Tougher transgender guidance for schools is unlawful, Sunak told

definitions are so unclear that at the time MPs might have thought they were supporting a tiny number of cross dressing men who wanted to have ‘sex change’ surgery and be married to a man,

No 'might' about it. It was explicitly and repeatedly said in parliament by those proposing the GR bill that it would only apply to about 5,000 people - and therefore the impact on society would be insignificant.

(That number turned out to be roughly correct for those actually getting a GRC; the impact on society has mainly come from the vastly greater numbers who don't get one but still claim all the rights and advantages under the EA - or Stonewall's interpretstion of the EA.)

Agree; we don't want to move away from compelled totalitarianism towards a different kind of compelled totalitarianism. The impact on children's mental health - the mental load they are carrying from all this shit - must be enormous. They should have some basic freedoms and being able to use basic words in English the way they choose should be one of these.

However, I suspect once adults stop doing it, there will be very few kids who will. It's hard, it goes against the rules of English and instinct, and most kids are doing it out of fear and because the adults are modelling it.

This period in history reflects incredibly badly on the misogyny and lack of interest in women’s rights of all political parties and the absolute normality of smoothing the way for male sexual entitlement common to all mainstream political parties.
^^
The phallocentric thinking at the time by majority male lawmakers would I imagine have been that for a transsexual man to want to cut off his penis and live (with the shame of) ‘being a woman’ , that this man must have terriblly poor mental health therefore be an object of much pity and need of special concern by the state. Also that this would only ever be something that a tiny number of men would ever want to do.
^^
It also reflects the back room nature of the GRA build up

Lawmakers gave it enough attention to make sure that older sisters couldn’t acquire a GRC and then snatch her younger brother’s male-only inheritance entitlements from under his nose. Funny that.

Whatever headline words Sunak might use "of course I know a women is an adult human female, unlike my honourable friend the leader of the Opposition...", he remains unprincipled and a coward here. He's run away from the decision on trans conversion ban legislation, and he's running away from this.

I'm sorry to say, that the tide will only turn in the Tory party if Badenoch or Cates becomes leader.

That's exactly the NHS advice

This is one of those situations where Sex Matters seems to have grasped the heart of the matter in a way that the Attorney-General hasn't, which seems astonishing, but that's where we are.

The point the Sex Matters document makes is that if a school refuses to use a child's preferred pronouns or recognise the child as the opposite sex, it is not actually discriminating against the child. Because you are not treating the child unfavourably on the basis of its protected characteristic. You're not denying it an education, or denying it the right to play sport or take exams or go on school trips. You're treating it exactly the same as any other child. You're simply saying that you're not going to go along with the preferred pronouns - which is a rule that presumably applies to all children, not just ones with a protected characteristic.

Above comments in the context of “just do a complete ban and let it go to court”. I think there are all sorts of caveats around a complete ban- eg children who have started down the medical pathway, where their parents have changed the child’s legal name etc.

Ie if they are testing out a complete ban, it needs to be done in a manner that does not add new problems to the mix

I want to know what a complete ban looks like. If it means school staff turning a blind eye to the child’s (and any in their peer group who choose to use preferred name/pronouns), then that’s fine.

If we’re going down the route of, for example, the child’s friends being told off if they use preferred pronouns for the child, or any pressure on the child to not refer to themselves as nb/the opposite sex etc, then I don’t support it.

The focus needs to be on the actions/words of the trusted adults in that child’s life. If it extends to peer group/the child it’s opening up a whole new world of problems impacting the child.

This is the ridiculous situation you end up in when you create a protected characteristic based around people pretending to be something they are not.

So I don't see how anyone can be excluded from self identifying into the PC of Gender Reassignment. They just have to claim to have proposed this. Saying, as the EHRC do, that you're not covered unless you've proposed this is meaningless.

I’m not sure there’s a definition of ‘proposes’. I think it can just be a thought in someone’s head. Expressed or not to any else. Otherwise there would be disputes over people not having said anything, or did they once say something or to whom and then declarations on paper would have to have become a thing.

I agree. He should just go ahead.

What a ridiculous statement by the EHRC.

There is no 'process to change your sex' because it's not possible to change sex.

But even if we assume they mean 'process to change your gender', proposing to do this could simply mean telling a single other person that they intend to do this.

I don't understand what the distinction is between someone who has disclosed to at least one other person that they intend to change their gender (covered by the PC of Gender Reassignment) and someone who just identifies as trans (not be covered by the PC of Gender Reassignment).

Okay, I understand now. I would have a problem with mixed sex toilets in primary school, less so sports, and I see how social transition could lead there.

He should ban it. Then there'll be a judicial review (quite quickly after the ban because that's how they work). And then we'll find out if the law is fit for safeguarding purposes.

I thought that too

No it’s not the same as a nick name

Dc should be able to wear whatever with no impact on pronoun or spaces used and sports participated in

There are a few happy dc who do this, the dc know their sex hasn’t changed. Tg the school hasn’t pushed indoctrination to say it has.

If society as a whole wasn't so wedded to gender conformity, it difficult to imagine 95% of what 'social transitioning' would involve. All you'd be left with is pronouns.

That's exactly what social transitioning is. It's about pretending to be the opposite sex.

This may or may not include a change of appearance.

*There is another article in the times and from that it makes it clear that the legal advice given is about social transitioning - but as I understand it social transitioning is not a recognised process.

So why are schools or the government even talking about "social transitioning" in schools let alone how it is covered by the EA?

This is the only reference (apart fro Stonewall gobbledigook) to "social transitioning" and it is NOT recommended by the NHS!*

IwantToRetire

This is untrue. Social transitioning is a recognised process and has been for years, going all the way back to the Dutch Protocol, if not before. GIDS have long defined it, and most recently, it has been outlined in the new NHSE service specs:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Interim-service-specification-for-Specialist-Gender-Incongruence-Services-for-Children-and-Young-People.pdf

And this may sound a bit harsh but if the schools are implying to children that this is a legal route to getting a GRC, and parents dont need to be involved, how would that work as you have to have "lived as the opposite gender for 2 years" and that doesn't mean only during school hours. ie if the child isn't living as the opposite "gender" at home.

I’ve yet to come across a school giving the message to children that this is a legal route to getting a GRC, but the child is living as the opposite gender at home even where the parents are not affirming. The child will be affirmed by their friends, they will likely be online where they present themselves as the opposite sex, they will likely have changed their name where they can without making a deed roll change (eg at their GP, school email address/other email address etc). The fact that the parents do not support their social transition is irrelevant - it’s not about how many people (or who) supports their social transition,its about how they can demonstrate their doing so,

Wikipedia says of the GRA voting: ^Support for the bill in the House of Commons was split broadly down party lines. At both the second and third readings (i.e. before and after amendments), all Labour Party, Liberal Democrat, Plaid Cymru and Scottish National Party votes were in favour of the bill; all Ulster Unionist and Democratic Unionist Party votes were against.[7][8]Conservative Party MPs were split on the issue, and the party leadership did not issue a whip mandating MPs to take a particular stance on the bill, instead allowing its MPs a free vote.[9] 25 Conservative MPs voted in favour and 22 against the bill at its second reading, and 20 voted in favour and 39 voted against the bill at its third reading. Less than half of the Conservative Party's 166 MPs participated in either vote.[9]
Among those who voted against the bill were Ann Widdecombe (who opposed it on religious grounds), Dominic Grieve, Peter Lilley and Andrew Robathan. Among Conservative MPs who supported the bill were Kenneth Clarke, Constitutional Affairs spokesman Tim Boswell, and future speaker John Bercow.[10]^

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Recognition_Act_2004

According to Wkipedia half of the Tory MPs in Parliament didn’t bother to vote on GRA Bill at all- so much for embattled Tories holding out bravely with their long held principles against the Blairite tide. No political party comes off well in this era.

This period in history reflects incredibly badly on the misogyny and lack of interest in women’s rights of all political parties and the absolute normality of smoothing the way for male sexual entitlement common to all mainstream political parties.

The phallocentric thinking at the time by majority male lawmakers would I imagine have been that for a transsexual man to want to cut off his penis and live (with the shame of) ‘being a woman’ , that this man must have terriblly poor mental health therefore be an object of much pity and need of special concern by the state. Also that this would only ever be something that a tiny number of men would ever want to do.

It also reflects the back room nature of the GRA build up I think and the way, a bit like Brexit, that definitions are so unclear that at the time MPs might have thought they were supporting a tiny number of cross dressing men who wanted to have ‘sex change’ surgery and be married to a man, (and remember the European Court of Human Rights has told the UK they have to come up with something on this issue) in a country that didn’t allow gay marriage for another decade, but later a much wider group can be brought under the umbrella.

And looking back the level of debate publicly and in Parliament seems unobtrusive and if covered at all, as a bit of a joke. You get the idea that MPs might have seen Ally McBeal’s mixed sex office toilets in the hit US TV show in late 90s and maybe felt excitingly ‘modem’ in supporting that kind of thing. The BBC covers all this jokily in the era of the Equality Bill in this y2K article ‘Sex and the Single Can’. Well worth a read. and

They even offer a handy etiquette guide:
*Unisex etiquette
Men should remember:
not to expect a urinal - cubicles only
to put down the loo seat
to always wash their hands
Women should remember:
not to hog the mirrors
to leave some loo paper for the men
not to take too long

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/727005.stm

The actual producer of the Ally McBeal show was even more jokey- he said in 1999 to the New Orleans’ National Association of TV Program Associates, “The idea of the unisex bathroom came out of how to economize sets.” That, he said, and the fact “Richard Fish (one of the founders of the show’s fictional law firm) … probably likes to go into the girl’s room.”

https://people.com/celebrity/why-ally-shares-her-bathroom/

And none of these MPs debated considering women’s needs properly including those who wanted to change sex legally, hence no legislation around pregnancy and birth. As we saw from the failed Freddy McConnell legal challenges 20 years later.

It seems to me that Sex Matters is absolutely right. Sunak should take note.

What’s the issue with children socially transitioning? Isn’t it the same as just being gender nonconforming, and asking people to call you a nickname?

No, social transition involves everyone pretending that a girl is a boy, or vice versa, ie pretending that the child has changed sex. That's where the harm is.

What a mess!

This thread highlights how difficult any meaningful discussion is without first establishing the constructs being discussed.

If society as a whole wasn't so wedded to gender conformity, it difficult to imagine 95% of what 'social transitioning' would involve. All you'd be left with is pronouns.

Why would the social transition of kids by schools (regardless of parental consent and child consent) win out against the actual legal duty of teaching professionals to act in best interests of child while that child is under the care of the teachers?

Isn’t the job of government in the immediate term to make it clear to the teaching profession (and parents by extension) that Cass has already advised some time ago, social transitioning kids is not neutral act, it is psychologically impactful on a child etc.

Then to headline that the government expects teachers to follow evidence as it emerges about what is in kids best interests. That there is no evidence to show social transitioning at school IS in children’s best interests. That there is a strong lead from Cass that social transitioning probably ISNT in the best interests because it encourages a social, official hardening and formalising of an identity which may just be a experimental phase for a child, placing psychological burdens on that child. Which is a principle that would also apply to kids identifying as anything they are not- cats or pensioners etc.

If government go in first from professional duty angle then they can also recommend Equality Act and GRA review as aspirations, for medium term timescale after the 2024 general election, if this government wants to hold something back for appealing to voters.