Another Girlguiding update

And I bloody hope GGUK ARE reading this thread. They are doing us all a disservice.

I should also add that I had an interesting discussion with a DC - one of her units has girl twins, where one of the twins is a trans girl. She was entirely fine with this as very young children - didn’t see any problem. A bit like Knight - who is going to problematise a 6yo on the basis of his penis?
These 6yos whose parents put them in dresses become 13yos. A 13yo undergoing puberty is an entirely different kettle of fish to a 6yo. There are very few parents who would care too much about the 6yo sharing with his little 6yo friends with leaders in the same room. The same parents will go ‘hang in a minute’ when the male is 16 and clambering into a 2 person tent with their daughter.
At 6, the age appropriate gender deconstruction is ‘that’s silly - boys AND girls can play with dollies/ cars - men and ladies look after children and drive cars, right?’ At 15, it’s more heavyweight - I’ve had girls in my unit tell me they flunk maths tests deliberately to maintain popularity with boys. ‘That’s silly’ doesn’t cut it.

Knight, my girl guides are teenagers. I am mildly entertained by your dismissal of these concerns as ‘theoretical’ and can maybe offer you a few scenarios as to why I, personally, as a girl guide leader volunteering with teenagers, find the policies problematic.
One of the main aims of girlguiding is to enable girls to be anything they want to be. In order to successfully get this across, it is necessary to break down gender constructs and problematise ‘boys are like this, girls are like this, boys like x, girls like y, boys do a, girls do b’ etc. Gender has to be discussed as an outdated societal construct that limits both boys and girls, and questioned. We spend a lot of time discussing common societal notions.
Programming for teenagers discusses what we call ‘hot topics’. These are such things as female issues around puberty, menstruation, sex and sexuality, pregnancy, drugs, peer pressure, the works. With parental permission, we discuss such topics openly and the ultimate bottom line is the absolute notion of personal health and safety, the absolute right of girls to assert and defend their own boundaries, and to enable girls to have open discussions that without exception book down to being female, and biologically vulnerable in a way that males are not.
Can you explain to me please, how I destroy gender-ascribed stereotypes when a trans-girl is present? Given the prevalence of transition stories, there is an extremely high chance that ‘she’ thinks she is a girl because her parents enforced gender-based notions upon ‘her’ as a young child (see Jackie Green’s testimony - she wasn’t allowed to play with girl toys as a young boy and grew up ‘knowing’ she was transgender because of her parents’ gender-based ideology).
I cannot instil in teenage girls their rights to boundaries if I am unable to disclose or discuss that a male teenager will share their sleeping or changing accommodation.
If I am unable to discuss that I have a male youth member with parents, I am removing their parental veto who their daughter’s spend nights with. As a parent of a 14-18yo girl, I would expect a discussion with them if they wanted a friend with a penis to sleep over. As a guide leader, I am not allowed to mention to parents that their daughter is required to sleep over with a friend with a penis.
Usually our tents are patrol tents, but we sometimes use backpacking tents (D of E etc). Which teenage girl do I choose for a 1 on 1 tent share with the boy? What do I say to her parents? As a parent, would you want to know that I put your 16yo dd in a tent on her own with a boy? (Well, he’s a lesbian - what could possibly go wrong? I’ll just tell her (and you) that GGUK sees no safeguarding issues at all.)
I should add that it’s not really the pregnancy/ sexual/ safeguarding concern that’s the most important for me - that stuff is perfectly ordinary biological also-ran that can’t be argued against. My issues are the ideological - I joined an all-female organization because I recognize that female-bodied people are discriminated against because of gender-based ideologies, and I want girls and young women to learn to fight back against gender, assert their boundaries, and live full lives as women. I can’t do that if I am required to acquiesce and alter my programming stance to be inclusive of male bodied people.
Before you go off half-cocked, I was also a scout leader, and there is no getting away from the fact that joint sex youth organizations do not provide the same female empowerment by any means. They are extremely successful for girls who want to be included in an overtly masculine ethos, but that is not the same thing as having the ability to deconstruct the ethos and make your own decisions as to which direction to take. (For clarity - I’m very much an ‘include me in your boy’s game and I will prove to you that I can out-butch you, boy’ competitor) but my beliefs are that young women need to make their own decisions and be given the space and freedom to make them in. (We take part in exactly the same activities - my unit has two girls who compete at a high level in robotics and science competitions, an almost-international mountain biker, some climbers etc. But they also value the time we spend deconstructing peer pressure - with girls from three schools we discuss norms and expectations, and how these are rooted in gender beliefs. The closest I came to this as a scout leader was having male leaders jeering about boys doing ‘girly shit’ like ironing their own neckerchiefs and sewing on a badge. Cause that’s wimmin’s work, innit.)
My concerns are not just for my girls - how would a trans girl cope with a completely average meeting deconstructing gender norms and discussing how to deal with menstruation? How would they deal with the inevitable sex and pregnancy discussions? (We do have lesbian members, obviously. I currently also have at least one who is bisexual.)
Genuinely interested, Knight. People who suffer from gender dysphoria are not the bogeyman. We do a lot of programme work on mental illness, too. (I have girls in my unit with anxiety, depression, OCD, as well as epilepsy, club feet and cerebral palsy).
Everyone has the right to safety and respect. But males should not have the right to access girl guides. It should be a proud female space. Allow us to continue to enable girls and young women to explore and disengage from gender chains. Don’t gaslight our girls and young women into having to accept male bodied peers and leaders as women.

Agnes - I wonder if it would be useful to talk to the NSPCC whistleblowing helpine www.nspcc.org.uk/what-you-can-do/report-abuse/dedicated-helplines/whistleblowing-advice-line/

They say you should call the Whistleblowing Advice Line if:

your organisation doesn't have clear safeguarding procedures to follow
you think your concern won't be dealt with properly or may be covered-up
you've raised a concern but it hasn't been acted upon
you're worried about being treated unfairly.

To any new people who have just joined this thread,

This is it in a nutshell.

GG are deliberately placing leaders in an untenable position of having to lie to parents, and facilitate mix sex sleeping arrangements & toilets/showers, knowing this breaches safeguarding protocols for children placed in their care by trusting parents. They've calculated that the girls themselves won't speak up - they're well aware of female socialisation. They've decided to adopt the 'take it or leave it' stance with parents who have raised concerns. And they're bullying out a leader who has questioned their policies for valid & justifiable reasons.

Agnes you have whistle blown re a serious safeguarding risk. If they are now investigating you that to me is victimization and intimidation of a whistleblower and is unlawful. Get a copy of their WB policy and have a look to see if they have followed it. They wish to isolate and shame you like every other woman who is speaking out. Don’t be ashamed or alone. More people are with you than you know. You have been an inspiration to me to tackle GG on this issue. They are getting pissed off having to field loads of questions and complaints from parents like me because of you nobly reasoning your hand to protect children.

I second that.

Vis a vis the 'conversation' above (with the ingenuous 'why is it a problem putting a male-bodied trans child/youth in with the girls?' comments), we're right back at 'So why sex segregate children at all, aren't we?

Because if a male-bodied trans kid is no risk put into changing rooms, showers, bedrooms with girls, surely NO male-bodied kid is?

The PM could do a lot to help end this madness. You'd think being a woman, that she would have some empathy and would at least have a stab at making sure that children are kept safe, at the very least.

Apparently Girl Guiding are monitoring this thread, so it might be worth directing all our best "FFS wise the fuck up about child safeguarding and stop pandering to aggressive activists who do not have little girls' best interests in mind" arguments directly to them:

This, with bells on.

to think we have a female prime minister allowing this to happen on her watch is disgusting. I can’t fathom how they allow grown men who identify as women, access to young girls, but if a girl is confused & identifies as a boy, they are forced to leave GG.

Exactly.
I think one of the reasons it's been allowed to happen is that a large percentage of the population are still under the illusion that most Trans Women have had bottom surgery, when in actual fact they don't.
A large percentage of Trans Women still have fully functioning penises.
A person self identifying as a woman, who still has a penis should not be sharing a sleeping area with young girls.

It's not bloody prejudice to point that out, it's A MASSIVE SAFEGUARDING ISSUE.
This can't be stressed enough.

I've been asked to take over a brownie units that's about to fold (I'm on a brown owl break at the mo) ironically it has a male unit helper who is willing and able to run the unit but can't because he is a male identifying male. He could identify as female and run the unit and drop all those irritating safeguarding measures that have him sleeping in another room but obviously he won't. I feel on reading this thread that I can't go back to guiding and will be feeding back exactly why.

I'm lost for words.

Agnes - sending you love and support across the ‘net. You are doing the job you signed up for - supporting young girls. I write as someone who was a brownie/guide and is so disappointed to see the movement abandoning girls and especially girls who for cultural or religious reasons cannot take part in mixed organisations. We are losing our female only organisations left right and centre - it’s a huge disgrace. I never thought I would emotionally turn against the guiding movement, or the WEP, or Labour etc etc and now I feel abandoned by all these organisations. You are a beacon of moral certainty and represent the very best of Guiding. Thank you for being a leader.

this

The pyjamas comment is up there with 'she asked for it' and 'lie back and think of England'. Disgusting.

Sturdy pyjamas lol.

Let's scrap all safeguarding measures for children and replace them with sturdy pyjamas. Genius.

I think statements made by someone who can't be arsed to read the full thread are best ignored.

Bumps the thread though.

...would parents withdraw their daughters from school if a trans girl was in their class? And if so, would it be OK for parents to remove a child because another child had, for example, a disability or a physical attribute that made them distinctive? Or if there was a lesbian in the group?

Way to spectacularly miss the point.

And as for the sturdy pyjamas comment... You can often tell which sex class a poster belongs to from their rhetoric and assumptions.

I can see that this is a difficult area but I don't understand the catastrophising and nor do I think it is helpful to anyone.

Do you actually understand why we have safeguarding policies and procedures?

Haven't read the thread but the answer is sturdy pyjamas. Oh, and it's catastrophising anyway.

😂

All the girls are vulnerable if a male bodied person is in the facilities that should be female only.

Why?

Really?

You are asking why females are at risk from males?

Come on now. Pull the other one.

I think statements made by someone who can't be arsed to read the full thread are best ignored.

Pointing out a youth organisation is suspending normal safeguarding practice without telling parents and hushing up those who ask questions = catastrophising.

Sure, whatever you say.

God, how rude do you have to be to opine without reading a thread? Good bumpage though.

I'm hearing a lot of judgements and assumptions. I can see that this is a difficult area but I don't understand the catastrophising and nor do I think it is helpful to anyone.