School trip policies on overnight accommodation for trans children

On other MN threads when people ask if it’s ok for a teenage boy to share a bedroom with his sister on holiday etc we are told that teenage boys wake up with erections and so it would be very embarrassing for the boy. So what happens with trans girls? Suddenly they don’t get erections?

The reality is that students don’t see their trans friend as either a predator or someone to be preyed upon in a situation where they’re on a trip together

No, you're missing the point. I'm sure the female students don't see their male friends as predators either, and would be equally happy. My closest friends at school were male, I wouldn't have hesitated at 14 to share sleeping quarters with them. Because I was 14. It would not have been appropriate, responsible adults needed to decide that, and mostly because safeguarding is not a case by case, how do we all feel thing, it is a blanket policy .

This is the issue.

It is not a trans issue - because female children who identify as trans or NB can be in female sleeping quarters without the slightest hesitation. The two important things:

• biological sex cannot be disappeared or cease to be relevant because other people have needs too

• facts create reality, not feelings. Policy must be based on fact and common sense and blanket policy, not feelings.

And I'd be so much more prepared to listen to political activist thinking on this if I'd seen any evidence at all that this lobby has the slightest capacity for caring about females of any age and what happens to them. The fact is that they don't. When women have been harmed, assaulted, raped, in the course of trying an experiment of 'some males have feelings that mean they should be inflicted on female people regardless of safeguarding and consent and shouldn't be thought of as predators - even after they have been convicted of being a sex offender' ......? The political lobby's response is to shrug, say basically it doesn't matter/was only one/was only a female/the TQ+ person involved is all that matters.

This is not a balanced perspective, this does not show capacity for rational and equal and unprejudiced awareness of the situation, and this does show an alarming prejudice and bias against biological females in pursuit of benefitting males. How interesting this should be a wholly sex based perspective while at the same time claiming that sex is a fluid and changeable or irrelevant thing. But it confirms, all over again, those serving this political agenda should never be advising on safeguarding. Their political alliance prevents it. This is a huge, huge problem, and because of it a major safeguarding disaster is inevitable. It will come. Watch this space.

I'm sure the transgirl in question is lovely, and nothing will happen. But can anyone 100% guarantee that:

• None of the teens in that room will feel remotely embarrassed or uncomfortable dressing, undressing, showering, using the toilet etc.?
• None of the girls will ever make any sort of allegation against the transgirl?
• When other girls are put into this situation in the future, all will be well in every single circumstance, they will all feel fine about sharing with a male-bodied person? And if they don't feel fine about it, have no right to speak up because "it seemed to work before"?

Unless and until you can be sure of these things, and can confidently speak for every female ever put into a similar situation in the future, safeguarding has to take precedence over feelings.

Interesting that none of the ploppers are contributing to the thread about Lia Thomas exposing their penis in the girls' changing room. Maybe Thomas is the wrong sort of transwomen?

I think ships might be a pupil.

A question for those who think it's absolutely fine for a 14 year old trans girl to share with two female friends.

If a girl and boy pupil of that age wanted to share because they were girlfriend and boyfriend, do you think the school should allow it?

If not, why not?

Are you fully confident ships or are you not even in the loop and like to believe that it all worked out fine.

And while you are here, please tell us just how many female students are acceptable collateral damage for you? Just one. two? ten? Just how many young female's lives are you happy to have changed forever to progress the supposed needs of a male child?

You are either remarkably ignorant of safeguarding protocols, and the need for them. Or you are a disingenuous poster who is determined to push their agenda despite the potential harm for girls.

You know that there are trans people who fully support robust safeguarding measures being in place? So, just who are you posting in aid of?

I think it’s clear from the plopper contributions to this thread that if you cannot say anything about safeguarding before anything happens, you sure as hell won’t be able to say anything after something happens. You’ll hit the cover ups, the victim blaming, the ‘wasn’t really trans’ and ‘don’t cause a fuss that might harm real trans” etc.

The females are carrying all of the risk for none of the rewards.

Sorry OP.

I wonder if some of you are incapable of teaching your teenagers manners if you believe that all teenage boys are dangerous. Some are (as some members of any group or category one cares to name can be dangerous) but lots of teenage boys and young men, let alone trans teenagers of any gender, are sweet, shy, goodhearted and would never harass their friends.

Maybe some of you should teach your children, if you actually have any, that it's extremely bad manners to demand that girls drop their boundaries so that males can share their sex segregated spaces with them. The height of rudeness I would say.

Sadly the insistence that trans people are a menace is copying the exact pattern of the homophobia of the past - they're all predatory, all evil, all abnormal waaaa!

Actually it's nothing like it at all. Gay rights never sought to destroy the rights of other groups. They just wanted to live in peace and have the same rights as anyone else.

Trans rights on the other hand have their own rights, plus they want women's rights. Effectively destroying women's safeguards. Gay rights never smashed up other people's rights and safeguards. So stop with the tropes from the TRA checklist. You clearly know nothing about it.

And herein lies the problem with referring to some boys as a kind of girl
Girls (and boys) deserve privacy
Girls are uniquely vulnerable to males
Separate sex facilities are in place to maintain safeguarding
Stop fucking about with our daughters' boundaries

Our school has a similar policy, it seems to work on the handful of occasions it’s been used.

Just because nothing happened on that occasion, as far as you know, it not a reason to smash up the principles of safeguarding. If your school did this, then your school failed in their safeguarding duties. This is not something to celebrate.

There’s no question of a trans pupil going in a dorm type accommodation but in a situation where they can be accommodated with one or two friends then they will be, as long as their friends and the parents are in agreement about it.

The children dont risk assess this. This is what the adults do on their behalf. In this case the parents don't agree with it. And the school are breaking the safeguarding rules by conflating sex and gender, when the accommodation needs to be segregated by sex and NOT by gender.

The reality is that students don’t see their trans friend as either a predator or someone to be preyed upon in a situation where they’re on a trip together, but rather just as their friend who they’re happy to spend time with and share a space with

And this is why adults safeguard children. And why it is their responsibility to do so. Because children aren't able to measure these risks. And nor should they have to.

My intelligent teenager appears to genuinely think that you CAN change sex through operations and hormones (Thanks school. My daughter now apparently knows less about sex and reproduction than she did when she was six.)

Of course A hasn't actually had any operations or hormones anyway.

Are we still waiting for the answer as to how this male child has changed so that for safeguarding purposes they are no longer to be treated as male?

I guess the lack of answer is always just as telling as the answer.

I was going to go with ‘it just is’ or ‘they are not male’. But it could have been some interesting new evidence that has convinced pp to post such a lovely utopian view. I do live in hope.

Or it could be yet another poster admonishing the mean mummies who don’t believe in the constructed fantasy world that these posters live in actually exists. We instead live in the real world.

It's beyond stupid that anyone thinks it's ok to let a 14 year old boy share with female peers AND they should refer to him as a girl
It's emotionally abusive and in breach of safeguarding measures

They should be in single sex spaces as afforded by the EA
Boys are not any kind of girl

I'd like to echo what an earlier poster said, that teenage girls are not human shields or there to validate another persons identity.

And what is my DD was in this friendship group and actually, she felt uneasy about this? Should she just STFU? I would really like to know your view.

What is it about the magical power of friendship that = absolute safety?

And actually if it's so pointless trying to engage "on here" why even click on the thread in the first place? As other than adding to the perception that a poster like you will happily throw women under the bus, what value specifically does your post add?

By choosing not to engage to discuss why is this instance safeguarding is irrelevant and instead throw "anti trans" accusations out there you really do come across as a one who doesn't give a shit about young girls as the feelings of one trans child trumps them.

I'm genuinely interested to know more about your views on safeguarding and why, when it comes to a minority it's ok not to be worried. Don't forget the transgirl in question isn't actually recognised as such in the eyes of the law as they aren't yet of age to obtain a GRC.