School trip policies on overnight accommodation for trans children

Has the school read the Estyn report "We don’t tell our teachers - Experiences of peer-on-peer sexual harassment among secondary school pupils in Wales", published less than 2 months ago?

In its "case by case" approach, how does the school know what any particular trans pupil's attitude to sexual activity with fellow pupils might be?

Has the possibility of coercion through threats of "outing" as a "transphobe" even occurred to the staff?

Under the Equality Act, this is a fail of inclusion. Indirect discrimination has happened.

• The trans child has been put in a situation where people may or may not say yes, (and knowing who said yes and who said no and that all this was a problem)
• The other children have been put in a situation of knowing that the trans child's feelings are likely to be hurt so not a neutral choice but a pressured one with a 'right' answer and quite likely peer pressure involved too;
• Parents have been put in the position of having to be the bad guy and everyone know it is them making the unpopular decision that affects feelings, identifying them.

This has successfully caused a mess, negative outcomes, bad feeling and none of this is helping good relations between people with different needs and beliefs and characteristics. Why has this mess happened?

Because adults were afraid of a political lobby and getting into trouble, and of facing difficult feelings, and because adults were not able to be clear and firm about a blanket policy that met all needs, ensured safeguarding according to law, and did not mean case by case win/lose/movable boundaries.

Absolute fail all around. Very badly handled by the school. And none of this changes that if it is not ok for male and female children to sleep in the same quarters because of clear and accepted reasons under safeguarding, then there are no circumstances in which a male child gets to be a special exception to this. Feelings don't enter into it.

Why wouldn’t they treat each case individually?

Because that is not how safeguarding works. To avoid any accusation of discrimination (positive OR negative) you have to apply a blanket policy, in every situation, no arguments.

Anyone else feel they've got deja vu?

Dear lurkers, please note that Isaw has selective blindness about what they will respond to - strangely enough, not actually answering any of the questions.

In this case the kids wanted to share but 2 parents didn’t want them to. End of.

It is so clear isn’t it.

The kids wanted to share and the parents didn’t want them to….

Now put the reality in.

The kids, male and female, wanted to share and the parents didn’t want them to….

Why are you making out that the parents are unreasonable and trying to shame this mother who is actually being the responsible one?

You keep conveniently avoiding answering the question.

Would you let any male and female share a room on a school trip?

Why is this male special? What exactly is different with this male’s body to any other males body?

We can keep repeating the questions if you like.

‘ Dd is now having to tell her friend that we're not happy, which is horrible for both her and A.’

Is it? We’re the bad guys with our kids all the time when we think it’s in their best interests… everything from who they see, where they stay over, how much gaming time, have they done homework before going out and on and on…

Well,You have haven’t you? Which it what you want - for your child not to share with this other child.

It's not acceptable for a school to shift the blame on to a parent for enforcing safeguards because the school is too weak to enforce safeguarding itself. The school has completely failed in basic safeguarding duties. I wonder what else they have failed to do.

‘the position is that the school have told the children that I've vetoed the arrangement. Great.”

Well,You have haven’t you? Which it what you want - for your child not to share with this other child.

‘School policy is not to have a policy, and to treat every case individually, and say that they're following local authority advice. ‘

Following the local authority advice is a policy. Why wouldn’t they treat each case individually? They ask the kids, and they ask the parents. In this case the kids wanted to share but 2 parents didn’t want them to. End of.

In conjunction with those very thoughtful points:

how do school intend to respond to other male children who are not trans saying they are being discriminated against not being allowed to sleep in the same room as female friends?

This quite likely would be discrimination in law, as there is no way to clearly delineate which male children are bound by usual boundaries and which male children are permitted to break those boundaries if they want to, and no girl has wanted or felt able to ask responsible adults to hold their boundaries in place for them.

Dear Op

Sorry long post. Some questions that you might ask the school.

1. How many mixed sex friendship groups had the School allowed to share sleeping accomodation previously (eg do they have prior experience to reflect on).

1. What training do staff have so that Supervisors can support and mange disputes about mixed sex sharing. (accidental nudity, inappropriate conversations, complaints, etc).

1. What guidance would be given to students so that they felt confident in reporting incidents even when they had chosen the mixed sex arrangement? How would the school handle the foreseeable and likely victim blaming.

1. How does the school support students so that they can safely report grooming.

1. Basically - what's the schools policy about dealing with any fall out from this higher risk arrangement.

1. Finally, have the school checked this guidance/policy with the Safeguarding Officer and their insurer?

DD might think nothing will happen that she's not happy about. She might think if it does happen she can deal with it. None of that relieves the school from its safeguarding responsibilities to its students and they might benefit from being reminded of that regualory responsibility.

DD might also want to think about what to do if she falls out with her friend, or starts her period, or doesn't want her friend to try on/swap clothes, thinks her friend is watching her get changed, or her friend wants to talk about relationships/kissing/boyfriends, or a thing that happens that makes DD uncomfortable or vulnerable, etc etc. These are all things that happen on school trips when you are in closer quarters than usual.. Difficult conversations, troubles are better managed if you've thought about it beforehand. DD needs to know who to turn to and be confident that she doesn't have to put up and shut up if she's scared or upset.

Hope this is helpful, BW

As someone who has been a 14-year-old male, the staggering naivety of some women never ceases to astound me, tbh.
Indeed. MrFlo often tells me I'd be horrified if I could see inside the head of a male adolescent.

Perfectly put
Artichokeleaves and Neccessarily

Actually, I quite liked yours, Artichokeleaves :)

Cross post with Necessary who said it much better.

Yes, that ^^

Blimey, women get it in the neck every which way, don't they?

We get told off for foreseeing events because it might never happen even though the risks are flashing in red neon signs to anyone who isn't working flat out not to look at them.

We get told we're not supposed to notice or comment until it does happen.

And then when it does happen, we get scolded for weaponising it/ drawing negative attention/ other ways of frantically trying to make female people just give up their rights to male people quietly, without fuss or making male people feel bad about it.

No. This is ridiculous, stop it. It's the abuser's 'don't upset me with your crying while I'm beating you' that Lundy Bancroft wrote a series of books about, women know when someone is pulling this crap on them. This is MN, we have entire boards about relational abuse.

If ships knows anything about teenage boys from living with any male over the age of puberty starting, they should have some answers to these questions.

As someone who has been a 14-year-old male, the staggering naivety of some women never ceases to astound me, tbh.

But at least when I see women supporting this sort of thing, I know it's naivety. I have much darker thoughts about the men.

Ummm. Her daughter’s trip IS the point. This is a real life situation where fantasy thinking simply doesn’t work with safeguarding.

This is getting to be a slightly tired tactic already (and they've not been trying it that long). Every single bad policy outcome is just a "dogwhistle", a "wedge issue" or "just being used as a pretext to hurt trans people".

You can't address the problems because to do so would be feeding a narrative or something. I think we're finally approaching the bottom of the narcissist's prayer.

That didn't happen.
And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
And if it was, that's not a big deal.
And if it is, that's not my fault.
And if it was, I didn't mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

Fixed it for you.

Yes, I would like to know if ships has a rough idea on how many female students are going to react to being 'exposed' to penises in their room where they thought they were in a 'single sex space'. Because they have been told that the male in that room with them has 'changed sex'.

They are 14 year old girls. Do they understand that penises may have a habit of being erect in the morning during puberty? What happens if the male masturbates during the night? Should those girls be exposed to that?

Or if one of the girls gets their period and it is heavy and they stain the sheets? Still ok? The girl doesn't deserve to have privacy away from a male who has no fucking idea what she is experiencing?

So, where does the male change their clothes? In the room with the girls?

If ships is a teacher, they must have some answers to these questions.

If ships knows anything about teenage boys from living with any male over the age of puberty starting, they should have some answers to these questions.

I hope they answer. And I hope they have some evidence to back up what they say. Because that could be a safeguarding gamechanger. And we should then petition the education department to make those changers.

Please don't use your daughter's trip to make your point.

also as @ClawedButler points out there is risk of harm to the trans child as well

'* None of the girls will ever make any sort of allegation against the transgirl?'

14 year old girls fall out with each other A LOT. What happens if the the dd and her friend get pissed off with transgirl and decide it would be a 'laugh' to say she flashed at them during school trip. Maybe six months later.

Cue massive shit storm engulfing the kids and the school. If the girls stick to their guns the transchild could get put on self offenders register.

That is a not a fair risk either.