Expelled from Girlguiding for putting safeguarding first

So what if they have a penis? As long as safeguarding is upheld

Safeguarding is not being upheld, that's the whole point.

If you have different safeguarding rules for people with male bodies and people with female bodies based on data and many years' experience - but then you decide that one group of people with male bodies can step outside of that safeguarding, based on belief, not evidence, then safeguarding has just been thrown out of the window.

The point here, is not - are transwomen / transgirls "really" male or female, we could argue about that with TRAs till the cows come home (if only they'd engage).

The pertinent points are:

1. Do transwomen as a group have the criminal behaviour of men or women, as a class?

1. Is there anything about transgirl's male bodies that means we should treat them differently to girls for the purposes of safeguarding?

The answers:

1. Yes, transwomen act like men, as far as sex crime goes. Here, FOI request showed that there are 60 transwomen accused of sex crimes in prison. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42221629

This compares to (from memory) I think 130 women and 4,000 men. If you do the maths, by comparing to the population of men, women and transwomen (estimated), you'll find the risk of a transwomen being a sex criminal is similar to men, and nothing like women. Therefore the difference does seem to be biological and not to do with identity. I can't see any reasonable justification for putting women and girls at risk on that basis.

1. Even consensual sex is a much greater risk to teenage girls, as it is the girls who may end up pregnant. But also, it's not ideal for the boys and transgirls either to have fathered a child as a teen. This is one of the very good reasons we keep those with bodies that can impregnant apart from those with bodies that can be impregnanted. This isn't a comment on identity. This is recognising biological reality. Letting those children sleep in the same rooms is bonkers, and is putting girls' heath at risk.

I had to ask several times for access to their peer educator session on gender stereotypes that was planned at my daughter's guide group - the peer educator was a teenager. The screenshots below were from girl guides website that I was directed to, instead of getting access to the training materials the peer educator was using. Other topics on GG website were fully accessible, but not this, presumably because it touched on gender ID.

The guide leader had no clue what the peer educator was going to do, & had no idea that the peer educator guidance breached their own safeguarding guidelines.

Both the guide leader were way out of their depth & unfairly left to deal with this. The leader said she'd take it up with the regional bosses, but I've yet to hear back.

So, Katie, I'm fully supportive of your case and I hope you get the desired result.

Girl Guides' contradicts itself with their safeguarding & trans disclosure advice. See below. Both on their website.

Why do we think that the Scouts (which used to be boys only) had such a historical problem with child sexual abuse?

And Girl Guiding did not?

Because of the biological sex of the leaders of those organisations, that's why.

Here's a map of the Scout Leader abuse in the UK.

www.boltburdonkemp.co.uk/child-abuse/scouts-abuse-map/

Around 180 people convicted of child sexual abuse. Note to everyone, they were all male.

The Boy Scouts of America are now admitting that there are more than 12, 000 victims of child abuse at the hands of their leaders. That's according to their own records.

www.npr.org/2019/04/25/717246012/boy-scouts-of-america-estimates-more-than-12-000-victims-of-sexual-abuse?t=1564937803654

All of the Scout leaders were male.

Girl Guiding has dodged these issues precisely because they have not allowed men as leaders. But now they allow male people who identify as female to become leaders.

Yaniv could become a Guide Leader in this country.

And you can bet that if Yaniv's application is refused, Yaniv would sue. So Girl Guiding would probably just accept Yaniv as a leader in order to avoid the bad publicity. Yaniv would be in the girls' showers with a pack of 10 year old girls very swiftly no doubt.

That is where this harmful ideology leads.

So glad you are doing this Katie- I have shared your FB post on my fb and in another group.

As a long standing leader myself I am furious about this policy from Girlguiding. We have always, right from the start, been single sex. Girls (and women) have gained so much from this "safe space " away from males- I have seen this myself. For example, at camps as girls relax and realise they can just be themselves- that they can do it and it doesn't matter if their bum looks big or their hair is a mess. For girls from difficult backgrounds (we have had a number of cared for girls who have suffered abuse) guiding has really helped them.

There are really strict safeguarding policies in GG- males have to sleep separately, have separate showers and loos when away for example. They can't be alone with girls- and so in. Not because "all men" are like that, but because some are.
At a large scale camp last year, my DD (another leader) took my dgs - if he had been a year older he wouldn't have been able to share a tent with his mum on the Guides section- he would have had to sleep in the males sub camp - away from the girls.
We joked that it would have been easier for him to be "trans" for the week - then he would have been in with the girls no problem.

As a leader sometimes on trips you share with other leaders- I would not be able to refuse to share with a bepenised trans woman.....

We are still not allowed to discuss this, obviously leaders talk amongst themselves, but any public discussion is still shut down. GG HQ ignore letters, they don't respond to tweets either. Questions on FBook are deleted.

I am hoping the new Chief Guide and ceo will be different- but I'm not holding my breath.

@KatieAlcock Forgive me if I sound stupid, but why does a child being trans mean you can’t tell anyone that they’ve disclosed that they’re meeting strangers from online or taking drugs?

Thank you Katie. I'm a cub leader who is very grateful to you for fighting this.

I will be doing the thing that must not be named later on.

Pope

The recent consultation, that is very biased/rigged shows that GG are fully aware and that woke points are more important. Consultation may still be open not sure.

Shall we maybe not led this thread become de-railed responding to a single poster, as there are countless threads already pointing out why safeguarding policies are there?

I'm interested in hearing more about Girl Guides and this case. For me, the fact parents weren't told that single-sex had become mixed-sex - and this was a feature, not a bug - is what suggests that they knew they would get pushback. If it was genuinely intended with the experience of ALL Guides in mind surely there would have been open discussion?

Chiming in to add support and to say how important it is for girls to have female role models outside their families.

I agree with SarahTancredi

This policy change possibly came into being out of ignorance, but it is being maintained with full knowledge.

And it is not just safeguarding, though that is obviously the most important issue, but girls from quite a few religious faiths will no longer have access to this activity, no matter how well intentioned any MtF leader or "trans girl" is.

It isn't only males that abuse.

No, but males do commit 98% of sexual crime. So limiting something to female-only does rather significantly decrease the risk, doesn't it, maidsamilking?

Just that 98% of abusers are male. Mustn't forget that 2%, eh?

It is so tiring sometimes....

This is so sad. So wrong. A disgrace. I have utter respect for you.
How no one, with an ounce of common sense, has allowed this to get to this stage, beggars belief!

You would like to think / hope that someone would have already stepped in, to resolve. Hopefully they will now.

Maids, class analysis is a really good thing to engage with in relation to safeguarding. We can't know who is a predator by looking. We have to assess risk, and we do that by assessing the groups that are most likely to be a risk. Men are statistically much more likely to be a risk so safeguarding takes that into account. It doesn't mean that all males are a risk, in means we have no way of telling which ones are, so we employ a blanket strategy when dealing with them. It's not a personal slur on any male - it is simply a mechanism to protect.

It isn't only males that abuse.

Just that 98% of abusers are male. Mustn't forget that 2%, eh?

I wouldn't be comfortable with any inappropriate sexualised behaviour from either male or female members of a group.
It isn't only males that abuse.

Vanillelle Katie already has a legal team to sort that out. Im sure she appreciates your interest though.

I wasn't intending to offer advice! Nothing annoys me more than armchair lawyers on mumsnet pretending they know enough to advise. I'm just interested.

I'm going to get flamed for this. I just don't get the big deal. So what if they have a penis? As long as safeguarding is upheld. I wouldn't have any interest in knowing if the leader identified as female but was biologically male. I couldn't give two hoots!

Good for you. Unfortunately lots of girls have been abused by men and boys and don't have the luxury of feeling quite so comfortable.

I do the safeguarding paperwork for church and we had the very issue of transgender occur so took advice from our diocese who in turn got advice from higher up. We were told that unless the young person objects we should keep them with their sex not their desired gender but if possible and the young person requests it in a separate sleeping area - as it happens they wanted to share with female friends and as their birth sex says female we felt this was fine. Why can't gguk just take each situation on a case by case basis, it isn't a one size fits all - the handful of little kids that transition (it it's very rare) are different to a 14 year old.

Vanillelle Katie already has a legal team to sort that out. Im sure she appreciates your interest though.