Another legal challenge in a school

Obviously it IS ok to discriminate though - but only against girls who might want single sex spaces/ sport and healthy boundaries. (And against children who wish to tell the truth).

Another thought. Can "gender reassignment" as a protected characteristic be said to apply to small children? Surely it only applies to adults? A child can't be said to be in the process of having gender reassigned, can it?

Also, this is spot on:

So the school considers that "inability to believe" is a disciplinary issue. What a fine tradition they are in. Socrates was executed for "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and Galileo was kept under house arrest for having "held and believed a doctrine which is false".

The idea that you can be forced to believe something that is untrue takes us back to the Dark Ages. I guess what they're asking is that the child pretends to believe it.

Eppur si muove, as Galileo said.

@Goatsaregreat Yes, the Intercom Trust are cited/linked from Gvmnt guidance - mad isn’t it!
Here’s the Cornwall guidance - seems to be 2015 is the latest? Link from this page:
www.cornwall.gov.uk/people-and-communities/equality-and-diversity/cornwall-schools-transgender-guidance/

A child's declaration that they are a cat, or a superhero, or that they are going to marry their daddy and live on the moon, are taken as an exploration of how they fit into the world and how they imagine things to be, but as soon as a child mentions anything about their sex or gender or behaves in a non-stereotypical way, it is an immutable truth that cannot only not be questioned, it must be affirmed and reinforced by everyone around the child.

It is fecking ridiculous...

What gets me is how regressive gender ideology is. Why can’t a boy wear a dress and be effeminate without being told that he is actually therefore a girl. It’s old fashioned gender stereotypes being reinforced. And what if he is gay? Are they trying to straighten the kid out by say he is a girl? I was listening to irreversible damage audiobook and Abigail Shrier was talking about how so many girls are now identifying as trans in the school. But there were now no lesbian girls. Hmmmmmm. Notice a trend?

The letter from the school’s head teacher and the chairwoman of the governors warned that pupils would be viewed as transphobic if they demonstrated an “inability to believe a transgender person is actually a ‘real’ female or male”.

So the school considers that "inability to believe" is a disciplinary issue. What a fine tradition they are in. Socrates was executed for "failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges" and Galileo was kept under house arrest for having "held and believed a doctrine which is false".

What would this school's view be if the evangelical parents in this case wanted children punished for an "inability to believe" that Jesus could return tomorrow (as Maranatha Christians believe)?

This will ‘peak’ a few more 1000 people

I posted this in October last year and was immediately jumped on for using the C-word (Christian)! I had no idea there was so much anti-Christian feeling
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4375549-Christian-parents-sue-government-over-schools-transgender-policies?msgid=111647442#111647442

The DfE are in the embarrassing position of having recommended the Cornwall guidelines to schools via their Equality Guidance (which also recommends Stonewall and GIRES) while ignoring every other organisation relating to all the other protected characteristics .
The Cornwall guidelines are marginally better than most of the others in the sense that educators obviously had some influence on the content as opposed to completely unqualified trans lobbyists. BUT they still promote the toxic and dangerous idea of removing parental rights from vulnerable children in favour of random adults in schools:
"A parent or guardian may not always be the most supportive or appropriate person to assist the young person through transitioning. It may not be necessary for a parent or guardian to provide permission for a Trans pupil or student to take steps to transition as there may be issues raised of Fraser competence if parents will not consent".

Don't the Cornwall schools guidelines go against the DfE's own current guidance?

Yes. It's absolutely baffling that the DfE is siding with the school in this case. Their own guidelines published in 2020 make it quite clear, for example, that schools shouldn't teach children that it's possible to be born in the wrong body.

The other thing, of course, is that the Cornwall guidelines (which I assume are based on the Allsorts transgender toolkit adopted by local authorities) are quite clearly in breach of equality legislation. Oxfordshire local authority dropped its use of the toolkit when threatened with legal action by a teenage girl, and a number of other local authorities followed suit.

Finally, as others have pointed out, thanks to the Forstater ruling, gender critical beliefs are now protected in law. It's interesting that the parents' case is based on the Equality Act's inclusion of religious belief as a protected identity, but possibly this case was launched before the Forstater ruling.

Why are they being told they have to think something that is the very definition of not real is real?

This is the intentional gaslighting of children & is a deeply harmful form of abuse which can have a devastating effect on healthy development.

[quote Rightsraptor]@Nikki078: the trans person is really female or male. Just not necessarily the one they want you to think they are.[/quote]
Yes I know. Notice though, you did not put this in inverted commas in your comment. School did.

Yes, it confuses their development. No-one has any right to do that. Our natal sex is a constant on which identity can be built. It's an immutable foundation.
This ideology damages that, for the individual and those around them.

Can't fathom how we got here. Nightmare.

I feel sorry for both children.

Surely at that age, they are so innocent when it comes to sex/ gender. They just see things as black & white in order to understand their surroundings.

Looking at this from an adult perspective is so wrong.

And yet, on the TWAW men thread, one poster asserts…

And no one says trans women are women "in the same way" as cis women. No one said there's no differences whatsoever

I’ll say here what I said there… it’s gaslightly as fuck.

This will be interesting to follow, if Dept of Ed are defending. This goes far wider than being counter to these parents' Christian beliefs. CofE school too
Similar issue in Catholic schools.
It's the extrapolation of the Gender Reassignment PC in Equality Act to children and teens in school - gender as in sex, now hijacked to equate to gender identity.
Have discussed with my school - they privately agree, but feel hamstrung.

DofE guidance makes it clear what the protected characteristics are. Gender reassignment IS a protected characteristic (but I have no clue what this means ) whereas gender identity ISN’T.

Thanks to the disingenuous meddling by Stonewall, many schools and other institutions have been led to believe that gender identity () IS a PC. It’s a shitshow.

All parents can check their children’s school’s paperwork to see if they’ve got it right. If it’s wrong, the school and LEA need to know.

A member of the school’s staff went to their home to shout abuse? But, ‘be kind’ though eh? Ffs

Hasn't the schools guidance on trans policy in a few counties been successfully challenged by SSA? I'm sure Oxfordshire's has.

As a result, the parents withdrew both their sons from the school and have recently been granted permission for a judicial challenge to the Department for Education’s decision to disseminate the guidelines to state schools.

Don't the Cornwall schools guidelines go against the DfE's own current guidance?

Development of identity evolves alongside intellectual, emotional, and physical development, and shaped by experience of the world around them.
One's s x is immutable.
So many young children go through phases of feeling, quite adamantly, they are something else, and develop away from it quite naturally.
Schools and parents should not be going down this route. WTAF are they thinking?

Dept of Ed really need to get a very firm grip, as schools are being 'advised' by LGBTQ+ lobby groups.

At secondary and college level Ofsted are looking for work around consent, safeguarding, and VAWG. And yet there is this enormous cognitive dissonance that as soon as a child identifies as trans, they can be in the space of the 'gender they identify with.' It's all such bollocks. Does that child an enormous disservice, and all the others around them.

And the lying to small children is one of the worst aspects of it. Deliberately gaslighting and confusing them. It's brainwashing and if only the BBC et al would tell it like it is, it could bring this movement down. Very lax on the part of the media, to the point of being negligent. And yes the government need to take responsibility for this. The mess is going to take years to unravel.

It's also creating a society in which absolutely every single person the 6 year old "trans child" comes into contact with is telling them that they are the opposite sex. That makes it incredibly difficult for them to understand their life and to change their mind later on. Assuming the original 5 or 6 year old made the choice in the first place. It's totally fucked up.

Those poor children. How can a 5yr old be encouraged they're the opposite sex - how damaging for their development, and of the other children in school.
Just, no. Abusive