis and testicles but, on the inside, Bobby and her family truly believe she’s supposed to be a girl, so they don’t see it as lying.”

And Zoe looked long and hard at her teacher until, finally, she said: “But Bobby’s a boy. She’s a boy.”

Believe it or not, this isn’t some warped Grimms fairytale adapted for maximum shock value by Channel 4. It actually happened – indeed, it is still happening – at a Church of England primary school in South East England.

The only reason I learnt about it is because Zoe’s grandmothe­r, Sara, was so incensed she emailed me. “My dear little granddaugh­ter is terribly emotionall­y and psychologi­cally messed up,” Sara wrote. “She trusts no one at all because she sees the school and all the adults have lied to her.”

Sara said that her daughter, Amy, “has been in the unenviable position of knowing something she couldn’t share and didn’t even want to have to discuss with her child” who was so very young – just four and a half – when Amy was told that a “transgende­r child” was starting in Year One.

At least Amy and her partner, James, who are in their thirties, knew “Bobby” was a boy and could keep a watchful eye on the situation. (They both believed it was one of those phases that small children go through and he’d “probably grow out of it”.)

The parents of the two other girls in the friendship group had no idea. One mother finally guessed about eight months ago and, like Amy, began furiously emailing the school about the safeguardi­ng issues arising from her daughter having a friend who, unbeknowns­t to her, to many of the teaching staff and nearly all of the pupils, was actually a boy.

The school’s response was to “gaslight” the anxious parents, Zoe’s family claims. They were shocked when Mr X, the school governor with responsibi­lity for safeguardi­ng, emailed to dismiss their concerns saying: “The school would like to reassure you that actions followed are in line with the advice given by the Department for Education alongside the guidance for Church of England schools.” The governor said he had “every confidence that the school will do their utmost to provide the other children with the support required to navigate this sensitive situation in an inclusive and caring way”. “We hope,” he concluded, “that you will be able to work with the school to support its inclusive Christian ethos.” Amy and James were stunned. “He was clearly implying our attitude wasn’t very Christian,” Amy told me. ‘I was only holding Bobby’s hand because I thought she was a girl’

“The governor said the school’s ethos was ‘inclusive’, but it didn’t include all the previously happy children whose mental health has been damaged by all the deceit, did it? Inclusive seems to mean excluding all the normal children because they don’t matter as much as one trans child.”

Amy and James have taken the brave decision to speak to even though they know they run the risk of inciting the “trans mob”.

“[They have] stolen the children’s innocence,” James, a smiley, devoted dad now reddening with anger, said. “They can’t get it back. Hopefully, with being able to support her (Zoe), we’ll get her through it. But you don’t know when she’s sixteen, seventeen, how she will process what’s happened. It’s almost like her childhood has been robbed from her. She’ll never trust adults in the same way again.”

Amy doesn’t agree there’s such a thing as “trans children”. “Bobby was a boy in pre-school. A year later, the parents told the school he was now a girl. Did you know how to tie your shoelaces when you were four? Did you know how to divide numbers? No. If you can’t do those basic, functional tasks aged four, you cannot make an emotional decision of that magnitude.” I read out the Church of England guidance:

“The protected characteri­stic of gender reassignme­nt only works one way – not being transgende­r is not a protected characteri­stic. Consequent­ly, schools can make adjustment­s to meet the needs of a trans pupil without being accused of discrimina­ting against non-trans pupils.”

“B------t, isn’t it?” said James, rolling his eyes. “Clearly written by someone who has no experience of how the mind of a child actually works.”

“Do they realise that four to sevenyear-olds don’t understand what transgende­r or gender dysphoria means? Aged four, Zoe could not even have said dysphoria,” laughed Amy.

The head of the school told Amy it “wasn’t a secret” that Bobby was trans because people had known him in pre-school. “Rubbish,” responded Amy. Most parents and kids had – and still have – no idea. “The danger of ‘outing’ Bobby is regarded as more serious than the fact that you’re seeing really bad behavioura­l issues as a consequenc­e in the other children,” she said.

“We can’t ‘out’ Bobby as there is a protected characteri­stic involved and the guidance says coming out as trans is not a safeguardi­ng issue. (Yet girls have seen Bobby’s penis!) With no official notificati­on to the parents in that class, there has been no way for parents to ‘Do they realise that four to seven-yearolds don’t know what transgende­r means?’

telegraph.co.uk/ planet-normal

explain their child’s strange observatio­ns. And now we see it’s manifested into disturbed behaviour, and anything we have taken to the staff has been brushed aside. We now have several girls disturbed and displaying physical stress symptoms.”

How have we ended up with a situation where one small boy the parents claim is “trans” (based on what evidence?) is “protected” and sod the rest of the children? They are the ones who should be protected – from bewilderin­g and scientific­ally contested sexual matters at such a tender age. Two of the girls in the original friendship group have left the school. Zoe is being home-schooled and, after months of being silent and depressed, has started to play with her toys again.

As for Bobby, what hideous pressure is that poor seven-year-old under, trying to live a lie while presenting as a girl to friends and teachers? Little wonder he is lashing out.

How right Zoe’s fantastic parents are to take a stand, not just for the sake of their beloved daughter, but for any child in the country whose happiness is overridden by ideologica­l idiocy.

In the words of little yet wise Zoe, “But Bobby’s a boy. She’s a boy.”

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 ?? ?? Our little ones’ innocence has been robbed just so ideologica­l idiocy can protect one child
Our little ones’ innocence has been robbed just so ideologica­l idiocy can protect one child
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