By Kevin Lister April 8, 2024 READ

I was a maths teacher at a further and higher education college when one of my students, whom I will call Student A, sent me a message saying she wanted to be a boy. I raised a safeguarding concern asking if we had parental consent, if she was making an informed decision and if she was at risk of self-medicating with cross-sex hormones.

The response from the safeguarding team was that they would not tell her parents. They then encouraged her to socially transition by telling her how to change her name and pronouns on the college system. This was the complete opposite of my safeguarding concern. My student’s safety would have been better protected if I had done nothing.