Hi, so I’m a high school student and I happen to be trans FtM. I know I’m quite young, but I do believe in the importance of supporting trans people, even young people just in general.
I was born a girl (obviously) but now I’m a guy named Anthony. When I came out to my social worker “Mrs. A” (not her real name or initial), she said that she was proud of me for coming out, but that if I wanted teachers to refer to me as “male”, “he/him”, Anthony, etc. that I’d have to come out to my legal guardian.
The thing is my guardian isn’t the most supportive of trans people. I came out to him a few years ago and he said I was just a confused girl and that “the left was just pushing their agenda onto me”. He loves me, I’m sure he does, but he definitely wouldn’t support me.
I told my therapist and a good friend of mine and both of them said that was breaking a rule of confidentiality. My sister told me that too. My therapist wonders if it’s to get it changed on paperwork or something but says that if I want to be called Anthony at school, there should be no problem.
What do you all think?
I’m not sure if they’re the same thing, but back in my day we had a “School Counselor”. I told her all about how my mom was abusing us, which backfired on me when she straight up told my mom everything I had said.
Hopefully it’s changed on the last couple decades, but back then school counselors weren’t required to have any accreditations and had no restriction on privacy.
That was when I learned the employees of the school are there to protect the school, not the students. You should be careful what you share until you’ve determined what sort of confidentiality you’re guaranteed and what training this person has. Outing you or requiring you to out yourself are both pretty messed up to recommend.