No impact assessments carried out for school guidance on trans non binary guidance for Scottish schools

[SunsetBeetch]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3268545-Twitter-thread-no-impact-assessments-carried-out-for-school-guidance-in-Scotland

Hi

I was advised this thread I posted on FWR may be of interest to some of you.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3268545-Twitter-thread-no-impact-assessments-carried-out-for-school-guidance-in-Scotland

Oh dear - I hope it isn't coming to a school near me - I don't even understand the title

I don’t understand the title either Can you give a synopsis of what it and the other thread are in about?

Hi, not the OP but hope I can help.
SunsetBeetch
Government funded school guidance has been issued across Scotland, endorsed by Children's Commissioner, charities, LA's etc which discards the need for single sex spaces/sports
t.co/ye3ekBGSEi

No Equality Impact Assessments were carried out, neither by the organisations who compiled the guidance nor the Local Authorities who have distributed it amongst their schools

Schools have been provided with & are endorsing guidance that says boys who identify as girls should be treated as girls - so toilets, changing rooms, school overnight trips, male bodied children/teens to be in with females & parents are not to be informed.
There has been no assessment done to see if this might have any impact on girls

This is the twitter thread
mobile.twitter.com/Scottish_Women/status/1003600851070607360?s=19

This is the thread in FWR/feminism www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3268545-Twitter-thread-no-impact-assessments-carried-out-for-school-guidance-in-Scotland?pg=1&order=

Aaah, I’ve had enough of this trans shit - it’s a load of bollocks. I’ll mention it at my next parent council as I have worries (apart from my worries about men with a penis deciding one day that they feel like a woman to access women’s spaces). We’ve one girl in my sons class who has a shaved head & is dressed in black joggers & tshirts (since 2years old) and has a unisex name (like Jamie) who’s parents are now wanting her to change at swimming with the boys as she doesn’t feel comfortable changing with the girls. Hell will freeze over before I allow that to happen to my son (who no longer feels comfortable changing in a pool family room with his wee sister).

Yy MrsAmaretto parent council is a great idea other parents may not be aware & you could ask school to confirm that changing areas & overnight trip dorms will remain single sex. Worth dropping an email or something to your MSP too - the SNP are trying to steamroller the legislation through.

Why cant kids just be left to be kids - my youngest declared she was a dog for months!

I have an acquaintance who's a truant officer in Glasgow - she tells me they have an uptick in girls bunking off since there are now schools with mixed sex toilets :-( imagine dealing with your early periods
while the boys stand outside making comments.

If you havent already you might want to sign this as the equality act is not devolved to the scottish parliament
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/214118

This is so important.

I raised concerns about this with my local authority and got nowhere. I strongly suspect they don’t have the legal and technical expertise to understand it. It’s so mind-boggingly crazy that it’s hard to believe it’s real. Unfortunately, though, it is. We need ordinary parents to complain. They are trying to push it through without any publicity - and it’s a policy that prohibits parents being told about specific cases, so even when it start to be used you as a parent might not know about it. I’m pretty disgusted - and I say that as a longtime SNP supporter. This could make me reconsider. Please, start getting the word out on this. It’s happening.

No consultation with Parent Councils, no publicity and now we find out no Equality Impact Assessments. Shocking . I hope there is a judicial review challenge.

fascinated I can really recommend contacting your MSPs or even better go speak to them. On paper mine should have laughed in my face, when I actualy spoke to him about letting fully intact male people say they were female to access women's single sex places his face went I think some of it is about being kind & some of it is about political expediency (the trans lobby are powerful & suspiciously well funded). We need to keep asking "what about women & girls"

But Amaretto that's just the point- when this is passed that child will have to be allowed in to change with the boys. Saying you are the opposite sex (I don't believe in gender) is enough.

Similarly my 13 year old daughter is away next week on a residential school trip. They are sharing in dorms of 6. If there were a trans child who said they were female, that child would have to be accommodated with the girls in a shared dorm. Irrespective of the girls' feelings on the matter.

Total madness. And nobody is speaking up for fear of a backlash and being called a transphobe.

I can see others in here don’t seem that bothered... only 10 replies!!!

I don't understand we how the wants/needs of a single child can be put above the wants/needs of the rest of the class.

You could argue it's a safely/bullying thing for the one child - but couldn't you say that about the skinny child, or the chubby kid, or the girl with no/huge boobs, the kid with poundshop trainers - anything really.

I remember being a teenager and having to change in communal changing rooms at school - and that was hellish enough. To be changing the same time as a male bodied individual (Christ I didn't see a willy until I was at uni!) would have completely freaked me out.

I was very shy and unsure if myself as a child/teen - and to be told that this didn't matter one jot as long as a male bodied person felt 'good' would not exactly have helped would it! I would have bunked off or feined illness or injury.

There has to be another solution that doesn't ride rough shot over the girls. Would they allow a girl to change in the boys changing rooms - I doubt it.

If they are saying it's gender not sexual - then surely it's a case of 'you haven't got anything we haven't seen before'.

And I know I sound like a broken record but if we were kids now, my sister would have been a prime candidate for 'oh she is actually a boy' and God knows where that could have ended up.

It feels like gay and 'gender nonconformist' children (bullshit - not all girls play with dollies and wear pink ffs) are being told that they actually have a 'condition' that means they should be the other sex. Not that they are gay (or however you explain t jby is to a child) or just have different ideas/tastes that 'the norm/media representations' (and that's absolutely OK) or are - do they still have tomboys (and what is wrong with this)?

My parents just bought my sister the clothes and toys she wanted - no fuss, no histrionics, no doctors/medication/psychologists (and my parents were old school - housewife mum always dressed up with her hair and makeup done, dad always in a suit...). I called her by her 'boy' name when we were among pretend games - usually mountaineering or police the play games (hell, I was called Bill!).

This was normal childhood. Why is everything so extreme these days?

Totally agree , AsAProfessional

Can I urge everyone reading this to ask their schools about what they are doing on this - if they start getting questions on these Guidelines (which really do exist and are coming in!) then it might make some of them sit up and actually think properly about it all!!!

fascinated to be fair scotsnet threads usually seem very quiet (unless about exams afaics).
Maybe this should be in AIBU? It's so important.

Yes I know PolkerrisBeach, hence my post.

Did it go on AIBU?

Not as far as i know

Problem is though Amaretto, should the situation arise that this legislation goes through and the girl you know decides she wants to change with the boys, there's not much you can do. You can protest and make a fuss as much as you like, but it's the trans child who has the legal protection and you will be the one branded a bigot and a transphobe.

It's all very wrong and very scary and it makes me so mad that rights of girls and women (mostly) are being trampled all over for the rights of a few kids who feel there's something wrong because they're not conforming to social stereotypes.

The Scottish government should be spending its time telling kids that it's fine to be a boy, call yourself Sophie, play with dolls and have long hair BUT THAT YOU ARE STILL A BOY. Or that it's fine to be a girl and call yourself Tom, cut your hair short, wear boys' clothes, get really interested in rubgy and have football posters on your wall BUT THAT YOU ARE STILL A GIRL.

Wrt this in the times

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/legal-battle-over-school-gender-rule-kbjkdnzxd?shareToken=de686f5e52d8810a28c16ebaf2c251fe

Sorry I never came back to this thread! Thanks to others for explainig things. This article in The Herald may be of interest:

www.heraldscotland.com/news/16311379.schools-forget-girls-in-rush-to-adopt-pro-trans-guidance-campaigners-claim-as-christian-group-threatens-legal-action/

Great article SunsetBeetch unfortunately the comments seem to all about gay men

Yes and they're awful aren't they?

I despair!

Yeah talk about missing the point. Safeguarding of girls ---> homophobia

Looks like mostly clueless (homophobic) blokes.

Another article, with better comments.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/scotland/threat-of-legal-action-over-pupils-transgender-rights-qqr2dk97v

Oh that one's much better!

I can't say much in detail but teacher here. Have run a residential High School trip for older pupils (S5 and S6) and a trans pupil was, we were informed, to be treated entirely as the new gender. Rooms, bathrooms etc. Rooms were, in the end, single but the pupil shared bathrooms. Luckily (Uni type place) the showers were in small plastic "rooms" so only the sinks were open (toilets were cubicles but with gaps).

I was told NOT to mention it in my Risk Assessment as "not a risk".