Quote:It was not your average Christmas newsletter for a Church of England primary school.

Marked ‘staff changes’, it began conventionally enough, informing parents that Mrs Metcalfe was leaving for a new teaching position in Spain. It explained that ‘Miss Wharmby will be teaching Year 1 full-time’ and that ‘Mrs Kelly will be reducing her hours’.

But the sixth paragraph came as a bit of a shock.

‘Mr Upton has recently made a significant change in his life and will be transitioning to live as a woman,’ it read.

‘After the Christmas break, she will return to work as Miss Meadows.’

It then said the school was ‘proud of our commitment to equality and diversity among our staff and children’.

Yesterday parents at St Mary Magdalen’s Primary School in Accrington, Lancashire, were coming to terms with the fact the popular Year 6 teacher previously known as Nathan Upton – a father-of-one who until recently was married – is now Lucy Meadows.

They told how pupils had been informed that the 32-year-old felt he had been ‘born with a girl’s brain in a boy’s body’. However some complained that their children were too young to understand how ‘Sir’ could become ‘Miss’ almost overnight and were confused and upset.

Mr Upton married Ruth Smith in 2009 and the couple had a son, now aged three.

He joined the school around the same time and, according to parents, began growing his cropped hair and dying it purple, painting his nails pink and wearing sparkly headbands. A crayon drawing of Mr Upton by a pupil posted on the school’s website shows him with hair swept back over his shoulders.

‘At first we thought he was just borrowing his wife’s headbands to hold his hair back,’ said one parent. ‘I saw what I thought was Mr Upton dressed as a woman in town one weekend, but I decided I’d imagined it.’

Mr Upton is understood to be in the early stages of ‘gender reassignment’, living as a woman before deciding to proceed with a full sex change.

The school’s 169 pupils were informed class-by-class on Monday, and at the same time the newsletter was hand-delivered to parents.

In a statement, Mr Upton said: ‘This has been a long and difficult journey for me, and it was certainly not an easy decision to make.’

Thanking the school for its support, he added: ‘I’d now ask for my privacy to be respected so that I can continue with my job, which I’m committed to and which I enjoy very much.’

Headmistress Karen Hardman said: ‘We understand that an issue such as this is bound to arouse interest for a short while.

'However, this is a personal matter for our staff member, who has our full support, and we are all working together to ensure it has the least impact on the smooth running of our school.’

(12-20-2012 09:39 AM)Native Georgian Wrote:  The perversity of the whole thing defies description, but the people in charge (that would be the Church of England, remember) ought to give some special thought to Luke 17:2

(12-20-2012 12:19 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  I don't think most people grasp that things like this are not the cause of God's judgement but the result of it...

(12-20-2012 09:49 PM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  At the very least he should have had to transfer to another school. Parents shouldn't have to explain this stuff to kids. Do what you want with your own lives but keep it private.

(12-20-2012 10:17 PM)Bull_In_Exile Wrote:  

(12-20-2012 09:49 PM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  At the very least he should have had to transfer to another school. Parents shouldn't have to explain this stuff to kids. Do what you want with your own lives but keep it private.

Don't you get it... Except in the case of an Atheist kid who has to sit through joy to the world then the parents should have no say in these things..

(12-20-2012 11:58 PM)UM2001GRAD Wrote:  Stories like this always get the bigots up in arms.