Girl Guides are now GIRL ONLY! - Thread 2

SolidMam, I asked this on the other thread but it was very fast-moving. I'll ask again in the genuine spirit of wanting to understand your/your child's POV but if you can't or don't want to answer that's fine (but I'll just have to continue with my existing assumption).

Do you believe there is, in fact, anything that differentiates boys and girls?
If so, can you give one example that doesn't just say 'feeling like a boy/girl' (because that's circular)?

I have tried for a long time to work out exactly what it is people mean, or are trying to communicate, when they use the terms 'boy' / 'girl' but are not referring to sex. My conclusion is that it's gender stereotypes, but happy to be corrected.

When your child 'transitioned', what specifically is it that you think made them a girl when they were previously a boy?

If I have a person with a penis who identifies as a woman attending I can’t tell parents that. That feels wrong to me, especially when I know some of the parents or families are strict Muslims or have experienced sexual abuse. They are trusting me with their most precious child and I’m not allowed to be honest with them.

This is just so shocking.

I cannot get my head around how the safeguarding of girls has been totally disregarded. It's absolutely shameful.

I'd also be concerned, as a volunteer, that I'd be opening myself up to legal action.

You do realise that transpeople consider correctly seeing them ie calling a man a man is considered abusive?
Also no transperson in the uk has been murdered solely for being trans ?
Transpeople are the safest demographic in the uk

"Would you do this to a trans person in real life?"

I have trans people in my 'real life'. Why do you expect that people do not? Do I act as if I believe that they are the sex they say they are when they are not? No. I don't act as if I believe that. Do I use the terms male people and female people when I want to make sure I have communicated accurately? Yes. I do.

Those male writers might have created female characters that have inspired you, but your actions are your actions and they are done as a female person. So, it doesn't matter whether a male writer inspired you to act or not. It is irrelevant.

A male person saying they are acting as a female person is not contributing at all to the experience of female people. They are, however, importantly contributing to the experience of male people and enriching the experience of male people.

let's try another direction for clarity. When a male person takes the role of a Women's Officer in a university setting or a political party, because they have stated that they are female, do you consider this contributing to the needs of female people?

Do you consider this male person is shaping policy to the benefit of female people because he is "adding to and enriching the experience of what it is to be a woman."?

Because this is just one aspect of what you seem to be advocating for.

@SolidMam

You are coming at this from a very personal point of view - with your motivation entirely to protect your own child.

It is normal to want to protect our own children and it makes us selfish to the needs of other children.

Because of your child's involvement in girlguiding, other children's needs for truth, integrity and dignity have been compromised, as has their safety.

Girls have been made to lie to be 'inclusive' of your child. Girls have been forced to accept someone who should never have been in a single sex space.

We're simply telling you it's time to stop.

If your child has dysphoria, then it is your responsibility as their parent to get help for them. It is your responsibility to manage their safety.

We are committed to ensuring safe single sex provision, where appropriate for the good of all women and girls. This requires exclusion of those who do not meet the protected characteristic of sex - clearly defined as biological sex now.

Yes, it might hurt you to have difficult conversations with your child about this, but it is necessary that you do so.

As a leader I really don’t actually care about whether trans people are in the organisation. I think the number must be extortionately small. I also don’t object to men being unit helpers or male children being able to accompany a leader on a holiday (if they have no childcare etc). What I DO object to is the guidelines that prevented leaders being open and honest about that with other volunteers, the children and their parents. If I have a male helper coming away I have to tell parents, provide separate sleeping and toileting facilities. They could then make a choice about participating based on all the facts. If I have a person with a penis who identifies as a woman attending I can’t tell parents that. That feels wrong to me, especially when I know some of the parents or families are strict Muslims or have experienced sexual abuse. They are trusting me with their most precious child and I’m not allowed to be honest with them. Luckily it hasn’t come up as no trans volunteers in my area but it could do. The new guidance doesn’t address this issue at all.

As a separate but related issue if I took my 7 year old son on a trip or residential I need to have a separate adult for ratios but if I had a daughter instead (or identified my son as a girl) they could be counted as a member. Make it make sense!

@SolidMam i just want you to know that i am empathetic to the situation that you and your child find yourself in. It must be very difficult to have your child welcomed into a group and then be told it isnt appropriate. I realise this will cause you and your child upset and sadness.
However, this problem is of GGUK's making. They shouldnt have told you that your child could join because they had a female gender identity. As I understand it, the law allows for single sex provision not single gender provision. They needed to either formally move to become a mixed sex organisation or tell parents and children in your situation that they were unable to join. They didnt make the right choices and work within the legal framework and now this is impacting on your family.

She has been a clear voice on this issue and comes at it from a psychologist perspective too.

Why should anyone accept your sons gender identity?
Not believing in gender identity is a protected characteristic under belief/religion. As such nobody needs to believe or respect anyone's gender identity or pander to it by calling a male she/her and insisting that people do is controlling and illegal harassment of those who are not believers in gender ideology.
There's plenty of safeguarding issues for everyone if your son shares a tent with unconsenting girls (also if they consent) as you want to talk only about your dc instead of the girls I'll spell out some of the issues for your son.
If he is present when the girls are undressing or getting changed he can be charged with voyeurism,.
if he undresses in front of the girls thats potentially indecent exposure.
if he touches any of the girls (even in a friendly way) without them knowing that hes male again potentially sexual assault.
if he has a sexual relationships in anyway without being honest about his sex thats rape/sexual assaults by deception (a young man with a trans id has just been successfully prosecuted for this crime)
and finally he is at risk of allegations of voyeurism, indecent exposure and sexual assault even if he didn't do anything because hes a male lieing about his sex to gain access to unconsenting females (I'm not saying that your dc would intentionally do any of the above but that these are the risks to your son of stelthing).
You really need to start to look at the risks for your son if he continues to lie about his sex and access female single sex spaces, facilities and groups. He needs to learn and understand that because he is male these things will never be open to him and the sooner he does so the better it will be for him in the long-term

Following on from my recommendation to read carefully anything from the Williams Institute, this is what is contained in those figures:

Bathroom Violence and Harassment

One in six (17%) California USTS reported experiencing some form of violence or harassment while using a public restroom in the year prior to completing the survey. Respondents who experienced bathroom violence or harassment primarily indicated being told they were using the wrong bathroom (15%), followed by 7% of respondents who indicated other types of verbal harassment, 5% who were denied access, and 1% who experienced physical violence or unwanted sexual contact.

Has Girl Guiding apologise to Katie Alcock and Helen Watts yet?

And Katie has been subject to an almost relentless attack by students to try to get her sacked.

She's one of my heroines.

Why would referring to sex, when we are talking about sex based rights, be 'cruel'?

Your child's gender identity is nit relevant to whether they should have access to female single sex spaces.

@SolidMam

I am interested by the fact that you say you will support your child if he decides to identify as a boy in the future.

How do you think the girls who have been forced to accept him in single sex spaces would feel about that if he did that?

I am also interested in your decision to allow him to live as a girl from a time that he was pre- verbal based on the way that he responded to pictures of female people in books. Do you accept that your behaviours around that have led him to identify as a girl? Do you accept that you telling him that girl guiding (a single sex space for female people) is an appropriate place for him as a male is encouraging him to believe that he has the right to be in any and all single sex spaces for female people as an adult? Do you accept that you are party to blame for the issue he is now facing by being asked to leave as, as an adult, you should have told him he had no right to be there in the first place?

No I don't see the hypocrisy. There are occasions when, due to the debate and definition of terms, the term 'male' has to be used.

But I notice your refusal to use my child's gender identity and continue to use the sex, as if it's some sort of trump card. Which as I've said before, seems cruel to me. Would you do this to a trans person in real life?

Also - loads of male writers have created female characters that have inspired me and enriched my experience of being a woman. It's not as simple as biology. Biology Ideology! I think I'm away to get some tee shirts made up...

And if you don’t understand how mixed sex spaces differ in dynamic, I can only assume you’ve never been in a classroom or heard young girls talking among themselves. I have girls as young as 9 talking about boys, boyfriends, and already the male gaze is rearing its head. The experience in a mixed sex space is entirely different for young girls and women, whether they realise it or not. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for one, and that already exists in Scouts. But I’ve got no interest in volunteering with boys and young men.

You are doing far more than that and you know it. I'm sorry you're not prepared to own or reflect on that.

For decades men have targeted Girl guiding and tried to erode its single sex status - because how dare girls and women have anything. There have been many different lines of attack over the years and sadly the TRAs for a while succeeded in taking away girls' single sex space within guiding.

Since the announcement that that mistake is being corrected, the number of people crawling out of the woodwork to openly call for guiding's single sex status to be abolished is very, very telling about the true motivations all along.

And you declaring people who don't use the language you demand as cruel is the very definition of 'polarisation of the debate'.

The Williams Institute has been caught out before in wrongly making statements that are not true of the data on reports and articles that they publish.

Always look what is included in 'harassment' and 'violence'. Because the CPS has guidance here in the UK for hate crimes that include misgendering and a spouse or ex-spouses refusal to use female language for a male person with a transgender identity.

As a GG leader of several units, I am delighted. I suspect I am one of the silent majority, as all over my Facebook and social media feeds where people use their real names, people are posting how awful this is, how they are reevaluating their future in GG. But I think a great many of us are silently glad and posting only on anonymous websites where it is safe to do so. To speak out, even in the most balanced and nuanced way, is to be branded a ‘terf’. It’s an unsafe space for women (what a shock, yet another one).

If any parents express disappointment or ask, I will nod benignly and direct them to GG. But this is a victory for women and girls and hopefully some day the little girls of now will realise that and be glad people fought for them and their safety.

What I find interesting is the cognitive dissonance of some women (parents of girls, worryingly) who say that they don’t understand why girls need a space for just girls. If you don’t understand this you’ve either drunk some sort of kool aid or have led a very charmed life. It’s worrying that so many women don’t seem to understand why having boys and men in girls spaces totally changes the dynamic and safety of those places.

Sorry you find it bigoted, I'm just speaking of my experience in parenting a trans child and worried about the polarisation of the debate.

I believe that invited a group called Gendered Intelligence to formulate their policy on this issue. GG was part of the Stonewall Diversity Champion scheme which also shaped many organisations policies.

It was shown in Allison Bailey's tribunal case that Stonewall very clearly was using rewards to organisations to get their incorrect interpretation of the EA laws set in policies of those organisations in the Diversity Champion schemes. That case exposed that Stonewall knew they were not interpreting the law correctly, they admitted to interpreting it how they wanted it to be.

They then were forced to admit that any organisation who took there advise, should have taken independent legal advice. This caused many organisations to withdraw their support for Stonewall almost immediately.

However, GG have continued to double down and removed any leader who raised the issue publicly.

But I'm not lying to her - there are operations that people have all the time, whether they are accepted as women (or trans women) is the key here, I suppose. We try to have open conversations as much as we can.

And two women's deaths a week is horrendous. I found this article (from California) that does seem to suggest trans people can be subjected to high levels of harassment and violence, though of course the UK is a bit different:

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-violence-harassment-ca/

I find your post, particularly the final paragraph, deeply offensive and bigoted.

Perhaps you could engage in some introspection about your responsibility for setting up your male child to experience unnecessary and avoidable distress, and the harm you are causing to others, rather than trying to malign and coerce people for refusing to allow you to manipulate language and distort reality.

Your behaviour absolutely is damaging and erasing girls' and women's rights - and you are seeking to erase girls and women by claiming that a male can be not just a girl but more of a girl than a female child. That's right out of the TRA/MRA playbook and is deeply bigoted.