I've notice a lot of stories here at BC that are about a (trans) child's experience describe them as being beaten up, punched, etc. -- as if that sort of thing were seen as normal in their school(s).
It's so different from my own experience. I hated school, and for a number of years, the adults who had power over me were working very hard to make me miserable, but the closest it came to being physical was when they'd make us run laps as punishment. And the kids all called me names and refused to have anything to do with me. But it never became physical; the closest it came was when a few kids would steal something, usually my lunch, and toss it back and forth so I couldn't grab it back.
Did I have such a privileged childhood? Did so many other people here at BC experience being routinely beaten up at school with nobody doing anything about it? Or is this a trope, a part of a stereotype of one's school (esp. high school) years; in other words, a way to present a school set-up without having to put a lot of thought into it?
I know physical violence happens in some schools, I'm just wondering if that's the norm, or was for many of the people who post here.
Comments
Google trans/bullied
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Love, Andrea Lena
I did my best ..
to avoid bullies or run from them, but when I couldn't, I tended to get beat up. I'm really not sure why I got targeted. I know I wasn't the *only* kid who got beat up, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't about me being transgender. I *was* a bit different (looked like a boy/acted like a girl), so that may have been why I got targeted. It seems anyone who was in some way different was more likely to be attacked. Once I got into highschool, attacks seemed to shift to verbal. While no assult is a good thing, it was a bit of a relief to be less afraid of physical attacks.
Sadly the Reverse Happens Also
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10086761/Father-dau...
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Complete Hoax
Why is it this reads like a complete hoax?
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
probably
Because it's the Heil?
Their relationship with "the truth" is questionable in general, and has long history manufacturing justifications to attack trans people
I work in a school district
Unfortunately with the attitudes I see from some of the students, I can easily see some of the intermediate and high school boys doing exactly what is being reported in that article.
Look at the latest stupidity from Tic Tok, ripping mirrors, soap dispensers, etc off school bathroom walls. Why? because some idiot posted that it would be cool?
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Don't need Tik-Tok
Vandalizing school bathrooms has been going on since the 1950s, when my oldest brothers were in Jr. and Sr. High School. In fact, at the junior high, which was 4 stories plus a full basement, a student flushed an M-80 firework (originally made for military use, contained 3 grams of explosive, now illegal). When it went off, it broke the top floor toilet and fountained every toilet all the way to the basement. Social media isn't needed to trigger antisocial behavior.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
The Anti-trans version of banging a shoe on the table
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/loudoun-county-officials-a... <<<< typical Laura Ingraham BULLSHIT
During the meeting superintendent Scott Ziegler said that the school has had no reports of any assaults occurring in their public bathrooms and that "predator transgender student or person simply does not exist."
"School Board members are typically not given details of disciplinary matters," the statement added. "The board may be obligated to consider long-term suspensions or expulsions and must ensure that students have not been deprived of due process. Consequently, members of the Loudoun County School Board were not aware of the specific details of this incident until it was reported in media outlets earlier this week."
He accused the school of attempting to hide the attack so they could continue to push the school's Policy 8040, which was passed in August to allow students to use their name and gender pronouns, as well as locker rooms and bathrooms that correspond to their "consistently asserted gender identity." To date there are NO substantiated allegations like the one described above. All FUCKING LIES to further anti-trans legislations and regulations.
Love, Andrea Lena
Myth must be my lucky day?
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/no-link-between-tran...
“Opponents of public accommodations laws that include gender identity protections often claim that the laws leave women and children vulnerable to attack in public restrooms,” said lead author Amira Hasenbush. “But this study provides evidence that these incidents are rare and unrelated to the laws.”
Love, Andrea Lena
Facts Unknown
There is nothing in the MSN article saying whether or not the perp used a skirt in the assault. The official investigation report by law enforcement has not been released yet; Smith says there was. So it isn't possible to say " NOT DRESSED IN A SKIRT." with any degree of accuracy.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
I removed the sentence.
But as I also noted, the board maintained the following.
During the meeting superintendent Scott Ziegler said that the school has had no reports of any assaults occurring in their public bathrooms and that "predator transgender student or person simply does not exist."
The other half of this is that there have been increasing threats on school personnel and school boards that has gained the attention of the justice department. This has somehow been extrapolated by some news sources as an attempt to stifle parental dissent at the local school level. However, teachers and parents have been threatened over curriculum and pandemic requirements including death threats and outright physical confrontations in public meetings. Including:
"The allegations of a transgender bathroom assault take place against a backdrop of protests by parents across Virginia against what they say are politically motivated policies of school administrators, including policies accommodating transgender students." Even if the specific incident proves to be as described, it is nowhere near representative of the mythical widespread threat, as the political factions are depicting it to be; a claim made by both the father and his supporters. And as other sources have reported, his removal from the meeting was because he interrupted it, and became physically aggresive to the point of assaulting police. But HE'S the martyr.
My response was out of frustration over the growing animus towards transgender students; especially in certain parts of the country, where legislators are taking steps to roll back rights for trans kids. Sexual violance against a child must be taken seriously, but the issue is now being used to blatantly ignore the fact that it's trans teens that are at risk in school facilities of the gender to which they identify. I have friends who are being forced to relocate to other states merely to seek medical trearment for their transgender children.
In addition, while the schoolboard did vote in favor of affirming inclusive policy, it reflected the already existing state law previously enacted. The point I failed to make and maybe I'm still not suceding in doing so is that this incident is being used by political ideologues bent on using it to push ever-increasing anti-trans legislation; as representative of bullying that I can imagine.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-youth-transgender/...
My apologies.
Love, Andrea Lena
No apology needed
Because of my background, I place a high reliance on facts. Not on what might be the most favorable outcome. Learn the facts, and draw the necessary conclusions from that. It may be favorable, or it maybe not.
As a photojournalist, this attitude put me at odds with one or two reporters that had their stories already written before they even investigated the story. On a couple of occasions, I refused to shoot the story the way they wanted, as it would ignore certain aspects or slant the reporting. Didn't make me real popular with some.
A friend at the station gave me a pin-on button one time. It says, "I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts." Or, as Joe Friday never said, "Just the facts, ma'am."
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
Let's talk about Rights, Special Rights + Public Safety
Well hey there Big Closet people it's Mo again. So today we're going to talk about the widely touted opinion that the physical safety of normal students is more important than letting trans students use the bathroom that matches their personal sense of what gender they are. It maintains that if we allow a trans girl to use the girl's bathroom some cisgender male student might take advantage of such a policy and pretend to be trans so they can ogle the girls in there, or worse, and there won't be a damn thing anyone can do about it after the door has been opened to this kind of "woke" inclusiveness. If such an event happens even once that's one time too many; because keeping our kids safe is far more important than giving a handful of gender malcontents the "special right" of feeling safe + comfortable + validated while they take a shit.
But it's ironic that many of the same people who use the specter of this mostly hypothetical risk to demand trans students use the bathroom corresponding to the sex they were assigned at birth are the same people who, when it comes to the very non-hypothetical risk posed by the covid virus, claim an individual's right to not wear a mask or be vaccinated is inalienable, enshrined in the Constitution somewhere (or is it the Bible?), and WAY more important than the risk of turning a typical school day into a superspreader event that'll put 1000s of people at risk of ACTUALLY FUCKING DYING (maybe not the kids themselves, only a few dozen of them will die, and they were obviously weaklings in need of culling anyway so no biggie; but their older relatives at home). Suddenly a malcontent's special right to not be slightly inconvenienced is sacrosanct, and keeping the students safe is irrelevant in comparison. I guess that makes some kind of sense---If you can't trust Tucker Carlson, Governor Abbot + Marjory Taylor Green to know what they're talking about who can you trust?---But it seems kind of weird to me.
Anyway it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.
~Maureen of the 4th Estate
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
Bullied
It's complicated.
As almost all of you are aware -- we give off vibes, even if we're firmly in the closet.
During high school, one of our teachers gave our class a psychological test. After the class, she took me aside and told me that her test have proved that I was the most popular boy in our class by a wide margin. Yet -- there were boys who absolutely hated me. I never understood that.
I was one of the biggest boys in my class and one of the best athletes. I eventually lettered in four sports (football, basketball, track, and tennis), becoming a high school tennis coach.
One of the boys who hated me called me out at noon. I fought him on a cement slab covered with gravel. Somehow I slipped on the gravel and hit my head. I was knocked out. He jumped up and down on my left leg until he broke both bones in two places. I was in a cast for four months and wasn't able to run without a limp until almost fifteen years later.
My girlfriends in high school were the prettiest, nicest, girls. Their mothers loved me. I suppose I seemed safe.
As I went to high school in the sixties there wasn't anyone who could tell me why I felt the way I did, late at night, when I allowed myself to think about it. I was convinced I was suffering from a mental disorder.
Throughout life -- I've attracted a lot of hostility which resulted in dishonest people successfully attacking me.
I was good enough at what I did to keep my business going. I could have been much more successful. I blame a lot of the negative that happened to me -- to people reacting poorly to my feminine spirit. I wouldn't say I'm swishy - but I obviously do give off a vibe.
The other day I watched, a young lady washing a window in Nordstrom's. I was looking for their restaurant and asked her for help. I had only looked at her for a second, when I caught her "vibe." She was definitely trans. Nothing was overt. Her dress was cute. Her voice -- sweet. Yet I would have bet a lot of money on my hunch.
Bullies don't quit after high school. I was bullied this year, my fifty-first in business and my seventy-third in life. I think the bullying this year is directly attributable to my nature.
On the other hand, my nature is to nurture. Using my tendency to be empathetic and creative I have excelled in sales. I'll gladly accept the trade-off.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
I was bullied in school.
While I didn't even know what trans or gay was when I was small. I was a military brat, by 3rd grade I was in my 3rd school. That 3rd school was where I became the recipient of school bullying. A Hispanic kid (Cuban) and his posse took exception to the white, blond haired, boy who was easily mistaken as a girl.
Sometime around 4th grade my dad had enough of me not knowing how to fight back. Which only caused things to escalate from the one Cuban kid beating me up, to his posse diving in to help him. Although by the time 6th grade came around, he didn't have enough friends to help him win any longer.
In the middle of 7th grade we moved again. A few bullies tried me in the new school, but quickly learned what a bad idea that had been.
In high school I saw others get bullied and would step in and found myself as I can best describe as an Anti-bully, someone who stepped in and stopped the bullies, intimidated and even scared some of them, and in those cases where they waited and jumped their prey later, retaliated in means that provided an example for other bullies.
We the willing, led by the unsure. Have been doing so much with so little for so long,
We are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
Bullying in school
Physical bullying is very real. It has very little to do with gender or sexuality issues. It has to do with the inherent evil of children. My personal worst was during junior high. Walking home from the bus stop with rocks bouncing off my back. High school was less violent but was becoming worse across the four years. The principal (who retired the year before my freshman) had no tolerance for misbehavior. High school was a privilege and not a right. By the end of freshman year the worst offenders had been expelled. It took a court order to get back in. Local judges were not sympathetic either. The new principal came from special education, where every effort was to keep you in school. As you can guess discipline deteriorated steadily. Bullying worsened. I was glad to graduate. Could have Columbined but couldn’t figure out a way to get everyone. Got better since but have never been back for a reunion. Still am not free of hatred for one classmate. Been over 40 years. My children and grandchildren report things have not changed much. The great grands are in the first years now but I am not hopeful as adult society is much less civilized than when I was a child.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
It all depends
I think it all depends on the school you went to. My grade school (K-8) was small. We had less than 200 kids between all the classes. The only ones I had to deal with were the kids in my class. About 20 of which half were boys. One was a neighbor and a good friend. Another live near me and was pretty much a nerd, to the point that he almost made me look normal. Some how I managed to make friends with one of the popular (rich) kids and riding his coattails I was accepted into the "in group". Only one of the guys came close to actually being a bully and I learned to avoid him.
By the seventh grade, I had learned to fake normal boyhood pretty well. Though I never was really good at sports, I could do well enough to keep from standing out. There were at least two others who were more inept that I was. My bother, on the other hand was clearly one of the in crowd in high school. (I wasn't around him during his grade school days.) He was in Boy Scouts and he influenced me to join as well, though he got too old to stay in during my first year. But because he was who he was and I was his brother I was fairly well accepted there as well. The fact that I was a good camper made the difference there. I was good with knots and was able to kindle a fire under difficult circumstances. My tent was always dry inside. Like I said, I learn to fake it pretty well.
The real bully in the school was a girl. She was taller and stronger than most of the guys. She and I got into it one time and she came out clearly the winner. She was the one who dubbed me, "Patricia" because in her words, I "fought like a girl."
My high school was much larger. Something over 3000. I only had to deal with two bullies. I ended up fighting the first one after school and while I didn't win the fight, I did well enough to make him think twice about taking things that far again. The second took exception to me and another kid (who happened to be smaller than me) messing around and he ran into my hand while I was swing it around. The bully waylaid me coming out of class. Being a bit of a nerd, I had both arms full of books. He grabbed me and pushed me against the door frame and swung his fist at my face. I turned my head, putting one cheek bone against the door casing and he hit the other, braking two knuckles. He howled in pain. I didn't even get a bruise out of it. But it rattled the wall enough that the teacher came out and saw him clutching his broken hand and me standing there with my arms full of books and a bunch of guys other standing around. The teach had him by the arm wanting to know what happened. I just turned and walked away. The bully got a weeks suspension and I never was even questioned about it. About a month later, that same bully found me carrying my lunch tray back to my table and slapped it out of my hands and I lost it. I tackled him, knocking him down with me on top. I hit him three time before someone hollered teacher and I got up and again walked away. The teacher had him before he could get to his feet. Two time loser. I don't remember seeing him again and I was never even questioned. It's my guess the the guy didn't want to admit that nerd me was the guy who he was harassing both times and that he hadn't thoroughly wupt me.
None of my bullying had anything to do with my trans nature. I had that part of me thoroughly under wraps. Mind you this all took place in the late 50s and early 60s.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Bullied from Kindergarten through grade 11
I have been bullied and mobbed pretty much from Kindergarten through grade 11, from the mid 1970's through the late 1980's. In Kindergarten it was mostly the teachers who did it, since I was precocious and a year younger than the norm. In grades 1 and 2 I was not only bullied, but mobbed with the encouragement of a teacher fresh out of teachers training. The mobbing even turned into sexual abuse and assault. To the point of my parents taking me out of school, and moving from a mission school to a mainstream private school. During my grade school years we spent one year as a family sabbatical in the USA, where I was bullied in public school predominately by black kids. Back in South America in the German language community I grew up in, A lot of mobbing was induced by the teachers, who hated me for being a geek, would not acknowledge different learning styles nor intelligence levels. In High School (grades 7 to 12) the bullying and mobbing became worse, in part because over one third of the students were boarding in the school dorms during the week. On the school grounds it was more subtle physically, but the field trips have left me severely traumatized. Overindulgence of alcohol (starting at age 14/15), drunken violence, malicious tent collapses or destruction, and public taunting and hazing, all with no real checks by the supervising teachers, will do that to you. It was only in the last year that things started to lighten up for me, since of the 14 in my graduating class only 9 had started together in grade 7 (at that time the biggest grade with just over 70 students).
All this experience has left me with a lot of PTSD triggers: I can not use an outhouse toilet, I can not go on a vacation trip, or any other trip just for the fun of it, as well as camping trips or similar day trips. And I feel very uncomfortable with people who are dark skinned and dark haired. I have been able to develop some coping mechanisms. And I am working on my racist triggers, though the Covid restrictions and isolation have that virtually impossible.
At least I am aware of these triggers and issues, so that I am generally able to cope with situations without having a complete breakdown. But they are very draining on my mental health.
Jessica Nicole
Bullying takes a variety of shapes and forms
Back when I was at school, there was a gang of bullies. They demanded protection money or they'd [cough][cough] for you to suffer a nasty accident. Well, some of them were related to the Krays (East London's finest gangsters).
Another form of their bullying was to get you to do their homework for them. Failure to do so would lead to another accident. In my case, it was the poking of a broom handle through the spokes of my bike's front wheel. Ouch! I needed three crowns after that.
Then there was the knuckle to the head when they walked past you in class. That ended when they actually fractured the skull of someone. That person was later diagnosed with a brittle bone disease.
I dare not even start on the psychological bullying that went on even then.
The day I left school was like being freed from tyranny.
I wrote a story that was my literary revenge on them.
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/25119/revenge-is-so-v...
Samantha
I think
I grew up in a parallel universe!
Now don't get me wrong, there was 'bullying' going on but from memory it wasn't systematic but tended to be more personality driven and even then it rarely got beyond non physical animosity. I can't recall anyone suggesting I or anyone else for that matter, were batting for the other side, the whole concept of trans or even homosexual tendencies wasn't even on the horizon out in the boondocks of the East Midlands! Oh there was stuff on the news and the likes of Kenny Everett et al entertaining us but none of that was in 'our' world. It was a small world. most of the kids I finished school with, I started with, we were in the same youth groups, we watched the same TV (not difficult with 3 channels!) ,we had similar family backgrounds, there were no 'rich' kids, no one lived in abject poverty.
Of course, it would be a rare child of either sex who got through school without some sort of falling out, I certainly wasn't immune (jealousy of my comparative fame, I would be on the sports pages of the local rag most weeks of the racing season, even with pictures) but I gave as good as I got, I hasten to add that I wasn't the instigator, there was never any follow on. You never made fun of the fat kid, he'd just sit on you, half the kids wore glasses so that didn't offer an in, the sports teams weren't lauded or particularly successful, any conflict was thus on a much more personal level, stolen pens seemed to cause a lot of fights, there was no clique culture (no jocks, nerds, goths etc), no sex (well maybe there was but we had no gym slip parents whilst I was at school). In short we lived through some very turbulent times where any bully wouldn't have a long career.
But that was the 1970's, when hair was long, Top of the Pops was on Thursday nights, denim was blue, heels were stacked and eyeliner was black, not only all that, the girls dressed the same too!
OTOH my daughter was accused of being a bully when it was others doing said bullying. Lets face it, at 5'2" most of her contemporaries towered over her, no she was picked on for being a swat (9 GCSE's with a lowest mark of A*) and regular scorer for the hockey team, she wasn't afraid to stand up for herself or her friends. That ethos took her into a career in law that she gave up after ten years of institutionalised bullying in the law Chambers, its little wonder that women don't progress far within the UK law system, they are treated as indentured slaves.
Maybe there is more bully culture about today, the internet can be blamed for a lot of that but other media promoting the I above all else should take equal blame if not more. Much as modern warfare has sanitised conflict, Twitter etc have sanitised bullying making it less physical but when it does come to violence its often much more vicious, especially it would seem in the less 'privileged' classes.
Madeline Anafrid Bell
Sigh
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2021/10/half-lgbtq-middle-high-s...
The survey found that 52 percent of LGBTQ middle and high school students had been bullied over the last year. Native and Indigenous students as well as transgender and non-binary students experienced the highest levels of bullying. The survey also found that bullied LGBTQ students were three times more likely to attempt suicide than students who weren’t bullied....
...A 2019 study from the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) found that only 13 percent of students attended schools with explicit anti-bullying policies.
Love, Andrea Lena
Everyone has different experiences
You know... I really don't like to talk about my personal life on here. I'd rather infuse it into stories where applicable. However, I can state that most of the times I was harassed, or bullied, in school took place in a bathroom or locker room. It really doesn't matter what gender someone identifies as, the fact is that those two areas of school are a weak point, and a place where a lot of kids feel vulnerable. And since this topic kind of swerved that direction, I thought I'd add this.
For obvious legal reasons, the bathrooms can't be monitored internally. But maybe you should have at least one person within yelling distance? The locker rooms are mildly monitored by a coach/teacher (if they're paying attention at all while they sit in their office.) At least that's how it was when I went to school. The showers... good luck if you go in there. I would not be comfortable no matter what policies a schoolboard wanted to initiate in regards to communal usage of bathrooms and locker rooms. They're completely missing the point when it comes to safety.
I'm personally tired of seeing this constant bathroom debate. I'm tired of it being used as a wedge issue between our two party system here in the states. Neither of which I'm personally subscribed to. I'd instead like to see people working towards solutions that will address the fears and concerns of both sides, and those in the middle. And if we're actually going to discuss the kids feeling comfortable and safe, we should maybe invest a little time asking the kids what might make them feel comfortable and safe. Just a thought.
I suggested a while back they should look into personal stalls for school children; toilet, sink and mirror with a stronger door. Have them lined up down a monitored hallway like individual rooms. They wouldn't even need to be marked for gender. Everyone's safer. Nobody needs to feel uncomfortable. They can even push this a step further and have the rooms with lockers/showers in them for gym, etc. Now I don't have kids. I don't go to schoolboard meetings. But maybe somebody could take an idea like this and run with it?
Stop with the communal bathrooms, with weak points on bathroom stalls, with doors that can be kicked in, or crawled under. Stop with the large sink/urinal areas where there is room to mess with someone, or have a wrestling match. Stop acting like the buildings themselves can't be changed, or we can't build something new. Stop using our school kids as a political issue. Stop shouting down opposing views. Just stop with the bullshit entirely. Start investing in the actual well-being and safety of the kids for once. That is if people really care.
As for what happened in Virginia... After a little digging, it seems it might be true. Which is very sad. It doesn't help things progress at all. However, it does reiterate my point of making this about actual safety for all concerned parties. I'd like to think we could maybe one day return to a society that can look at a problem and try to find a solution for it; rather than a society that smites the perceived "other side" with judgmental righteous indignation.
~Taylor Ryan
My muse suffers from insomnia, and it keeps me up at night.
I love working with tropes
so I sometimes include bullies in my stories. Often to twist the usual trope.
Of course from my point of view it's all fiction. I'm dredging up the stuff from a firm basis of watching bad US teen comedies.
Of course I may have been very unobservant but I never observed any cases of bullying in my high school. Part of the reason could have been that the school was rather small (about 500 students total in grades 7-12), all parents had put their children in that school by purpose (sometimes due to having been bullied elsewhere), almost all parents were very engaged in their children's education, the school could easily part ways with unsuitable students (not that I ever heard of a case but then that would most likely have been hushed up).
Then there was the strange situation that being good in school wasn't a social handicap. Of course most of the students were at the right end of the political scale as judged by country and time (i.e. some Americans would have called them socialists today).
Bully
I was bothered by a bully in elementary school. After I hit him with a 2X4, he left me alone.
Melanie
Wow
Geometry, Physics AND Social Studies in a single moment in Elementary School. AND he learned his lesson.
Love, Andrea Lena
I didn't come out as trans in school,
but I was such an odd duck, that yes, I got bullied, harassed, teased and beaten many times over the years. Admittedly, that was back in the late 60's and early 70's, but it for certain that it is still going on. Once puberty hit when I was in 11th grade, I was bigger than most of the bullies and I discovered that laughing at them embarrassed them and they would leave me alone - after a couple of times showing the bullies they could not beat me up any more. I would have rather kept getting beaten, though, than have to have gone through male puberty.