GDST schools announce trans policy

The wonderful Kellie Jay on GB News about half an hour ago.

That woke chap really has been at the kool-aid. He doesn't let facts get in the way of his narrative...

Its good news that's for sure. It would be better for the government to confirm the same guidance.

This trust owned my old girls school. A cracking school. Proud of them.

On the face of it, this makes sense. Why should a child be treated differently because of the clothes they wear?

Jellysaurus Yes, on the face of it it does make sense and I suspect that at the time the guidance was written, it was to prevent the very very small numbers of children (mostly young boys) from being picked on, bullied etc for socially transitioning. I don’t think the EHRC would have foreseen activist groups and activist teachers pushing for immediate affirmation of what has been an exponential increase and a different cohort and all the safeguarding implications that arise from that, including whether or not a single sex school can remain single sex.

I worked at one of these schools and knowing the Head teacher I am not at all surprise. Such a good example to show the girls, to stand up for their rights.

Despite the higher rates of girls than boys identifying as the opposite sex, most of them aren't clamouring to get into single-sex boys' schools.

I suspect most trans pupils, if they choose to leave their single sex schools, will be looking for co-ed. Indeed anecdotally I have heard this is already happening. My concern remains. Are single sex schools simply passing the buck. What protections exist for girls in co-Ed schools.

[quote delurkasaurus]This thread is interesting, and seems to answer many of the questions on here:

mobile.twitter.com/legalfeminist/status/1477773300248072196[/quote]
Very interesting.

I especially like this from a commenter.

"And they have stated that any female pupil who wishes to transition will be allowed to remain as a trans man therefore the policy as a whole can't be said to discriminate against trans people. It is about being single sex"

Also, if transactivists want to push this, then I can't wait to see all the traditional boys' schools getting right fucked off that they've got to go mixed sex as a result.

I imagine there will be plenty of girls who would like to go to one of those big, important, powerful boys' schools.

This thread is interesting, and seems to answer many of the questions on here:

mobile.twitter.com/legalfeminist/status/1477773300248072196

I welcome this decision - good to see clarity on an issue which, I think, has been causing headaches for a lot of girls' schools.

I would love to see a statement from some of the well-known boys' schools about this, though I imagine it hasn't been as much of a problem for them. Despite the higher rates of girls than boys identifying as the opposite sex, most of them aren't clamouring to get into single-sex boys' schools.

The EHRC Technical Guidance to schools makes it clear children are protected under the EA re gender reassignment from the moment they express their intention to transition to anyone and that in schoolchildren, this intention is likely to be expressed via a change in clothes etc.

On the face of it, this makes sense. Why should a child be treated differently because of the clothes they wear?

But what is bewildering is the choice of comparator for deciding whether a person is being discriminated against. The comparator is an otherwise similar person without that protected characteristic. For a visually impaired person (PC: disability), a sighted person. How on earth were rational people persuaded to use a female person without the PC of gender reassignment, as the comparator for a male person with the PC of gender reassignment? That brings in yet another PC: sex.

The GDST's stance is the only rational one: using a person of the same sex as the comparator. They won't treat a pupil of one sex presenting with a (potential or actual) PC, less favourably than any other pupil of the same sex who does not present with that PC.

PaleBlueMoonlight

But doesn't the proportion means/legitimate aim aspect apply here?

The proportionate means is that there will be other, mixed schools available. And the legitimate aim is as they say, preserving their single sex status? (Parents pay for a girls' school because of all the documented benefits for girls).

The massive majority of schools are mixed sex. Parents (and children) seeking single sex schools have intentionally gone looking for this specific facility for specific reasons of wishing to have it. The desire of one person to break boundaries when many other facilities are available to them is not a justifiable reason to deprive everyone else of this choice. It's just pure selfishness and a desire to smash up everyone else's norms for personal political reasons.

*case by case basis

I wonder sometimes if we should have less segregation by sex? Other than spaces where safety is an issue I wonder if less segregation would help demystify the opposite sex?

Are you arguing that men and boys behave as they do because they don't get used to the company of girls and women when young? I don't see it. The vast majority of children in the UK go to co-ed schools, for one thing.

Girls who attend girls' schools often have brothers, cousins, neighbours etc so will be familiar with what boys are like. I have no experience personally or through my children of co-ed secondary schools but have been shocked by accounts I've seen many times from women who went to co-ed schools and describe routine sexual harassment. That was something I was safe from at my girls' school, in school time anyway.

Plenty of research about how boys get more attention in class in a co-ed classroom, and of course the stigma against girls doing STEM subjects and boys doing supposedly girly subjects like languages.

Long live girls' schools, in my view.

Yes, you have to think about it rather than necessarily do anything.

I am glad to hear this, and hope it means the debate is opening up.

So, will they be ok with trans boy pupils? Biological female but transitioned or transitioning to male.

I wonder sometimes if we should have less segregation by sex? Other than spaces where safety is an issue I wonder if less segregation would help demystify the opposite sex?

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/part/11/chapter/1

Various case law decisions say that the duty is not one of achieving results but of giving due regard to the need to do the things set out in that link. There is no duty to treat one group more favourably than another. There is no duty to do anything, having considered the needs. If nothing is done and that action (of doing nothing) is unreasonable then that is not only a different matter but it's notoriously hard ground to win on, in JRs.

Particular considerations do apply to those with disabilities. And what is and what is not a disability is also specified. Ironically when the government specified what was and what was not a disability, that was done in part to stop anyone claiming anything in order to be protected under that characteristic.

The EHRC Technical Guidance to schools makes it clear children are protected under the EA re gender reassignment from the moment they express their intention to transition to anyone and that in schoolchildren, this intention is likely to be expressed via a change in clothes etc.

Sections 3.35 and 5.112-5,114 are the relevant ones:

www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/publication-download/technical-guidance-schools-england

It’s effectively self ID for children and a very murky way of interpreting the EA, IMO, but the EA lacks clarity - e.g. the examples in the accompanying notes are of a female who has made a permanent decision to transition to being a man and a man who has made a permanent decision to transition to a woman, so does that indicate a requirement of a permanent decision and if so, how does that apply to children and related questions of competency? It’s not clear.

The whole thing is a mess and until the Govt or EHRC or the courts clarify, we’re in a place where no one can say for certain how the EA re gender reassignment definitively applies in schools.

Nobody can have a GRC until they're at least 18, but the Equality Act says gender reassignment is a protected characteristic, this seems to apply to under 18s, and there is no requirement to have a GRC or be eligible for one to have the PC of gender reassignment.

There is a tension in the Equality Act between the single sex exemptions and the protected characteristic of gender reassignment, which I don't believe has been properly resolved either in statute or case law. The Equality Act was a portmanteau act replacing a lot of other laws on equalities issues and merging them all into one piece of legislation. They didn't tie up all the loose ends and left the GRA in place separately.

From what I've read the GRA was introduced in a hurry to solve a problem the UK government had after a UK citizen went to the European Court of Human Rights to complain about being unable to get married. The person in question was female by birth but identified as a man. Living with a woman, both keen to marry, no same-sex marriage possible in the UK at the time. Registrar would have checked birth certificates and said no, you are both female. Complainant said everyone has a right to a family life, including marriage, and the court said yes, UK government must enable this.

Obvious solution was for the government (Labour, Blair PM, huge majority) to introduce same-sex marriage, but they bottled out of that one. Decided to go instead for a measure which their expert advisers said would only affect a tiny group of transsexuals - estimated 5000 people max across the whole of the UK. GRA aimed at those who have professionally diagnosed gender dysphoria and 'live as' the opposite to their birth sex. No requirement to have hormone therapy or surgery of any kind to change appearance, given that not everybody can have it, I suppose. They can apply for a gender recognition certificate to present to the Registrar who then has to issue a new birth certificate applying the 'legal fiction' that the holder is the opposite to their birth sex, as shown on the original birth certificate.

I can only assume that when the EA was passed in 2010 Parliament was still working on the assumption that the numbers of people who could claim the PC of gender reassignment would be absolutely tiny so it didn't warrant a lot of thought.

And here we are, with schools having to navigate this minefield.

I can't quite remember exactly how the Equality Act works, but it is something like that when someone has a protected characteristic under the Equality Act you have to positively do things to accommodate their needs because of that protected characteristic. This can be interpreted in the case of the protected characteristic of gender reassignment as a requirement to treat them as the opposite sex. I think this is a poor legal interpretation of the Act for a host of reasons, but not least because it would cut across single exemptions which require - broadly - that all members of the opposite sex are excluded for the exemption to be available (in the absence of the exemption single sex spaces/services would be discriminatory and not allowed under the Act), but it may be the argument that Stone King is thinking of. There has been be little case law on how these provisions should be interpreted, but one of the major reasons why the stonewalling of the judiciary and the aggressive attempt to redefine social norms is potentially so damaging is that Judges take into account current societal norms when interpreting legislation.

That comment at the end of The Times' article from the lawyers Stone King (not Stone Wall, then?) implies that schools using the exceptions under the EQA 2010 to keep their school single sex could be in breach of the law. IANAL but would like to know how they work that out. A boy under 18, so no GRC, has his legal sex as recorded at birth but Stone King think he'd have a legal case against a girls' school.