Girlguiding - an update

The Scouts might put a girl who identifies as a boy in with the boys, but only after consultation.
To all those saying "I'm not sending my daughters to Guides"
PLEASE tell your local units this and WHY. Ask for your enquiry to be escalated to District and Division and County. Tell them GG are breaching the Equalities Act and that they won't listen to leaders who complain.
The vast majority of leaders and parents have no idea this is going on. GG is refusing to tell them.

So I've run thinking about this. Really sad to see so many people saying they're refusing to consider GG for their daughters. Maybe we need to tackle this another way. Maybe instead of avoiding (and leaving a vacum for TIMs) we need to get involved. I run a unit. Running the unit, I have a say in which leaders I have. Personality clash (or bloke saying he's a woman), then I politely suggest my unit is not the one for them. Not because they're trans, but because we don't click, and to do this, as a leader, you have to click with your leadership team. We all know that. Likewise with kids. If we're expected to manage out girls who want to trans, whose to say we can't manage our intake accordingly?

This follows from a conversation with dh about a young person we know of who cannot find a guide unit to take them because they are questioning their gender. I looked at dh and said I'd take her, and he said what about if she came in boys clothing? Laughed my socks off, because I was in jeans, t-shirt and his sweater. Clothes don't make a person. If I'm saying that a girl is genetics, not gender, then I live and stand by that.

So please, don't walk away from a once great, currently confused organisation. The only way we can make GG great again, and keep a space for girls, is by people like you getting involved. Making your voice heard, and making a difference to young girls lives.

Have the insurers been made aware of this?

@LaSqrrl

There is some hope though, that the girls themselves may stand together and object.

In this US case, this trans' use of the girls' changing room, caused 200 girls to stage a protest.

From what I saw online, the girls who protested were 'shown up' as bigots and terfs and transphobes, and the trans girl came out of the debacle as a hero.

Also IIRC, in a previous thread a post was deleted for mentioning bulges in connection with a video of the incident.

UpstartCrow - so the trans boy would share a tent with the girls? Or do they have some other arrangement in place?

Stark raises an important point, though. For a while I've been thinking that in schools, the really vulnerable child is going to be the trans boy who, given a choice of where to get changed for PE, chooses the boys' changing rooms because they don't understand the potential risks.

@Starkstaring No, the Scouts manage things differently. They dont have mixed sex sleeping.

There's another side to this.

Say there is a 14 year old biological female who identifies as male. No place now in Girl Guides, but the Scouts are fine cos they have both sexes. The trans boy is happy being treated as a boy in the scouts.

Then they go on camp. The trans boy is housed with all the biological boys.

To at least force the issue out into the open, I mean.

@AgnesBadenPowell would it be possible for Guiders to launch a "100 years" (of women getting the vote) campaign? Or some other hook? What I am getting at is: start a Guiding grassroots celebration of single sex brilliance, which will force the leadership to state that they don't support it?

I am speaking very much from the outside here, I was a Brownie and a Guide as a child but that was a while ago, and my closest link now is nieces that left Guiding a few years ago.

But you see what I mean? A mass celebration designed By Guides For Guides (but which the new CEO has to stamp on because the previous one would have?)

The Senior Section may have the ability to organise and object, but I don't think the younger ones are going to be in any position to come together and protest.

There is some hope though, that the girls themselves may stand together and object.

In this US case, this trans' use of the girls' changing room, caused 200 girls to stage a protest. The 'transgirl' in question, did a number of TV interviews with a significant bulge in the skirt area. Just like every other girl, right?

I wouldn't play silly games and I wouldn't avoid Guides but I would ask questions.

Such a shame GG has ruined themselves for girls.

We've recently moved to new town and would love to enrol dds in GG but it won't be happening while all this fuckwittery is playing out.

We need a guide leader with a willing 14 year old son to ask for him to be able to camp with the girls.

After all, leaders children can camp with guides if they are girls. If they are boys they need completely separate accommodation (from the age of 4, ffs).

So a willing 14 year old who is prepared to say he's a girl for the weekend could cause a bit of a kerfuffle.

By definition, a trans girl has to be male. All Male children are lawfully excluded from GG. So how can it be argued that males with the PC of gender reassignment can be allowed to join, but other males can't?

YY. This is the same argument Jennifer James used against self ID trans identified males on AWS. If they are using the EA exemption to exclude boys they're potentially on dodgy ground.

I went to a recent Diversity and Inclusion training session where the trainer kept saying gender instead of sex, I kept pulling her up on it and she said it was going to change to gender soon in law but it was controversial, and mumbled a lot looking stressed.

Would this ever be argued with another PC eg excluding males unless the male has the PC of disability or sexual orientation?

No, it wouldn't. But we're back to the 'transgirl are girls' slogan.

Eresh >> yes . highly illogical. They won't let boys in unless they say they are a girl on that day of the week in which case fine.

Agnes - something at least.

There was somewhere else ages ago that had replaced the word sex with gender when listing protected chaarcteristic, I think it was one of the councils. I find this really worrying as it's a cut n paste job so people are actively deleting sex and writing gender instead, and misquoting the law, for ??? , gender reassignment is on there in its own right. To remove sex? Just... ?? really

Sardine

I think they're talking about sex discrimination, i.e. that they can legally be a single sex organisation under the EA. Even though they aren't.

Thanks, OP. And thank you for your fight. Whilst I have no direct skin in the game as far as GGs go, this is a fight for the bigger picture. (well, for the tra's it is, so therefore it is for us).

This article baffles me www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/10043486/Meet-Julie-Bentley-Girl-Guides-never-seemed-so-cool.html

Everything in there is so connected to feminism and joined up and what I stand for. And then this policy happens. Where has the centering of girls gone? It just shows that without a firm foundation acknowledging the why of the oppression of women, the resulting feminism is built on sand.

I was expecting Jess Phillips to be vocal on this...she certainly is on everything else! But no, not a peep that I have noticed.

She is not entirely supportive of the gender critical viewpoint, and when she has spoken out at times and for example suggested the Woman's Place list of aims were reasonable she got lots of shit from transactivists and allies. The Labour wokebro contingent don't like her anyway.

Um, I hate to say it but I can think of one good reason why boys identifying as girls might want to join guides. I don't think they should but they too are being exploited by the TRAs. If they have grown up female they are likely to want to join with their friends who are also joining.

I think at that age it isn't always about the validation but about friendships. Their desire to keep the friendships intact is being used for a TRA agenda, but the children themselves may be innocent. As I say, I don't agree with this being enough of a reason to overrule the EA and GG's own remit but I do understand it. I also think that GG does not introduce new members in batches so it's unlikely they would join at the same time as their friends, but if they are being told how great it is, and if the girls they have grown up with believe the child to be a boy, I can understand it would be hard. Joining a Scout group where you know no one is hard. Joining anything when you know no one is. I can't blame anyone for wanting to avoid that.

The point in trying to make is that most of these trans kids, at least ones who have been trans for a long time, are likely to be innocents in this. Doesn't mean the policies should change or that the risks GG are currently taking should be ignored, just that these kids are being used too. For the TRAs it is about validation and changing same sex places. For most of the kids it's about being kids.