Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Single-sex schools can reject transgender pupils

43 replies

IwantToRetire · 18/04/2023 00:22

A Department for Education source said: “Single-sex schools can refuse to admit pupils of the other legal sex regardless of whether the child is questioning their gender.”

Schools will be reassured that they will not be breaching the Equality Act 2010 if they do so.

Teachers will not be required to call children by their preferred pronouns, the source said. There is no suggestion that a child who is questioning their gender identity would be forced to leave a single-sex school.

The guidance on transgender pupils is being drawn up by Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, and Kemi Badenoch, the equalities minister. It will apply to all state and independent schools in England.

It is intended to provide clarity on how schools respond to children with gender dysphoria and comes amid a dramatic increase in the number of pupils who say they are trans.

In 2021-22, the NHS reported more than 5,000 referrals to the Gender Identity Development Service run by Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, up from just under 250 a decade earlier.

A recent report by the Policy Exchange alleged that the practice of affirming pupils questioning their gender in schools has become embedded.

Long article originally from the Telegraph available via Yahoo News https://uk.news.yahoo.com/single-sex-schools-reject-transgender-210826905.html

(I am wondering whether this flurry of articles in the Telegraph about schools and gender ID are as much about the Government trying to find out what sort of response they would get if actually put forward as a proposal.)

Transgender guidance for schools to be published in summer, says Sunak

PM concerned by reports that 40pc of state secondary schools in England allow children to self-declare gender without parental consent

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2023/03/30/transgender-guidance-schools-published-summer-sunak/

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Thread gallery
5
CruCru · 20/04/2023 18:21

I understand that GDST schools all now have a policy of only admitting female sexed pupils (and have for some time).

Datun · 20/04/2023 16:54

Gordon Bennett, can this please implode faster?

nilsmousehammer · 20/04/2023 16:44

Datun · 20/04/2023 11:31

I've just seen a video of a nut job claiming that transwomen should learn how to use a gun 'efficiently', in order to kill women who object to them standing in their spaces.

Be kind.

How could you not want to be in an enclosed space, partially undressed, with a man who intends to kill you for displeasing him by having boundaries??

Gordon Bennett, can this please implode faster?

Datun · 20/04/2023 11:31

I've just seen a video of a nut job claiming that transwomen should learn how to use a gun 'efficiently', in order to kill women who object to them standing in their spaces.

Be kind.

Happylittlechicken · 20/04/2023 06:03

Why is the person on the right wearing a crash helmet? Did that person really believe car crash tv meant actual crashing? Or was it to protect from the literal violence of soneige disagreeing with them?

TiedUpWithABlackVelvetBand · 20/04/2023 02:40

Be kind.

Or else 👊🏼

Datun · 20/04/2023 00:48

NemoandDoris · 19/04/2023 21:09

Interview by Vanessa Feltz on TalkTV kind of sums up the two opposing viewpoints

Good Lord. I don't wish to be unkind, but really, how have we got to this?

Apart from anything else, Felix had a fuck all argument, apart from be kind.

And when Naomi pointed out all the reasons why social transition is dangerous, there was another be kind. And when she pointed out that she didn't adhere to the belief system, it was another be kind.

And what the fuck is Felix wearing? Are they an adult baby?

Ffs.

GCMM · 19/04/2023 22:41

Wow, that video is quite something. One person is not making quite so much sense as the other. I like the way Naomi explains that it is not all about the trans individual, that others have rights and needs. Felix didn't seem to grasp that. Felix seemed to think it was big thing to go from he/him to he/they - I doubt anyone else noticed and they certainly shouldn't be made to feel bad for not knowing or caring about the difference.

TiedUpWithABlackVelvetBand · 19/04/2023 20:35

Sorry - clearly no-one thinks this child is actually a boy.

TiedUpWithABlackVelvetBand · 19/04/2023 20:34

As a parent in this situation, I could not agree more, @GCMM and @nilsmousehammer

Complete and utter cakeism.

And there’s absolutely nothing that other parents can say or do about it, because ‘won’t somebody think of the children’. 🙄

Clearly not a single person thinks this girl, with short hair (like many other girls), who wears trousers (again, many of the other girls do), and who’s changed their name from [girls’ name] to [boy-ish version of the same name] is actually a girl.

This school prides itself on its single-sex offering, and on the old girls who’ve left and gone on to achieve incredible things. The place is filled with incredible female role models and it’s set up for girls.

Why would someone who identifies as a boy even want to be there?

I mean, the answer is obvious, of course. It’s a far, far safer place, everyone’s willing to pander to the situation and give this child more rights than anyone else, and not a soul can question it.

nilsmousehammer · 19/04/2023 17:22

GCMM · 19/04/2023 17:10

Girls (and their parents) who insist they are really boys, but still want to remain in an all-girls school, want to have their cake and eat it. The fact that they aren't required to move to a mixed sex school suggests to me that the adults around them do not, in any way, believe what they children are saying. Which is fine, but I think it would better to say that, rather than imply that an exception is being made for them, as a special boy, to remain in an all-girls school. I think that's patronising and ultimately unhelpful.

This. I have absolutely no patience at all with whining about this.

Mixed sex schools are the massive majority where a pupil can identify as any sex they wish without the slightest problem.

To stay in a single sex school while identifying as the opposite sex - well that says rather a lot about the boundaries of that identity.

To try and identify into a single sex school when a child is not that sex?

It is making it clear that there is special value in having single sex provisions.

It is also making it clear that the desire is to be in that special single sex provision as a special VIP exception, in order to have that very special experience of being the only one of that sex inside the experience of an otherwise totally single sex environment - while removing that experience from every child of that sex on the premises, and saying yes, it's a very special desirable, positive experience but only I get to have it, I'm taking it away from everyone else.

Or it's a desire to break single sex spaces on principle because boundary, me no likey boundary, me smash it. Fuck everyone but me. Yay me.

None of it is justifiable, and much of it appears to be intentionally looking for the word 'no' in order to then drum heels about it.

GCMM · 19/04/2023 17:10

Girls (and their parents) who insist they are really boys, but still want to remain in an all-girls school, want to have their cake and eat it. The fact that they aren't required to move to a mixed sex school suggests to me that the adults around them do not, in any way, believe what they children are saying. Which is fine, but I think it would better to say that, rather than imply that an exception is being made for them, as a special boy, to remain in an all-girls school. I think that's patronising and ultimately unhelpful.

Original poster
IwantToRetire · 19/04/2023 16:20

Yes - agree its a really good article.

But got to the end, and not to diminish the writer herself, sort of sighed with resignation that it is by a Conservative MP.

Wake up Labour - have some intergrity - and respect for women.

OP posts:
BonfireLady · 19/04/2023 07:56

ResisterRex · 19/04/2023 07:16

Comment piece by Miriam Cates in today's Telegraph (staying with this thread!):

This can be the end of the gender insanity

digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1268/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/1268/pub/1268/page/69/article/NaN

What a great piece of writing.

I have no idea how she approaches other issues but she's an incredible MP on this particular one. Moderate, articulate and clear. Not to mention brave in the face of so much polarisation.

ResisterRex · 19/04/2023 07:16

Comment piece by Miriam Cates in today's Telegraph (staying with this thread!):

This can be the end of the gender insanity

digitaleditions.telegraph.co.uk/data/1268/reader/reader.html?social#!preferred/0/package/1268/pub/1268/page/69/article/NaN

Original poster
IwantToRetire · 18/04/2023 16:43

Another thread on this has been started - so discussion split. Sad

OP posts:
Original poster
IwantToRetire · 18/04/2023 16:34

What a sensationalist and ideologically odd thread title.

Not in the least. It is what the article is titled.

The point of the thread was to alert those on FWR to the article, and I would have hoped that before commenting anyone interested would read the article.

My only comment was that I do wonder whether this and another of othr stories are being feed to the Telegraph (and the Times) so the Tories can gauge just how popular with voters women's sex based rights are as a voting issue.

OP posts:
WestwardHo1 · 18/04/2023 11:42

The headline implies that transgender children are excluded from education. Not the case.

And is it just me who who thinks the photo accompanying that headline is seriously seriously off. Might even sum up why so many girls are uncomfortable with being girls.

Datun · 18/04/2023 11:21

KaihahUmoniiv · 18/04/2023 06:58

Interesting.

Well Matrix Chambers are talking out of their arses. Fortunately they are not responsible for making the law.

There are, quite rightly, no under 18s with a legal gender recognition certificate that requires them to be treated as their acquired gender, but even if ther were the equality act allows GRCs not to override reality if there is a legitimate aim and single sex education is a legitimate aim.

Therefore no girls' school could successfully be charged for failing to admit a male pupil who feels like a girl because that feeling has no status in law. A girls' school certainly could be challenged for discrimination against a female pupil who identifies as a boy, and many indeed have a number of such pupils who do so. Refusing to admit on the grounds that the pupil is trans would be discriminatory.

If a school admits both male and female pupils who identify as the opposite gender then there's no sense at all in asserting that it's a girls' school, it's clearly a mixed school whatever your ideology about which of these categories count as girls, you can't have both, you must pick one and exclude the other or become a mixed school.

If a ruling was made in favour of Natrix Chambers position that would effectively outlaw single sex education.

Show quote history

Although I agree, that if it was tested in court, they would run into trouble, there is no doubt that single sex organisations are doing this.

The girl guides, for instance, said that despite being a girls only association they will admit boys who identify as girls.

And, initially, they said they would reject girls who identify as boys. They changed their mind on that, presumably due to a quick consultation with their lawyers.

They have a 'trans inclusive' policy, which includes adults who work for them or are volunteers.

As far as I know, the policy says that leadership roles must be female, but they include males who identify as female in this. Like Monica Sully.

So it's definitely happening, although a school probably can't be sued for not letting it happen.

Single-sex schools can reject transgender pupils
Toseland · 18/04/2023 11:09

Ah they ran out of time!

BonfireLady · 18/04/2023 11:06

Toseland · 18/04/2023 10:48

On Jeremy Vine now....

...to be handled with his usual diplomacy and rounded thinking I'm sure....
At the very least, hopefully someone will phone in and say something "controversial"* and a some complaints will be raised. Enough to get it in the main news 🤞🤞

*by controversial I mean sensible and in line with what's being proposed.

Toseland · 18/04/2023 10:48

On Jeremy Vine now....

ResisterRex · 18/04/2023 08:47

Here's a share for the Times

Transgender pupils ‘can be rejected’ by single-sex schools

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/06c204f6-dd74-11ed-a0a8-657f9e54fc6a?shareToken=7051ab301d04e48857e99b1ffd1b4be3

I think we need to see what it says. A lot of what's being said about it from sources could always be those sources trying to influence the document.

NotHavingIt · 18/04/2023 08:30

Is this wishy-washy'ness down to Gillian Keegan alone, I wonder?