Residential trips

But a lot of the parents of trans-identified kids appear willing to fight for their child's right not to be discriminated against, which sounds noble, but in reality means that sleeping in a private room rather than opposite-sex dorm is transphobic.

The solution to this is to stick to the letter if the law. But there's no social protection for doing that so people cave and then the idea of "third spaces" comes up.

As above: facilities are going to have to start adjusting for this to keep their customers because it's an increasingly frequent issue. And without this option, a lot of teachers are going to just stop being willing to take kids away because of the issues and enormous hassle involved.

Depending on the facility where the kids are staying a single room may not be an option, or it involves paying a massive under occupancy fee.

A third space or single room for a pupil could be for one of a number of reasons other than being a trans girl. Someone with a stoma bag is one example that comes to mind.

@nilsmousehammer exactly.

And that's exactly what enabled a double rapist to wriggle their way onto a single sex beauty course with 16 & 17 yo girls barely out of school.
The girls weren't comfortable and eventually the predator was asked to leave.

Imagine how awful for everyone involved for teachers to have to evaluate every trans identified child to see if they were 'trans enough' or 'safe' to be allowed into the opposite sex bedrooms.

Awful and I'm pretty sure legally indefensible. You cannot extend the privileges of access to females to some males and not others without it becoming discriminatory.

Really what would sink this is a non trans boy demanding the same rights of access to female children and spaces, because I suspect that would be equally indefensible legally. The comparator for a male child is another male child.

Yes, absolutely, thank you so much OP. The school just told us that if we weren't prepared to say 'no' to this situation why were we expecting the school to do so. I couldn't get across to them that the situation was really coercive, and that a straightforward, consistent policy of 'in these circumstances, we divide by sex, end of' was much 'kinder' to everyone in the long run. Imagine how awful for everyone involved for teachers to have to evaluate every trans identified child to see if they were 'trans enough' or 'safe' to be allowed into the opposite sex bedrooms.

@foodfiend thanks for updating and I'm glad it went okay. I entirely agree with you that it's different when it's personal to your kids and their friends. Need to weigh up the wider principles versus not making things worse in people's real lives.

In fact that overlaps with what I was going to say to the OP, which is, thank you for taking this issue on as a professional staff member. As a parent, I would want to speak up, but would be extremely worried about a) repercussions for my own kids if our family were seen as bigots, and b) repercussions for the trans kid who is probably a perfectly nice kid who is vulnerable to this ideology.

I think the sensible generic safeguarding rules need to come from the school - though ideally the SLT would be sorting this so it doesn't land with individual teachers. In fact, the government should be sorting it out so it doesn't land with individual schools! But thank you OP.

@DisappearingGirl Thanks for asking about what happened in our case. I got such great input from the contributors here that I do feel bad for not feeding back. But at all points it has to be about protecting the children, hence keeping things rather quiet. I think this is one of the reasons this crap has got so far - what's really going on is hushed up to protect the children, which means that people simply don't believe you when you tell them that schools are facilitating mixed sex sleeping arrangements for teenagers!

The trip went ahead fine - we hadn't really expected a problem; dd's friend is a nice kid. As are most of her other male friends; most of the boys could probably share with girls without incident but this doesn't mean that schools should make all accommodation mixed sex... But we feel deeply responsible for having allowed a precedent to be set which is incredibly difficult for the school to manage, and will, sooner or later, lead to something awful happening - see the scenarios I shared upthread. We've focused on pointing out the massive legal problems with the wider policy that the school was following. I'll just say that we've made some progress.

@Nimbostratus100 Are you able to share a bit more detail, in a non-identifiable way, on the underage pregnancy situation you described. As I've said above, I completely understand that children must be protected, but people really need to know that these bad outcomes of school policies are already happening, and need to be stopped. If that happened and it was my kid, I'd be taking the school to court. (Whether it was my son OR my daughter!)

When I pointed out that an underage pregnancy could result from a trans-identified child sharing a bedroom with the opposite sex I was treated like some kind of weirdo fantasist for suggesting it. It's just bizarre how people's judgment seems to get scrambled. (Teenagers have sex? What a bizarre suggestion!)

They'll boast about it somewhere - organisations must openly praise and celebrate Stonewall as they jump through their hoops (using school funds to do so) in order to work their way though the bronze, silver and gold awards. On their website usually.

Yes. You are not allowed to tell them if their daughter will be sleeping in a room/sharing a shower or changing room with a male child who identifies as a girl. It invades the male child's privacy.

Excellent point, Nils. I think that was Alison Bailey vs Garden Court and Stonewall. The latter wriggled off the hook in exactly the way you said. "Us, guv? No, guv. Well, yes, we did tell Garden Court to illegally discriminate buy they chose to actually do it [shrug]".

When you're on the stand, it really doesn't wash to say "a bigger boy lobby group told us to"

Brownie leaders have to lie to parents?!!

Actually also relevant to add to that: worth looking at the evidence of how Stonewall behave when someone they have dropped in it through their guidance runs up against reality and legal consequences. Snow off a hot brick comes to mind.

I think at the recent court case it was a lot of 'well we offered our advice, but it was their choice to act on and implement it, and not realise the consequences, so it's nowt to do with us'. School SLTs need to be aware: if they blindly trust and follow these political groups without thinking it through, checking and double checking, and doing the good old asking the difficult questions, thinking the unthinkable - they will be the ones left in the shit if it goes wrong. Not the lobby groups.

Also needs to be pointed out to SLTs, those delivering the training on behalf of the lobby groups have included well known figures such as Aimee Challoner. SLTs need to do the due diligence and check: what exactly are the qualifications of the trainers or creators of useful packs of guidance? What safeguarding training have they had and when? What real life experience of safeguarding in practice in schools? What real life experience of implementing diversity and inclusion policy in schools with regard to all nine characteristics, not just one?

Also worth checking as I remember one of the key issues for Brownie Leaders is that they are forbidden to tell parents if their daughter will be sharing with a biological male, and must maintain the illusion that the male child is female for the male child's benefit and privacy.

Which creates very significant parental rights and consent issues. And again demonstrates the much greater priority of the male child over all of the issues creates for every female child involved. Should a female child be assaulted and parents then discover they sent their daughter to sleep in a room with a male child in a situation they never would have consented to if they had been permitted an informed decision?

Well I wouldn't want to be on the stand trying to explain that one to the judge. I really wouldn't.

In a similar situation near me, the school said yes, but the venue of the trip refused to allow mixed sex accommodation.

It's worth parents checking to see if their child's school is signed up to Stonewall. If they are it's guaranteed that there'll be a relentless assault on girls, their boundaries and rights to say no to males. Including sharing sleeping, showering accommodation on school trips.

And many Youth Hostels have a licenced bar too, so safeguarding isn't too much of a concern for them nowadays

Presumably any parents asking if there will be single sex accommodation won't be certain if that includes boys identifying as trans

So if they were all on the pill it would be ok? Or prepubescent? It should be no rooming that undermines the safety, privacy or dignity of girls or facilitates the removal of boundaries from girls or suggests that these are in anyway inappropriate.

The policy should be no rooming arrangements that could result in pregnancy. Identity should not be a factor.

as much as you and the school may be getting pressure from one side, if you allow mixed sex sleeping arrangements you are setting yourself up for a different kind of pushback and bad publicity.

Also, isn't a poor rating on Ofsted enough to downgrade the whole school regardless? So why on trips (and school loos) is safeguarding completely disregarded?

OP thank you for pushing back on this. I never thought I'd ever have to ask if my children would bunk in single sex spaces on school trips, but I will be every time from.now on.

I would ask the school: How do you gate keep mix-sex situations? At what point does a boy become eligible to be in with the girls? At what point do they let a girl share with the boys? The only way to do this is to have it totally mixed sexed.