School trip policies on overnight accommodation for trans children

And I'll add another major one to that list of things to prepared your young teen for:

• things may go badly wrong and your friend who doesn't know it was a lie may find out that it was a lie by being hurt. As parents we may have to make decisions that you cannot do things you would like to because while we cannot protect your friend from discovering reality and adults' breach of trust in a very painful way, we can and will protect you. Which we will probably have to do by lying. So that we can protect you without getting into trouble.

It makes me extremely sad to realise, yet again, we now live in a country and a time where it is necessary to teach our children:

• adults that you trust at school may lie to you and tell you x and this is because of their politics
• it is not true, whatever they say, but you must not tell them that you know it is not true or you may get into trouble
• other children may not have grown ups in their lives to tell them that adults may lie to them and you must be extremely careful not to be seen or heard telling them that really things are another way because you may get into trouble
• in public places we may have to pretend to lie too to be safe but we can talk at home honestly about what is real and what isn't.

That no one who thinks this is a jolly good thing is capable of understanding the historical parallels here and what inevitably follows in a society being as truly stupid as we are? It's even more scary. This is not the right side of history, this is a dystopian bloody nightmare.

they are all friends anyway and supported her thru her transition and coming out at school. Parents know the teen group well - it's a non-issue really.

So it's a non-issue because they are all friends who supported her and the parents know her? No 14 year old friends ever did a bit of sexual exploration together on the quiet? Especially not if their parents knew each other too? She still has a fully functioning penis, and teenagers are teenagers whatever gender they think they are. You do know that there are trans girls who beileve they don't need contraception and can't get a girl pregnant because they aren't really boys, and girls who believe the same?

Of course they don't all believe that and not all teenagers are sexually active. But the parents, school and other children have no idea who does and who doesn't, who is and who isn't, so a school would be very foolish to take that risk.

To focus on the sex on a trip like this is like taking a road trip whilst focusing your risk analysis on whether you are going to drive in a Ford or a Renault, whilst discounting the safety record of the driver, the state of the car, whether people wear seatbelts or not, how well you know the other passengers, if you get on well with them or not, what terrain the car is going over etc.

I think this might be the crappest analogy I have ever seen.

If 98% of crashes happened in Fords and only 2% in Renaults, which car would you rather travel in?

Would you use this same logic when deciding whether someone who is going to work with kids needs a DBS check or not?

female bodies must go into rooms with other female bodies they don't know / are not friends with - they will be safer after all that way, right?

Right! Precisely this. Not sure why you think this is a "gotcha" moment. It's exactly what we are advocating for.

The perspective and focus is misplaced here; to view the sex of a child as a bigger potential indicator of harm over and above all the other rich information that will be available

Picking out this particular bit of the bollocks to note the game that's being played here.

It doesn't matter whether it's "bigger", as this isn't an either/or thing. It is one factor being dealt with.

suggestionsplease1 is apparently suggesting that people you don't know are more of a risk - which is interesting because a more common TRA argument is that people you do know are more of a risk.

But either way the game being played is "look at this risk factor, not that one".

But there's no reason to choose. You can look at all risk factors.

It probably is true that people are most often sexually assaulted by people they know.

And it's also true that it's most often males.

The two risk factors combine - it's most often males assaulting females they know - and you can attempt to deal with both.

We deal with the "male" factor because it's a huge and its very easy to deal with. Male/female separation is trivial and has in the places we choose to do it we do so because it has huge risk benefits. To not do it would be, frankly, negligent.

Whether or not we deal with any other factor has no bearing on that.

Now, I grant, if you could find some other mechanism for figuring out how to eliminate the male risk, we could consider it.

But "stay in rooms with friends they feel confident, comfortable and happy around" is laughable.

How could a girl ever be assaulted or got pregnant by someone meeting that description?

Anyway, to be clear, suggestionsplease1 - you do disagree with the school's policy, right? You reckon they shouldn't be keeping boys and girls apart generally, not having this be a trans-specific exemption? If so, that is at least a self-consistent argument/proposal, which we can debate.

Even though threads like this bring sunshine, as it makes it oh so very clear that the end game here is erasure of all boundaries for women and girls. i cant help but feel the rage. The wheedling arguments so beautifully displayed by suggestions

"its complicated"
No its not. Single sex sleeping arrangements
"they will have sex if they want to"
Safeguarding can never eliminate risk, it is designed to identify and minimise known risk.
"let the girls choose who they room with, they will be happier that way"

Putting these decisions into the hands of CHILDREN is the seediest bit of this. This inexorable drive to convince the world that children are totally capable of making these decisions. That the adults should butt out and leave them to it. Let them sleep with whom they want when they, let them take experimental drugs with naff all evidence base, let young girls remove healthy body parts and render themselves infertile and celebrate whilst they do it.

Anyone, ANYONE, for whatever reason, who argues against clear safeguarding for children is a risk to children, regardless of their intentions.

Sorry, Loudoun County not London County.

Let's just look at this case by case thing. So that would mean you'd say yes to child A and say no to child B. What exactly about child B would cause you to say no? What is child B going to take from that? What are you going to /say/ to child B? Sorry B we don't trust you, A has better friendships than you do? You'd destroy the poor kid.

Nice clean universal policy. No mixed sex accommodation. It's the only way.

*boy, not bit

Is school required to do this though? I know they are being told by 'groups' that they have to abide by Gender Reassignment as a protected characteristic, but this is being stretched to enable children self ID'ing. But surely, unless that bit has a clinical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and is taking medical steps to 'transition', then it's moot, and sex as a protected characteristic should be of primary importance, and sex-segragated spaces - sleeping arrangements - should be upheld and that should take precedence, legally?

And all the people arguing for this.. why the need to have access to girls? Why this urgent need to make sure young girls learn it’s ok for boys and men to be in their spaces?

Who benefits from this? Not the girls. They are learning they should not say no to boys or men as long as he feels a certain way.

This is about removing safeguarding so that any and all men can access young girls and women. This benefits these girls in absolutely no way at all.

Men must be having a field day! Running their paws together waiting for the day they can walk into a room with young girls and demand to go sleep. Or teen boys demand to co sleep with teen girls.

A perverts utopia!

Who benefits from breaking this boundary out of the way?

It isn't the female children. It actually doesn't protect the male child either; as a pp says, that child is left completely vulnerable if any female child then claims they were assaulted.

This is absolutely not coming from any place that cares about the best interests of children, or about responsible caretaking. This political agenda is as cold as bloody ice.

It’s a safeguarding risk. This is opening up a large can of worms.

Parents of boys and “trans girls” should be concerned with their sons being accused of inappropriate behaviour just as much as the parents of girls being concerned with their daughters being assaulted.

It’s inappropriate. And what happens if an underage child is impregnated on one of these school trips? There is a reason why mixed sex spaces and sleeping arrangements for teens on trips exist.

female bodies must go into rooms with other female bodies they don't know / are not friends with - they will be safer after all that way, right?

That's right. Well done. You've nailed it. Girls will be safer that way.

My mind is boggled that some here are so incredibly keen to have boys and girls in together

So we seem to be back to the “solution” that adults provide contraception for teenagers in their care because, well, teenagers have sex anyway so shrug.

I’m glad it’s not me telling parents their year 10 kids all want to share rooms so send some condoms as the school budget no longer stretches that far, but it’s what the kids want so what can we adults do?

Your arguments are absolutely absurd @suggestionsplease1 so I'm not going to engage with you any more after this post.

The government guidance on sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools and colleges clearly states:

The evidence shows that girls are more likely to be subject to sexual violence and sexual harassment than boys, and that boys are more likely to perpetrate such violence and harassment. School and college policies should reflect this.

Nothing about friends. Nothing about making children responsible for making decisions.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachmentdata/file/1014224/Sexuallviolenceanddsexualharassmenttbetweenchildrenninschoolssandcolleges.pdf

So if, let's say you make a blanket judgement and just put female bodies in with female bodies, and male bodies in with male bodies with no other influencing factors (and of course, as already noted several times on this thread, people are most likely to be abused by people they are close to, so you must also logically ensure that all female bodies must go into rooms with other female bodies they don't know / are not friends with - they will be safer after all that way, right?

Well yes. That's exactly what you do. Because there is no risk of pregnancy that way. And you think this is an example of doing it wrong?!!!

Why not let Sarah and Tim share? They've been going out together for ages and have probably had sex. It'll be fine surely?

It is always wise to get to understand exactly who benefits with the lowering of childrens and womens boundaries.

All the benefactors - immediate and future.

OK, lets take the UK government definition of safeguarding:

‘The process of protecting children from abuse or neglect, preventing impairment of their health and development, and ensuring they are growing up in circumstances consistent with the provision of safe and effective care that enables children to have optimum life chances and enter adulthood successfully'

This is a process, nowhere in that description does it entail a binary decision on binary sex. That is simply reductive to operate in that way, and leaves both females and males at risk of harm from their own sex.

So if, let's say you make a blanket judgement and just put female bodies in with female bodies, and male bodies in with male bodies with no other influencing factors (and of course, as already noted several times on this thread, people are most likely to be abused by people they are close to, so you must also logically ensure that all female bodies must go into rooms with other female bodies they don't know / are not friends with - they will be safer after all that way, right?

Does that make sense? That's some of the logic being expressed on this thread. Is that what you want for your daughters on their school trips? That's what the logic dictates.

Or they could go on their trips and stay in rooms with friends they feel confident, comfortable and happy around, consolidating secure friendships and support networks that might last for decades to come. That seems fairly consistent with the safeguarding definition above, doesn't it?

There is no implication from the OP that this is a spurious, bad faith gender ID for the sake of the trip.

You cannot decide on a case by case basis. Deciding on a case by case basis is how Karen White ended up sexually assaulting several women before he was moved back to a male prison.

Mistakes are made if you make decisions on a case by case basis. Groomers and predators will get through. We can never ever underestimate the lengths that predators will go to access their victims. The only way to keep most potential victims safe most of the time is to apply a blanket rule.

If I read in my children's primary school, the rule that I am never alone with a child is not because they think I - a middle aged mother - present a terrible risk. I don't. But the rules are there to protect all the children from all the adults. I'm not offended.

By the same token, I'm not offended if my friend doesn't want her teenage daughter to share a room with my teenage son.

I'm also not offended if he doesn't want me to go into the bathroom when he's in the bath while my daughter likes me to come and chat to her. Having different boundaries depending on whether someone is the same or opposite sex to you is absolutely normal and natural. And is key to an effective safeguarding framework.

You have to wonder about those people who seek to blur those boundaries.