Monday 23 July 2012

Equality For All

When I saw the headline: "Trans teen banned from exam reads teacher her rights", I genuinely assumed it was in the USA. I associated this kind of discrimination with schools in red states, and was shocked to read it was in the UK. I stand corrected, America - we've got our fair share of douchebags too.

I'm troubled by this:
According to her mum Miranda, a senior teacher told her daughter that gender dysphoria didn't exist, while another imitated her walk in front of other pupils.
Teachers should never do this. It's unkind, uneducated and unprofessional. Sometimes a minority of unsuitable characters give the rest of us a bad name.

I'm also unimpressed by the highly biased and rather snooty Torygraph article (don't read the comments if you are easily upset by what utter bastards human beings can be), which refers to the student, Ashlyn, as "he" throughout. Also wrong. Ashlyn is "she". She wishes to be known as Ashlyn, not Lewis, so she is identifying as a young woman. She should bloody well be treated as such. What she has been through to get to that point doesn't bear thinking about, but I expect her life has been hell. It is reassuring to see that her mum is loving and supportive - many transgendered people don't have that.

I hope that, when Ashlyn goes to college in September, she finds it a more inclusive and diverse institution, and that her teachers are less bigoted. I hope she finds lecturers who welcome her equally with the rest of the students, who can support her and help her to come back from this rotten experience. I hope her GCSE grades have not been adversely affected. And I hope she and her mum take this rotten school to the cleaners.

5 comments:

  1. MischievousBastard23 July 2012 at 20:37

    College is better than school, trust me on that one. Schools give you shit, and they don't trouble themselves about transphobic bullying. College students are slightly more mature, and you're allowed to exercise your lawful rights under section 3 of the Criminal Law Act of 1967, as clarified in the case of Palmer v The Queen in 1971 without too much risk of expulsion, which is a right schoolkids are routinely (and unlawfully) denied.

    I hope this girl has an easy time for her A Levels, cos she's gonna need it. Turning 16 means she's eligible for referral to CX and that's a shitload to juggle. They can be bastards.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Schools can be very cruel places - a primatologist would be able to pick out numerous ways in which our society has not evolved much from our ape-like ancestors, ostracising the different, and the "other".

      Delete
  2. WELL SAID!!!!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...