Virginia teacher sues school after being fired for not using transgender student's pronouns... (1 Viewer)

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    crosswatt

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    A Virginia high school teacher who was fired for refusing to use a transgender student's preferred pronouns has filed a lawsuit against school officials and the board.
    Peter Vlaming, who was a French teacher at West Point High School, said he was fired because he would not use pronouns such as "him" and "his" to refer to a female student who was transitioning to male.

    According to the suit filed Monday in King William County, using the male pronouns would have "violated" Vlaming's "conscience" and went against his religious beliefs, so he called the student by his preferred name during class and avoided using pronouns altogether.

     
    This isn’t necessarily directed at you. It just seemed like the appropriate place for discussion.

    The suicide rate amongst transgender youths is 4 times of a heterosexual and almost 2 times as much as a gay youth.

    We as a society need to give this a lot more thought than allowing a young teenager to venture into this just because they “know” what they want.

    What is the correlation between suicide incidence and a teenager “knowing what they want”?

    Aboriginal suicide rates are stratospheric. Highest suicide rates are among middle aged people and elderly. Are these people that don’t know what they want?

    Just not sure how you are connecting those particular dots
     
    I think it’s unfair to make a statement that he is refusing to teach the child. Unless I’m misunderstanding he is refusing to call him by a pronoun the child wants to be called. There is a huge difference in the two.
    let's say i'm teaching a class of 19 with 'traditionally normal american' like Tom and Beth
    and then i have a new student of color with a name that has plenty of vowels and strings of consonants and diacritical marks - the student tells me their name and it's pronounced in ways that make no sense to how language works as i know it
    so i say, 'i can't say your name, I'm just going to call you 'T'"
    and the student says 'it's very important to me that you call me by my proper name'
    and i'm like "sorry, T'

    The principle tells me to address the student by their proper name
    i refuse

    now what?
     
    let's say i'm teaching a class of 19 with 'traditionally normal american' like Tom and Beth
    and then i have a new student of color with a name that has plenty of vowels and strings of consonants and diacritical marks - the student tells me their name and it's pronounced in ways that make no sense to how language works as i know it
    so i say, 'i can't say your name, I'm just going to call you 'T'"
    and the student says 'it's very important to me that you call me by my proper name'
    and i'm like "sorry, T'

    The principle tells me to address the student by their proper name
    i refuse

    now what?
    How about you stop "refusing" and make a better effort to learn the child's proper name? As someone who speaks three languages I can tell you that it's not always easy to pronounce foreign words or names but if you practice long enough you can eventually get close to the correct pronunciation. Your hypothetical scenario is a poor comparison to this case because the teacher in question has never refused to call the child by his proper name.
     
    let's say i'm teaching a class of 19 with 'traditionally normal american' like Tom and Beth
    and then i have a new student of color with a name that has plenty of vowels and strings of consonants and diacritical marks - the student tells me their name and it's pronounced in ways that make no sense to how language works as i know it
    so i say, 'i can't say your name, I'm just going to call you 'T'"
    and the student says 'it's very important to me that you call me by my proper name'

    This reminds me of an article that I just used the past couple of days with faculty in discussions around diversity and equity:


    “The severity comes … in its cumulative effect. It can really impact the quality of life over time as it’s happening again and again and again and again.”

    An example she cited is of a teacher who says, “Your name is too difficult. Can I say it this way instead?”...

    During the Toronto session, one teacher said when he asks students how to say their names correctly, “some of them don’t even care to say ‘Say it this way,’ because they’re so washed out because teachers have forever called them this wrong name. But I’ve had to say ‘This is your name, what do you want me to call you?’ ”

    the repeated instances and the "cumulative effect" actually have a neurological impact - it impairs cognition. Neuroscience has established this in recent years.

    It can actually impact, adversely, a student's ability to learn.
     
    How about you stop "refusing" and make a better effort to learn the child's proper name? As someone who speaks three languages I can tell you that it's not always easy to pronounce foreign words or names but if you practice long enough you can eventually get close to the correct pronunciation. Your hypothetical scenario is a poor comparison to this case because the teacher in question has never refused to call the child by his proper name.
    the teacher is refusing to address the student in the way the student prefers to be addressed bc the teacher is uncomfortable doing so

    the analogy is almost entirely parallel
     
    Your hypothetical scenario is a poor comparison to this case because the teacher in question has never refused to call the child by his proper name.

    For many people, gender is more important than a name, or a name change can accompany a gender change - but the driver of that change is the gender. That is, someone doesn't change gender just to change name; rather, they change a name to accommodate the gender. Wives often take the last name of their husbands - that happens with more frequency than wives changing their gender. Nicknames, shortened names, middle names in place of first names, etc are, in many ways, relatively inconsequential to other core elements of our identity.

    I could argue that the example doesn't fit because the name of the student is actually not as weighted as gender, which runs contrary to the rationale you're using above.
     
    This reminds me of an article that I just used the past couple of days with faculty in discussions around diversity and equity:




    the repeated instances and the "cumulative effect" actually have a neurological impact - it impairs cognition. Neuroscience has established this in recent years.

    It can actually impact, adversely, a student's ability to learn.
    yup
    and students get ****** if you get their names wrong (some do)
    one of the problems im encountering this year is 2 students in 2 different classes with the same name spelling but different pronunciations
     
    the teacher is refusing to address the student in the way the student prefers to be addressed bc the teacher is uncomfortable doing so

    the analogy is almost entirely parallel
    Nonsense. The teacher only has a professional obligation to to refer to the student by his name and nothing more so your analogy is flawed.
     
    For many people, gender is more important than a name, or a name change can accompany a gender change - but the driver of that change is the gender. That is, someone doesn't change gender just to change name; rather, they change a name to accommodate the gender. Wives often take the last name of their husbands - that happens with more frequency than wives changing their gender. Nicknames, shortened names, middle names in place of first names, etc are, in many ways, relatively inconsequential to other core elements of our identity.

    I could argue that the example doesn't fit because the name of the student is actually not as weighted as gender, which runs contrary to the rationale you're using above.
    that's a good point too
    if you really want to **** off my wife (i wouldn't recommend it) call her Mrs my last name

    she's been in situations with colleagues who are 'traditional' who call her by my last name
    they see her name all of the time in documents/emails, etc
    but my kids have my name and they go to the school to and my name is easier to pronounce than hers

    seemingly they call her by a name other than her own bc of their discomfort
    kinda understandable but not at all cool
     
    Nonsense. The teacher only has a professional obligation to to refer to the student by his name and nothing more so your analogy is flawed.

    what are you basing your determination of a teacher "only" having this "professional obligation" on?
     
    What I truely do not get in this case, is the lack of respect for the student's choice by the teacher. He does not have to like or even agree with the choices the student and presumeable the students parents, have made. But he definitely should NOT impose his own religious views on his students.

    It may seem like a small thing but kids pick up on that, and if the teacher shows his open dislike of the student's choice, he is inviting the rest of the students to do the same.
     
    That’s not what you were arguing

    If you were asking me - yes it was.

    The well being of the student /young person should IMHO have first priority . I do respect others right to feel differently about transgender persons but if you accept the job as teacher/mentor for young people the way you interact with them should not be influenced by your religious beliefs in a negative way.
     
    If you were asking me - yes it was.

    The well being of the student /young person should IMHO have first priority . I do respect others right to feel differently about transgender persons but if you accept the job as teacher/mentor for young people the way you interact with them should not be influenced by your religious beliefs in a negative way.
    I think the thread got lost
    He and others were saying that there was nothing written in the contract that said a teacher was compelled to address the student by preferred pronouns,et al

    He went on to say that the only thing proscribed in the contract was to address students by their given name and ‘birth pronoun’
    I asked if he had seen that specific language that backed up his claim

    I doubt it - the language is probably broad and vague like “we expect you to act professionally “ etc etc
     
    ... so, let me get this right. This teacher got fired because he wouldn't use 3rd person pronouns while talking about the transgender student to others? I assume the faculty?
     
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    Multiple points to make to that:

    1) Starting to transition does not mean immediately having surgery.
    2) Minor point, but the student concerned was reportedly in the 9th grade, not 8th.
    3) People that age are entirely capable of having strong notions about their identity, regardless of your own personal breakfast-related struggles.
    4) You're saying 'allowing them' but really you're talking about preventing them from doing what they want to do with regards to their own identity. That's a pretty brutal approach with its own consequences. There's no neutral option here. You can't just hit pause on someone else's self-identity.
    5) Who exactly is it you want to have this oversight you say is needed? Parents and, where appropriate, medical professionals are already involved. Who else should be? The school board? The government?

    As for the teacher, it's fine to have your own personal beliefs. Those don't take precedence over your responsibilities though. As a teacher, you have a responsibility to respect your students.

    From an emotional standpoint, 15 years old is not that different from 14 years old. At 15 years old, I was sticking safety pins in my ears and nose, getting in any fight I could, opening 2 beer bottles at the time with my teeth, and other stuff for which I'll plead the 5th.

    But, somehow, because gender transition is involved, all of the sudden a teenager can make a rational decision about medical procedures.

    I don't know.

    You do get that your sense of who you are is significantly different to having a tattoo or what to have for breakfast, right? Your choices of analogy risk trivialising the subject.
    At 15 years old, there are many things that you think define who you are.
     
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