Primary schools given advice on children who want to change gender (supposedly now agreed)

The whole thing is hugely disappointing and not helpful to schools.
It is however a shuffle in the right direction I suppose.

The guidance on sport looks very disappointing. Only a ban on contact sport? Other sport can be by identity if 'fair'. So girls running, tennis, netball all fair game for the teenage boys??

The GRA and Eq A created this mess and now we can see the hold they have

I couldn’t see clarification on what happens with pronoun use but maybe I missed it

The waiting list for children desperately needing SEND diagnosis and subsequent help is vast. That should absolutely be the priority because children regardless of gender are disappearing into an educational gap that will destroy their futures which could be saved. They're worth the extra time because they're extraordinarily valuable as humans ffs!

The guidance will also ensure that nearly all parents are informed if their children tell staff that they want to change their gender identity, except for children with safeguarding issues.

I'd like to see some examples of the sort of safeguarding issues that would make it appropriate for schools to trans children without informing their parents.

If a transgirl or transwoman is barred from the ladies and has a fear of using the gents, they have no provision, which disadvantages them compared to the boys/men.

As this is about schools, the issue is about what is happening in the boys' toilets and changing rooms to make them unsafe for boys with gender identities.

The schools' job here is to address the bullying and the other boys' attitude to someone who is a bit different. Bullying a boy with a gender identity should be dealt with the same way as they would deal with any other bullying.

Some teachers are planning to ignore it anyway:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12872913/Activist-teachers-say-NOT-tell-parents-child-says-trans-admit-willing-sacked-comply-Government-guidance.html

You'd think there'd be lots of workarounds given that safeguarding is meant to be the priority. But to me it shows how those determined to transition children for their own ends have gained a secure hold in our institutions. Just look at this male politician in the HoL calling out safeguarding children as right wing bigotry:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4954762-pushing-back-against-safeguarding

"The EA has been weaponised in order to ride over safeguarding.
Given the rapid rise in teen girls identifying as trans, it's far from clear why they are seemingly not deemed worthy of a safeguarding first approach".

THIS

We've spectacularly failed to protect children from an adult ideology run by adults only interested in pushing their niche beliefs at children. Adults have stood by and watched this happen.

Actually, @thirdfiddle has convinced me. If a transgirl or transwoman is barred from the ladies and has a fear of using the gents, they have no provision, which disadvantages them compared to the boys/men.

Why isn't Victoria Prentis also advising that all institutions must provide guaranteed female-only toilets, in order to avoid indirect discrimination against religious minorities and females with a fear of men? The logic is the same.

Third spaces.

Also, I agree, safeguarding.

we stop children doing stuff all the time, and in any case what does the EA have to do with it?

Precisely. The EA has been weaponised in order to ride over safeguarding.

Given the rapid rise in teen girls identifying as trans, it's far from clear why they are seemingly not deemed worthy of a safeguarding first approach.

Or why those around them are, by extension, expected to play along and encourage the trans identity.

Not a lawyer, but I think there may be an indirect discrimination claim.
Not allowing children to pretend to be the other sex at school, while applied equally to all children, might be considered to be disproportionately making school difficult to access for children with the protected characteristic and therefore indirect discrimination.

That doesn't mean you have to let them use the opposite sex loos or change for swimming with the opposite sex, or indeed that it wouldn't be deemed discriminatory to other children if you did let them. A reasonable adjustment should be reached like letting them use a staff loo, or change in a single cubicle, or change before/after the other children, or something.

As I say I'm not a lawyer so this might be completely wrong and interested to hear from any actual legal bods.

Is anyone here a lawyer and able to explain this advice? I get that children, despite not qualifying for a grc, can have the PC of gender reassignment, and therefore enjoy protection from discrimination on that basis, but in that case the comparator (for judging discrimination) is another child of the same sex. None of the children are allowed to identify out of their sex, so there is no discrimination.

I also get that it goes against personal autonomy to block transition. But we stop children doing stuff all the time, and in any case what does the EA have to do with it?