I asked my daughter’s teachers not to call her a boy… they reported me to social services

Jan 19, 2023 by Jill

by Jill Foster, Daily Mail:

Schools won’t apply sun cream without parental permission. But some will ‘socially transition’ children who want to change gender without a word to their families.

Like many parents on a Sunday evening, Patricia Chalmers was busy checking for unwashed sports kit in her 14-year-old daughter’s school bag when she discovered something rather perplexing.

Crumpled up inside was a letter from her teacher regarding a project. While the contents made sense, Patricia was confused by the name — it was addressed to Lex Chalmers. Her daughter’s name is Esme.

‘Instinctively, I suspected something was wrong but I waited until next morning before I phoned the school,’ says Patricia, a 49-year-old mother-of-two from Swindon.

‘Esme had been dressing differently for months, no longer wearing the skirts or dresses she’d loved when she was younger and was instead wearing baggy hoodies and jeans. She’d chopped off her long hair into a short crop. I was absolutely fine with it. She’s a teenager. She can dress how she wants.

‘But I’d also discovered she was ordering chest binders (which flatten the breasts) and I was worried she’d hurt herself.

‘I’d read up on gender identity and reassured her she could be as gender non-conforming as she wanted, but I wasn’t going to let her harm her body. She was still developing. So, I wondered if the change of name was connected to this.’

When she phoned her daughter’s co-educational state secondary school, the receptionist claimed the name change ‘must be a mistake’.

But Patricia wanted to be sure and sent an email. ‘I wanted to clarify in writing that they definitely didn’t use a different name for my daughter and that she should be referred to as Esme,’ she says.

‘They took a day to respond but eventually replied saying that in keeping with their Equality, Inclusion and Diversity policy, they had “socially transitioned” [when you refer to someone by different names and pronouns to match their gender identity] my daughter and were referring to her with the gender-neutral name Lex and they/them pronouns.

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