Outing someone to their parents aginst their will is dangerous and irresponsible
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2025
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Agreed. They gave me a choice: I could go by my birth name and she/her pronouns, or go by Anthony and he/him pronouns but if I went by "Anthony (the guy)" and not "[Birth name] the girl" she would either have me come out or out me herself and be like "Hey, your daughter is now your son and he asked me to call him Anthony because he is transgender".
Does your school have some kind of fucked up policy about this? I'm wondering if it's a mandate.
They must, I hope not, though. It seems transphobic either way.
It's increasingly legally mandated places. Parents considering it a violation of their ownership of their children to be left out of the loop
Start calling your social worker Dick. Refuse to stop until she proves she isn't one.
If she can treat you with disrespect, you can to.
Be sure to say it kindly though, as if it were her real name and act confused when it bothers her.
It sounds like the social worker respects them and calls them by their new same and correct, preferred pronouns. They just said that if they want others to do the same, officially that they would need to come out to their parent.
I know some schools in the USA started implementing such a policy, so it could be that. However, it could also just be insensitive or pressuring them to come out to their parent when they don't feel comfortable doing so.
I wouldn't jump to condemn the social worker without more info. On a personal level they are offering support but they also need to help traverse the political and beurocratic realities trans people face. The worker should be helping them overcome it, of course.
The worker does feel bad about it, she says, but she unfortunately uses my birth name and she/her pronouns.
That doesn't sound very supportive.
i agree that it's breaking a rule, a law even. i too believe there should be no problem with it. i've had social workers and most of them weren't like that due to "whatever you say in here stays in here". but one nearly did out me. by the way, i consider trying to get you to come out like that "outing", which is very bad.
This post pisses me off with what she’s doing. This is indeed outing.
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.
Several decades ago, well before pronouns were really a topic of discourse (I’m aware that pronoun choice is very old), my school forms had a “legal name” and a “preferred name”. The teachers would be able then to know that Methuselah, a 8 year old boy, went by “Seth” instead, for an example.
But it was signed off by the guardian.
Of course, if the form wasn’t populated with a preferred name and you told them to call you whatever, usually they’d just do it. As far as the paperwork is concerned, do they really need it to call “Zachary” as “Zack”?
But again, before gender politics was a thing and we didn’t have any out trans folks.