A mother tells how she only found out her daughter could change gender at school when teachers called her 'he' at a parents' evening.
The 13-year-old was allowed to change her name and pronouns at school, despite her mother, Sarah, warning that she felt it was a one-way street to gender reassignment hormones and surgery.
Sarah, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, believes schools are "collecting diversity brownie points" and pretending that being trans is "all glitter and unicorns" without warning children of the long-term physical and mental impact term.
Her daughter's West Country school started referring to the teenager with male pronouns without Sarah's permission after she decided she had been born in the wrong body at the age of 13.
"The school started confirming her behind my back and I only found out the teachers were using male pronouns at a parents' evening when she was called a he," Sarah said.
"I expressed my concerns about the social transition and explained that it appears to be a path to a medical transition. I explained the dangers and lifelong consequences of this: the fact that if my child goes the medical route, she will not come back the same.
"They say it's all about kindness, but I think it's cruel. They only have to deal with her until she is 16 and I will have to pick up the pieces when they have long forgotten her.
"It's very short-sighted. The schools are just trying to collect bonus points for diversity and inclusion and don't think about the long-term effects.
"They know there are girls at their school who wear chest binders. I told them that if you discovered that a child in your school had his feet tied, would you do something?
'If my child was of African descent and you found out the breasts were being tied, would you do anything? Because breast ironing is illegal as a form of female genital mutilation.
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"Because she's a white, middle-class kid, because she identifies as a boy, it's somehow okay."
Sarah has raised her concerns with teachers, citing the most comprehensive research into the impact of ring binders to date, which found that more than 97 percent of adults who use them develop health problems as a result.
But the school said she is "not allowed to know they are wearing them," she noted, adding: "You can get away with all kinds of security lapses under this transparent umbrella, my child's safety has been neglected because she identifies as a boy. "
Sleep in the boys' dormitory
Once, Sarah received a call asking if her daughter could sleep in the boys' dormitory during a school trip because she identifies as a boy, a request she refused.
"I asked them what kind of safety risk assessment they had done, but there was no answer," she said. "I asked if they couldn't see that there is a potential for sex with minors, non-consensual sex, teenage pregnancies."
Sarah believes that the children, often children with autism spectrum disorder, 'feel special' when they are trans and are allowed to use the toilets and uniforms of their choice.
"They get validation through a new trans status," she said. "Even if it doesn't help them fit in, it helps them feel more important. Before they were just the joke or the nerdy kid, but now they're the trans kid, and that's special."
She has spoken out as The Telegraph's investigation raises concerns about the number of schools in the West Country misrepresenting equality laws and presenting controversial trans ideology as fact.
One trust that runs nine Church of England primary schools has a Stonewall-approved 'school script' on how to talk about LGBTQ+ issues, it has emerged.
Several schools use identical language in their policies and a number use the training services of trans rights campaign groups.
Some say they will "support any social transition" and allow children to "identify themselves," while others pledge not to identify children as boys and girls and avoid gendered uniforms.
According to Colyton Grammar, which caters for children aged 11 to 18, and West Exmoor Federation, which runs three primaries: "Sex refers to a person's understanding and experience of their own gender identity, it is their internal sense of self.
"Everyone has a gender identity; for some people it corresponds to the sex assigned at birth, and for some others it does not. Gender identities are expansive and need not be limited to one collectively agreed upon term."
Colyton, considered one of the best state schools in the country, pledges to "seize every opportunity to promote equality, diversity and inclusivity" and says gender identity will be addressed in assemblies, literary programs and personal, social, health and economic activities. education.
The policy, which will be reviewed next year, states that "school policies and information" should use "gender neutral pronouns" and that children should be taught that it is "unacceptable" and "harmful" to misgender their classmates. The school did not respond to a request for comment.
Sarah added: "For schools, transgender is about celebrating diversity, it's a big party, it's glitter and unicorns. There is no mention of the lifelong pain that osteoporosis brings, or the fact that one day you may want children and not be able to have them."
Involve parents in every decision
The long-awaited draft government guidance for schools on trans children, published in December, states that schools should not accept all requests for students to change gender through the use of different pronouns or facilities, and that they should involve parents in every decision made taken. However, it is not legally binding.
Sarah said the government's new guidance for schools is "simply not strong enough" and that it "must become law as this ideology now applies to every area of school life".
Her concerns were echoed by Tanya Carter, a spokeswoman for the campaign group Safer Schools Alliance, who said there had been "a complete dereliction of duty and duty of care, not only at individual schools but also by the government".
The campaign group is not surprised that so many schools are misrepresenting equality laws as they have "warned about this", she added.
"This is a patronage and lobbying scandal, and a public inquiry is needed to find out how we got to this point," Ms Carter told The Telegraph.
"We would encourage parents whose school is misrepresenting safety rules, or the Equality Act, to contact the Department for Education, Ofsted and their MP.
"We know these problems are widespread and yet there is constant denial of how widespread it is, even denial that it is happening at all. We are facing a huge national scandal and people are acting as if nothing is happening.
"Many children learn misinformation online and then go to classes where you would expect schools to challenge misinformation, but in reality they reinforce that misinformation.
"In many cases we encounter parents who believe that the original introduction of their children's belief that they were born in the wrong body took place in the classroom.
"We expect this to be a major issue in the upcoming elections as parents will ask candidates what their party will do to protect children."