BBC article on schools trans guidance

Agreed. I know of a number of schools who've managed to keep the trans ideology where it belongs - away from schools & children. Where confident Heads & SLT keep the focus on learning, excellent pastoral care, behaviour & positive peer relationships. None of them allow the dubious individuals or lobby groups to influence school practice. Vulnerable students are intelligently supported and the confused minority supported by child centred practices.
They're genuinely inclusive where children really matter - not queer theorists and adult fetishes.

being 'trans' has been deliberately excised from/distanced from GD.

They never count.

“Sam would have been happier in gender neutral facilities” - what about the other 300 girls in the school, has anyone asked them whether gender neutral facilities make them happier or don’t they count?

I do have to say not all schools are captured.

Are there...? Which, where, how can we find them - this is me genuinely wanting to know, because then I can quit my school and join a better one. It would be such a relief.

Honestly I could fill multiple threads with the madness at my school. (I feel I've hijacked this one too much already haha thank you all for listening to my rant earlier)

I do have to say not all schools are captured. Which almost makes it worse for the kids in schools who are because they're receiving such gaslighting and it's such an uneven playing field - there are some schools safeguarding all children and balancing their needs, adhering to the law on toilets and safeguarding, not overriding parental responsibility and not encouraging children to keep secrets and live double lives.

The children in schools abandoning safeguarding for the sake of gender ideology are so disadvantaged compare to the pupils in schools where the adults are being responsible and adhering to the law.

It's so awful for the best teachers - you know the ones who understand safeguarding as more than a tick box exercise and reality and fact.

Thanks for pushing back as best you can, I hope things change for you soon @Mummy08m

It's only a matter of time until a school is sued by a collective of parents to high heaven and loses. What they're doing is against the law (there is a law requiring single sex toilets over age 8, if they're allowing the other sex in kids don't have this) and against safeguarding. As soon as someone mounts a legal challenge it's over, the problem is it needs a collective of parents to bring a case because the process is so punishing and few children are resilient enough to go through it alone and parents put their children's wellbeing first (being the primary safeguarders). It would take an exceptional child to be resilient enough to cope with a court case about this, unless in a large group.

I am so angry at the government doing bloody nothing about this and leaving it to legal challenge until anything happens. That's not ok when it comes to children. It's not ok when it comes to women either, really, as many are too vulnerable to cope with the punishment of drawn out court cases over YEARS but we do have our sheros / modern day suffragettes like Maya, Allison, Denise and all the others who bravely fight for us all. But imagine putting a child through that. Just awful.

You also can't change sex till 18.

You didn't need the last two words in that sentence,,,

Oh my! What about the girls who 'identify' as girls?! It's grim out there

Don't be silly - inclusion is key and there is equal provision for everybody's identity to be respected and acknowledged without fear or judgement. Except for the girls, that is - they don't matter...

Or Xs and Ys….

I have noticed that increasingly they (the bbc particularly and the guardian) use examples of girls / women who id as the opposite sex because it negates the need for the reader to consider the impact and implications of a male using girls' toilets and changing rooms.

I'm not sure if that's the effect/reason. In my experience, using an ftm example is more effective at getting that point across because it raises the opposite issue of putting a female student (often a young teen) into a totally male dominated environment like the boys changing rooms / dorm. Everyone can see that that's a disaster waiting to happen to that young person in a way that is less clear when you talk about a mtf example, where the inevitable "be kind" is trotted out.

I'm really not ok with a "keep pronouns secret from parents" flag!

I'm ok with that tbh.

It means data is being recorded.

That might mean in future you can see how many trans kids there are in each school, what the demographic profile is and potentially whether there are correlations with high rates of SEN or social service involvement. It might allow us to see patterns which, to date, haven't been formally identified.

If we see patterns we can ask questions. Asking questions is a good thing. It encourages critical thinking.

Yes, the field that used to be called "gender" (and has always contained M or F) has simply been renamed "sex" which is great.

But they have quietly added "gender identity", "pronouns" and "pronouns only used in school".

It’s an interesting article. One thing they seem to be saying is that when some kids think they are trans they are actually neurodiverse. I’m not sure what to think about that. There were 8 kids with gender changes in the DCs secondary school. Only one was neurodiverse. I hadn’t made a connection.

Thanks, I've ranted about my school on here before haha it's so reassuring that there are some people out there who see my pov!

I think they might have quietly dropped the changing rooms thing... very quietly though. So the main recent thing is the Bs. I don't think that's worth a whistle-blow as I can't see the direct harm. It's just crackers. Like I have a friend who uses the phrase "what would the daily mail say" abbreviated to WWTDMS and I mutter this to myself on almost a monthly basis at my job...!

But if they keep the changing rooms thing in the face of quite clear recent guidance from the government then I think I'd push harder.

Schools in our area take their guidance from the Local Authority. The guidance says that if a child does not want parents to know he/she has socially transitioned the school should not inform parents.

Hugely worrying I think. And where the LA got the guidance from I do not know.

I know of a number of schools , my daughter’s former school included, who have obtained legal advice on the issue. The sticking point has been the EHRC Technical Guidance to Schools which is currently being reviewed by the EHRC but in its current form makes it clear that to not treat a child as the opposite sex is discrimination under the PC of GR under the EA.

This guidance was published in 2014 and has not been updated and was very heavily lobby group driven. It is only in the past 18 months or so that it has been questioned. Legal opinion on the discrimination question has, in my experience, been based on this guidance.

Conveniently, these legal opinions obtained by schools tend to ignore parental responsibility, children’s rights to appropriate healthcare etc and only focus on discrimination (which may well not hold following whatever update the EHRC makes).

Schools should also have a look at the NHSE MindEd modules which were issued yesterday and take a cautious approach towards social transition. While not DfE guidance, in the absence of such guidance, the module aimed at the education sector might open schools’ eyes a bit that it’s not as straightforward as affirm the child as soon as the request.

https://www.minded.org.uk/Catalogue/Index?HierarchyId=0_59819&programmeId=59819

Your story is appalling Mummy08m.
Quite right that you should protect your career but do consider an anonymous whistle blowing referral to Genspect or Safe Schools Alliance?
I'd suggest Ofsted but they're in the embarrassing position of having been a Stonewall Champion until recently so will no doubt wish to avoid highlighting their culpability for this nonsense. 😑