School trip policies on overnight accommodation for trans children

@foodfiend. I have been thinking of you. How are you going?

Teenage girls can be staggeringly naive about the lives and motivations of teenage boys, in my experience.

Of course your daughter wants to be kind and pretend this is a girl like any other. But someone needs to be the grownup here, and the risk in mixed-sex sleeping arrangements is NOT the same as in single-sex sleeping arrangements.

Exactly as above. We all started using the word gender years ago as it sounded polite and nice unlike the word sex which describes an act. But it has backfired. We must now go back to using the correct terminology. Sex is biological. Gender is a belief.

We must all learn to use the correct terminology - if this had been done from the start, instead of twee-ly covering up the word sex so as not to make the fainthearted blush, then there wouldn't be so much confusion! And certain groups wouldn't have been able to browbeat so many companies into believing that the Equalities Act said things it doesn't.

Gender now should ONLY mean "societal construct of how people identify".
Sex = male or female.

Yep, i lost my virginity because i was too polite to say no.

Thinking back to when I was 14/15. I was very compliant and wanted to be liked. I would have said I was ok with sharing a room with a trans girl even though deep down I would have been very uncomfortable with it. It’s too much asking teenagers to make policy for us adults.

I really feel for you OP and I would be taking exactly the stance you are.

I can't understand why the council/school are prepared to throw safeguarding out of the window and take such a risk. I assume they think that because the girls say 'ok' that's tantamount to them consenting. This is a terrible message to send to teenage girls, many of whom are not sure of themselves and don't want to be the odd one out. They will be forced to go along with this and won't know how to handle a situation where they don't feel comfortable.

The adults in the room should be protecting these young people, not asking them to make decisions that they are not capable of making (because they don't have the knowledge/understanding to do so). They should be telling the trans student that they either share with their natal sex or have their own sleeping arrangements.

I wonder how they would react if a trans boy (natal girl) asked to share a room with 3 male students.........

Actually I think it’s very simple for the school. Accommodation for School trips for ? 70 years have been separated by sex. Same with showers , bathrooms and changing rooms. This is for the safety, privacy and dignity of all children.

Children who cant share a room for some special circumstance ( perhaps they have a medical condition or disability ) can sometimes be given a single room if available.

It’s blindingly simple.

I understand the difficulty for the school but I think the issue here is they will be changing in the same room and therefore is should only be those who are physically the same gender together whilst I understand they identify as female whilst they physically male I don't think it's reasonable for them to be sharing a room.

@NecessaryScene
Thank you for the transcripts link. OMG I would be considered by many to be a trans (& LGB) alli but I am also GC. I could not have sat through that presentation and kept quiet.

Bravo @foodfiend - someone does indeed have to stand up and point out that safeguarding has gone out the window under the Stonewall "guidance."

14yo girls making their own decisions about whether or not they should share a room with a male-bodied 14yo, who has the potential to impregnate them if they do give in to their hormones - nah.

I had school friends who were sexually active from the age of 13. It might not have been legal, but it still happened (usually with boys of the same age). The whole "Gillick competence" thing came about because of Victoria Gillick, who didn't want it to be legal for GPs to be able to prescribe contraception to u16 girls. She failed and girls are able to access contraception under the age of 16 without parental guidance - which all just goes to show that there are girls, and boys, still having sex before the legal age of consent.

So safeguarding has to stand up and say "not on our watch" - and keep male bodied and female bodied children apart overnight, to avoid accidental pregnancy, or assault.

When safeguarding turns a blind eye to male bodied people because they "feel like females", then safeguarding is failing in its basic purpose. And there is NOTHING to say that trans boys do not have sexual feelings for girls still - hence the many problems on lesbian dating sites now, where many TW call themselves lesbians.

Functional biologically male genitalia can still impregnate functional biologically female reproductive organs, regardless of how the possessors of each define themselves.

So keep them apart in sleeping arrangements, private arenas such as showers, toilets and changing rooms, until they are legally adults and able to choose for themselves.

[quote foodfiend]@Whatwouldscullydo What training/recording is this?[/quote]
It was the recording of a Mermaids training. Michael Conroy was a difficult audience member and recorded the whole thing.

It was regarding the infamous GI Joe - Barbie spectrum. "You need to really, really just take a step down academically, yeah?"

Thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3454658-recording-of-mermaids-training

And transcript part 1 and part 2.

Thank you OP

I really hope you get a positive resolution to this.

You're very welcome Op. Hope you get some resolution with the school and reconciliation with your daughter. BW

If my ideology was shakier than a shitting dog, I don't think I'd want it scrutinised through debate either

What was it the trainer said in the recording?

" stop being so academic "

Man asking question gets told to stop asking any questions...

No wonder some folk want #nodebate.

If my ideology was shakier than a shitting dog, I don't think I'd want it scrutinised through debate either.

Sorry wrong post quoted !

I mean if you are fed a constant stream of 't*rfs' are evil, ignorant and just hate and don't want trans people to exist, you might actually start believing it.

You might not realise that you every interaction (across different names) has taken this tone. I cannot imagine having someone like this for a friend. They simply cannot see their own prejudice and in the case of safeguarding 14 year olds, it is very dangerous.

Because they have swallowed the mantras, swallowed the repeated few sentences but do not seem to have the ability to critically think outside this. To think about what safeguarding is actually about, how historical groups have taught us that there can be no exceptions and that a group of people are 'special' in some way. And to think about just what it means.

If people cannot engage and lay out why a change will make no difference, it is a sure sign that they personally have not thought it through (and blindly follow allegiances) or that the evidence is so weak that it will be counter productive to lay it out. Hence... the refusal to even read questions or engage.

By the way, refusing to read questions also reminds me very much of the group of people who cling to needing 'safe' spaces because to venture outside that space and look at original sources to make an informed judgement might either shake their flimsily built beliefs, or they may be seen as being just as evil as the person who wrote the article/study/paper .

And we cannot put a name to a group or a movement that does that to its followers, or we get deleted. But this level of interaction that we are seeing, is almost textbook tactics.

Blows my mind every time I see it.

If you can't answer these questions, then you're not arguing in the best interests of any of the children involved.

1. How has this male child has changed so that for safeguarding purposes they are no longer to be treated as male?

2 What studies and statistics are there to prove that these transitioned males are in anyway safer than other males?

3 How many female students are acceptable collateral damage in the name of this 'progress'? How many girls being harmed is acceptable collateral for this supposedly progressive approach? Please give us a number? 1, 2, 10, 25, 1000?

1. What does a 14 year old girl do in a situation where they get to the room and discover that they are actually NOT ok with the arrangement anymore, but because a group of teachers and parents have decided that it is 'kind' and 'nice' that they have agreed to share a space with a male, that 14 year old girl feels they cannot change their mind?

1. Where does a 14 year old girl go if the worst scenario does happen (and we hope that it doesn't ever happen) and they feel that they have to 'live' with their decision and stay in the same room as their abuser. Because, they agreed to this arrangement?

1. How does ships know that no girl has yet been harmed? How many girls live in a world where their abuse takes a while, sometimes years, to process? Or is ships relying on the new style of activist thought of ‘It doesn’t happen. If it did happen, it was just the once’ and not on the historical evidence that even males supposedly deemed ‘100% safe’ do commit sexual abuse? Including loving and caring ‘friends’ and teenagers.

1. Who exactly benefits from lowering the boundaries that protect all females, but particularly children? Who? The women and children involved? Or the person who wishes access to the spaces that the safeguards are there to protect? Or the people who wish to see those boundaries eroded for other reasons that are harmful for those with lowered boundaries?

What benefit is there to those two female students to believe that in every single instance, that male is now exactly the same as them? What benefit is there to those two female students to believe that the sex of the person never matters?

1. 'On a case by case scenario, how exactly does a safeguarding lead ascertain the sexual function of a 14 year old male without asking very private information that should not have to be asked or disclosed? How is this NOT transphobic to subject this male to this treatment when a blanket policy removes any of this requirement?'

Dear lurkers, please note that Cry as the latest "righteous poster" is following the standard playbook of ignoring all questions, and selectively picking out little bits of text to twiddle about with through multiple posts. Distract, DARVO, obfuscate and if all fails, try to fill up the thread as fast as possible.