Girlguiding dilemma

The leaders on here have stated that they would not follow the GG policy of pretending that the male child or male leader was in fact a female.

The fact that the leaders aim to go above and beyond the limits of GG policy to provide enhanced safeguarding is to their personal credit.

One has stated that she has left the organisation as she would not comply with the GG policy of risk assessing on the basis of the pretend its single sex, female only space.

The woman who took over her role can not risk assess for a female and a male engaging in acts of sexual reproduction because according to GGHQ she has to pretend that its two females having sex.
No organisation writes policy for something which is not possible.

So how is she going to fill in the paperwork?

Eg
1.0 Sleeping accommodation - sexual activity:

1.1 Risk of sexual activity
Event risk occurs one or more occupants engage in sexual activity.

Key Risk factor:
One or more occupants deciding to engage in sexual activity
Shared accomadation so risk factor starts a 1

Frequency of risk event:
Any time one or more occupants decide to engage in sexual activity
Shared accomadation so risk factor starts a 1

Probability of risk:
(Key risk factor × Frequency of event )
1 × 1 = 1
There is a risk of sexual activity occuring in accomadation provision.

Management of risk:
There is a risk
Mitigation of risk required
Action required as sexual contact may be
• consensual sexual contact
• unwanted sexual contact
Further risk assessment needed

Policy required
Yes

1.1.1 Risk of consensual sexual contact:
...
Management of risk:
There is a risk
Mitigation of risk required
Action required as consensual sexual contact may be occur
• leading to pregnancy
• while other members are present
• between girls under the legal age
• ...
Further risk assessment needed

1.1.1.a Risk of pregnancy
Event risk occurs when a ova producer (female) and a sperm producer (male) engage in an act of sexual reproduction.

Key Risk factor:
Sexual contact with sperm producing human in sleeping accommodation.
Shared accomadation but risk factor is 0

Frequency of risk event:
no sperm producing humans have access to sleeping accommodation.
Shared accomadation but risk factor is 0

Probability of risk:
(Key risk factor × Frequency of event )
Zero × Zero = Zero
Zero risk of pregnancy resulting from accomadation provision.

Management of risk:
There is no risk
No mitigation of risk required
No action required

Policy required
No

1.1.1.b Risk of two members engaging in sexual contact in the presence of another child
...
Policy required
Yes
__
1.1.1.c Risk of two members engaging in sexual contact and the age of consent
..
Policy required
Yes
__
1.1.2 Risk of unwanted sexual contact
Event risk occurs one or more occupants engage in unwanted sexual contact.

Key Risk factor:
^One or more occupants deciding to engage in unwanted sexual contact
Shared accomadation so risk factor starts a 1

Frequency of risk event:
^Any time one or more occupants decide to engage in unwanted sexual contact
Shared accomadation so risk factor starts a 1

Probability of risk:
(Key risk factor × Frequency of event )
1 × 1 = 1
There is a risk of unwanted sexual activity occuring in accomadation provision.

Management of risk:
There is a risk
Mitigation of risk required
Action required as unwanted sexual contact may be
• sexual harassment
• sexual assault
• ...
Further risk assessment needed

Policy required
Yes

I don't think any leaders on this thread have said they would ignore girl guiding policies. If they did they wouldn't be leaders for long!!

We don't have any boys/men in any of the units in our district so it isn't something that has affected us yet. If a boy/man joined our unit I would leave and the unit would close because neither of my assistant leaders would take it on. I don't want the unit to close because we run in a very deprived area and what we do is very important to the girls who attend.

Well, yes, I was addressing the specific safeguarding fails of ignoring that they are now a mixed sex organisation, both in terms of members and leaders.

It is the lack of engagement with the reality of them being a mixed sex organisation, whilst purporting to be a same sex one which is the biggest red flag and fail.

Both in terms of the situations they are not accounting for that their members will be exposed to(eg, mixed sex sleeping accomodation)

And who they are exposed to(male leaders)

Both require different safeguarding approaches than a purely female organisation would. Guides have largely got by with their less than standard safeguarding because they were single sex. The good thing about scouts is due to mistakes they have made in the past they've tightened up their vetting process and policies etc.

Yes, both steeped in the ideology, but I imagine guides are more heavily targeted simply due to the fact it's girls and single sex.

For some inexplicable reason those factors make it more vulnerable to those who wish to peddle gender ideology.

I don't know if you've looked at Scout's pages on this. They do also describe themselves of inclusive of trans people, respecting pronouns, allowing trans young people to choose which facilities to use, etc. Even though there's been a lot of Twitter attention on Girlguiding specifically, I expect most youth organisations are similar.
@Siepie Scouting UK doesn't pretend to be a single-sex organisation, and therefore has safeguarding policies that matches its mixed-sex status. GGUK on the other hand pretends to be single-sex but is mixed-sex in practice so has no policies for separating males from females.

Leaders on this thread have not said they would go against policy. They are saying that there is a difference in attitude at grass roots compared to HQ. That's not the same as ignoring safeguarding.
I think putting risk of pregnancy in an assessment before a residential would be reasonable though. Because then you have to mitigate that risk. It would be a safeguarding fail to ignore that.
GG do need to figure out how to reconcile the privacy of an individual with the needs of all.
One change I noticed fairly recently was that it is possible to exclude a member if they pose a safeguarding risk to others. This wasn't, as far as I know, explicitly set out before.

Just a comment on letting a child go to meetings but not on trips away. For completely different reasons, I couldn't go on trips away when I was in Guides, and it made me really miserable (not helped by a particularly unsympathetic and inflexible Guide leader.)

Obviously you know your own child best, but in retrospect I'd have probably been much happier doing a different activity where I could have joined in with everything.

I'm a bit shocked about some of the safeguarding attitudes. It's all very 'Well my unit is fine, trust me'.

You should know that's not how safeguarding works. We can't ask parents to put their trust into individuals who will do the right thing with safeguarding against or instead of organisation policy. It's too fallible.
To be blunt, having worked in education and various volunteer roles, I've worked with some right idiots and I definitely wouldn't be able to trust them to make the right decision. I've also been in situations where, if I didn't have a policy to follow, o wouldn't easily have known the right decision to make.

That's the beauty of safeguarding policies. It gets banged into everyone in the organisation, low to high. Dim or bright. There's no room for a mistake because everyone sings from the same hymn sheet and anyone who doesn't is knowingly going against policy so are personally responsible if anything happens.

What a few posters have said is that they know there's a safeguarding flaw, but it doesn't apply to them, or they won't follow it etc.

Which doesn't work in an organisation like this. You can't get other leaders to go against policies. You can't guarantee you won't need the policy when you come into contact with other units. It's a mess. And you're screwed as a leader either way, if you follow it and something goes wrong, you're complicit in knowingly not protecting children. And if you ignore it and nothing goes wrong the organisation can penalise you for not following policy/ethics.

Personally, I wouldn't leave my precious child with an organisation that condoned this. Even if there are no male children in your unit or amongst your leaders etc. By doing so you are condoning that and what might happen. You are saying you are happy for other girls to be at risk as long as it's not your child.

Finally, I have to wonder. If it were scouts or another boys activity that had shown this absolute non grasp of safeguarding and doubled down thus, would you let a little boy attend? Because really whichever way you answer that it's absolutely loaded with implications.

sickofthisnonsense and that's why I left GG. I was the person approving the paperwork and general organisation of a residential in my District and felt I'd be hung out to dry either way: if I approved an event with a male present and something happened, and also if I refused to.

This thread alone should show parents that GG does not take safeguarding seriously.
Every leader on here has clearly stated they would, will and have ignored policy from HQ on this.
No leader in any organisation should be ignoring or going against policy- it put themselves and others at risk.
Ostrich mentality, bury your head or sticking your fingers In Your ears and singing.
GG 'safeguarding' policy is dangerous for everyone involved.

GG is not just isolated little groups run by individuals, it's a worldwide movement.

FFS leaders need to wake up! You are not safe and nor are the girls you purport to support- you have no safeguarding policy that protects you or them. You are going against HQ therefore you have no insurance (literally or figuratively) when something happens you would be entirely libel.

And have demonstrated that they have no problem with leaders displaying a very serious lack of safeguarding, safeguarding knowledge and awareness, or basic social appropriacy and common sense while being in a responsible position with children.

I know that view isn't popular on here, but it's the view taken by most people I know IRL, who have no issue at all with this young trans girl in my DDs class.

I would have no issue with a trans girl in my DDs class either, but you're missing the point.

The point being that GG have an explicit policy NOT to tell parents that there are people with male genitalia on GG residentials, to NOT call this out on a risk assessment, and to NOT segregate these people from the women at the event in areas where they are vulnerable: sleeping, showering, dressing, toileting.

If your female child is a girl and the male child is a girl, what word should your child use if she is uncomfortable changing with the other girl in her changing space?

You see that the GG's as an organisation have safeguarding issues which are being ignored.

Would you apply the same logic to the school you girl attends?

At what age group should your school begin to write safeguarding policy to recognise that the school has a mixed sex class with female and male students?

At what age group would you begin to worry if you girl's teacher was saying that she/he did not follow the school policy and had no intention of following the schools policy?
The reason she/he is not following policy is because she/he has no trust in the policy?

That's GG's problem, at grass root level the various women are making independent decisions. The whole idea of having a safeguarding policy is to learn from past mistakes, prevent reoccurances, look at what may go wrong and build a best pratice framework to prevent or at least minimise the risk of a poor outcome.

It's not that a male has or may join the group. It's that GGHQ are determined to deny that their safeguarding framework has to be based on a risk assessment of a female and a male being in any group.

What makes her happy is not always what's best. This is why we, as parents, decide what our children will eat, what time they go to bed and who they are allowed to play with.

You're misunderstanding the point. The issue is not the transgirl, the issue is absolutely nothing like having a problem with a transgirl in a class or a child playing with them, that's a complete misframing.

The issue is the insidious and negative effect on female children when a pretence is maintained that a transgirl is in fact female instead of recognising transgirls as male children and following the same requirements and boundaries as with all other male children.

No one has a problem with their daughter playing with a male child. But ignoring safeguarding, pretending away usual requirements and removing the right of female children to have female only activities and spaces? There's the problem. Right there.

I have no 'issue' with any child or any identity. I have a lot of issues on 'lets cross our fingers while we pretend for the benefit of our nice adult feelings with the vulnerable children in our care' and 'female children can't have anything for themselves'. A whole lot of issues.

And what happens when they are teenagers, and they share the same room on a Guiding or a school trip?

Honestly, I'll worry about that when it comes. And I know you may think that sounds naive or whatever, but I'm not going to tell my DD she can't play with her friend now, because in almost a decade's time she might still be identifying as a girl, and she might end up on a residential trip with her.

As you say, so many what ifs. I'd rather deal with the issue in front of me right now rather than potential issues in several years' time, which may never arise.

Again, I know that view isn't popular on here, but it's the view taken by most people I know IRL, who have no issue at all with this young trans girl in my DDs class.

My DD has a trans girl in her class and plays with her every day. I don't think she has any idea her friend used to be a boy. I'd have no issue with her playing with trans girls at Rainbows or Brownies, just as I don't have issues with them being at school together

And what happens when they are teenagers, and they share the same room on a Guiding or a school trip?

What about the Muslim girl who wouldn't be able to go on that basis?

What if it's a transgender 18 year old "girl" who just decided to become trans last week that's sharing a room or shower facilities with your DD?

What if your DD gets beaten by a country mile by her trans girl friend cos, y'know, biology?

So many what ifs

I wouldn't be so hasty to judge the women who stay and volunteer. Assuming all Leaders to be naive older women is rather, dare I say ageist and sexist..
The safeguarding issues that rightly concern you are in reality not happening yet in any significant numbers. NB girls and girls identifying as boys pose no problems. I would imagine any Leaders with boys identifying as girls in their unit will be running all decisions past HQ to take responsibility for. That's what I would be doing. GG are being taken to court by a previous Leader over this matter so I daresay will be keen to 'get it right'.
Recent events with a transwoman leader seems to have resolved after their suitability led to a convenient resignation.
They've already amended their policy on this (previous iteration required transboys to be managed out of GG and this was changed). The outcome of this court case plus the changing narrative on the Equality Act may yet open their eyes to being trans inclusive whilst still single sex. That's achievable.
In the meantime, the vast majority of girls attending GG will continue to have a rewarding and empowering experience in a female only environment.
I do think that they will either amend their admissions policy on this or be forced to be more transparent around shared facilities such as when camping.
I think GC women within GG are needed to help steer the organisation. It's up to the individual if they don't want to participate or let their children join, but in this instance, there is much to be lost for girls if everyone just walked away.

I couldn't get overexcited about this tbh. If my DD asks to go to Rainbows, I'll let her go with her friends.
Leaders are highly unlikely to be talking about sex/gender with children that young. And if there is a trans child in the group..so?! My DD has a trans girl in her class and plays with her every day. I don't think she has any idea her friend used to be a boy. I'd have no issue with her playing with trans girls at Rainbows or Brownies, just as I don't have issues with them being at school together.
I can see safeguarding concerns may arise when they're older, but at this age they really are all just kids IMO. Though I'm fully prepared to be told just how wrong I am for not being more worked up about this!

Exactly!! I've got to say I'm really surprised with the amount of leaders who actually know about the safeguarding issues and are complacent about it!

By staying you do realise you are complicit in this safeguarding issue, don't you?

And if, god forbid, some poor wee girl is hurt through this, there is no excuse.

I am absolutely totally shocked. I just thought the leaders were naive middle aged ladies who didn't realise what was going on. But it seems they do!!

There is no way I'd let a daughter of mine go to girl guides now, no way I'd volunteer and certainly not work there! An example of which I've given in a previous thread.

As I've said before if all volunteers left because of the safeguarding issue then they'd have to have a rethink.

I've set my DD on the waiting list for Brownies and have said that I will come weekly and help with the activities. That way, my DD won't miss out, but I can also supervise if anything is said. I am GC.

So how would you fill out the REN form for a residential, and the risk assessment, if you had a trans girl or trans woman at the event?

Cross post with @Sittininafield

I'm a Rainbow leader of 20 years. As a PP mentioned, for sure we'll discuss gender stereotypes eg on IWD (as even in 2022 I hear "girls are nurses, boys are doctors" from the lips of my girls 🤦🏻‍♀️).

Rest assured that most leaders at ground roots level are either rolling their eyes at HQ's ideology or are simply not engaging with it. We enjoy our work as volunteers and aim to empower girls and young women and provide them with an hour or two a week of fun and enjoyment.

I'd say sign your DD up and then suss out your local leaders, if she gets a space at a Unit. I would say it's super unlikely that the trans "agenda" will raise its head.

Demonstration in point: women will always take a shit sandwich and think about the kids' friends, and think about the poor leaders doing their best to continue to deliver sessions and the leaders struggle on because they put the girls first, and what effectively happens?

The shit rolls on uninterrupted and unchallenged because women will accommodate it and think of others before themselves. And until absolute disaster happens, they'll enable male people to get on with their happy little wrecking expedition in the background.

And this, ladies, is how we have been so thoroughly fucked over for millenia.

The gender stuff really is confined to gg hq, I’m a leader and I’ve never heard it mentioned. Let her go - once you’ve met the leaders you’ll be able to form an opinion.