Teachers urged to ask the questions

For most Australian families, school will recommence next week, and WAAT has been hearing from teachers who are worried. They’re worried that this year will bring more students who want to be called by a different name, who expect to participate in opposite-sex sports, and who are openly telling others that they’re going to start ‘hormones’ this year. Teachers are writing to us asking for clear and precise instruction on what they can do and say, and we’re forced to respond that there is no short or simple answer that will keep everyone – teachers and students – safe.

The first response we at WAAT want to make is this: Do not affirm a child’s stated ‘gender identity’. It is known that ‘affirming’ or ‘social transitioning’ almost always leads to ‘medical transition’: the application of either pubertal suppressants (that seriously hurt kids) or of cross-sex, synthetic, exogenous hormones (that seriously hurt kids). These substances can’t be prescribed by a doctor anywhere in the world, because their stated purpose is not ‘gender affirmation’; therefore, any child who is being administered these drugs is receiving them off-label.

However, we can’t say that with a clear conscience, and here’s why: The legal position is a minefield. Not one person in Australia, no matter their qualifications, can say with any certainty what a teacher can or can’t do when faced with a thirteen-year-old boy who says that his name is now Helen and he has the right to use the girls’ changing rooms, and that every adult and child in his school is now obliged to agree with him and to call him Helen and to let him participate in every female-only activity.

In our view, a teacher’s first recourse in this situation should be something along these lines:

Greg: ‘Ms Smith, I’m transgender, so I need you to call me Helen because that’s my new name’.

Ms Smith: ‘Okay; I can see this is something you’re interested in. Let me have a chat to the principal and see what the situation will be moving forward, okay?’

From here, the teacher should first speak with their school principal and have a conversation that covers the following:

1. What is the school’s internal policy, if any, on supporting changes to self-declared ‘gender identity’ in minors?
2. Has the school received any guidance from any organisations on how to address and safely manage ‘social transitioning’ in students, and can the school make these available to the teacher?

Note: This is a bit of a trick question – WAAT is fully aware that the Independent Australian Guidelines on Sex and Gender in Schools was electronically distributed to Tasmanian and Western Australian schools in 2023 which provides very explicit guidance, and that every State Department of Education has issued a set of policies like these, which provide very vague, and contradictory, guidance to schools. Whether or not a teacher’s own school has paid any attention to these, or has gone so far as to develop their own internal policies in response, is a matter for conjecture.

• Has the student in question been formally diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder by a psychologist or a psychiatrist, and has evidence of this mental illness been provided to the school?
• Is the school aware that genuine risks of physical harm have been proven to result from the support of ‘gender affirmation’ processes such as ‘social transitioning’ of minors?
• Is the school aware that the proposed presence of students in opposite-sex bathrooms, changing rooms, sports activities, single-sex Health and Physical Education curriculum etc, is likely to cause significant emotional distress and / or physical harm to students including, but not limited to, those from faiths such as Islam?
• In light of the above recognitions, will the school be able to provide legal protection for the teacher if they are required to facilitate the student’s social transitioning by using their preferred new name and / or facilitating their use of activities and facilities designated for the opposite sex?
• In light of the above recognitions, will the school be able to provide legal protection for the teacher if they refuse to facilitate the student’s social transitioning?

Incredibly, our recommendation is that not only do teachers have this conversation with their principals, but that they do so with at least one other independent adult present. Yes, this sounds extraordinary and perhaps even ridiculous, but that’s where things are at the moment. Teachers really need to protect themselves in this area for so many reasons, including the following:

• Young adults who have medically and / or surgically transitioned as minors are now pursuing legal action against medical provisioners who have supported this process. There is nothing to say that educational institutions won’t be held equally liable in the near future.
• There have been instances where teachers have stated their informed position to superiors and been subjected to harassment and / or termination of employment as a result.
• In the event that a student’s parents are unaware that their child is attempting to change their ‘gender identity’ at school, a teacher may be subjected to that family’s reasonable ire if they are unsupportive of their child’s choices.

All of the above make a teacher’s position on gender identity extremely tenuous, and this is reflected in the communications WAAT, and other gender-critical groups, have received. Teachers are being thrust into the front of the ‘gender wars’ without adequate knowledge, protection, or support, and they have every right to respectfully require their schools to make their positions clear and to explicitly offer what legal protection they can. Asking for this protection may sound something like this:

Teacher: ‘I don’t feel comfortable calling Greg by the name ‘Helen’, because I’ve seen lots of evidence stating that when adults allow kids to ‘socially transition’, they often go on to use hormones that can cause significant and lasting physical harm. Can you please advise me, in writing, what I should do about Greg’s request, and state that the school has provided me with this instruction and assumes legal liability for any harm that may ensue? I’m not qualified to diagnose or treat a mental illness such as Gender Identity Disorder, and if Greg doesn’t have this disorder, I don’t agree that he should be described as female and given access to female-only spaces and activities’.

Having said all this, we at WAAT are not lawyers. If the laws in Australia were clear and up-to-date on these issues, none of this would be up for debate, but the laws are not. For a thorough and in-depth discussion of the relevant laws in Australia, we refer the reader to the excellent Active Watchful Waiting post here, which covers the situation as it currently stands.

In summary, teachers, please think carefully. Please do your research, reach out to us here if we can be of assistance, and do your best to protect yourself as much as your students. Gender Identity Ideology hurts people, and it would be wonderful if this year, the numbers of children being supported to ‘socially transition’ in schools stabilised or even dropped. You know quite well that Greg’s a boy, and helping him pretend otherwise isn’t going to help anyone.