School Guidance out Tomorrow

This is not complicated, although Stonewall training makes it appear so

This, 10000 times over, till it gets into the most captured brain. This should be printed on leaflets and distributed to every school, NHS building and workplace.

No human being is ‘born in the wrong body’. No one can change sex. If you identify with another ‘gender’, it is just your choice of old sex stereotypes to conform to.

It really is that simple!

And that's the part that's missing.

How is the child going to be safeguarded?

This guidance mostly helps parents and schools. There's not enough clarity around safeguarding for the child.

The problem is that children police themselves on what is, and what isn't, normal behaviour for the sexes. I would argue it's innate but I'm guessing most on here would disagree. Recently one of my grandchildren just shy of his forth birthday described a girl from his nursery as a 'boy girl'. He recognised that most of the girls were not interested in playing the sort of "adventure game" that he and most of his boy friends enjoyed so this girl stood out as being different.

I agree that schools should not be reinforcing the sex stereotypes but they need to go further than that and celebrate the children who naturally defy those stereotypes i.e the effeminate boy or the tomboy girl. Over recent years those kids have been celebrated by adopting the label of trans so lets still see them celebrated without that label.

As opposed to the "process" just being to rock up to school with new pronouns

Even if the bar is passed children will still have to use their own facilities and stick to the guidelines.

And no sanctions for wrong pronouns

@noblegiraffe

Absolutely. I get that the guidance doesn't tell us definitively what the law is - it can't, because the law is unclear. But it is credible to say, for example, that the "process" is having undergone sufficient counselling and being put on a medically supervised pathway and that, yes, it should be the case that a child on a medically supervised pathway should be relatively rare.

No.

But clearly some schools/ teachers think it is.

Because they've not had guidance that says it's not the neutral, reversible act they think it is.

Bell is saying it very clearly, an adult who agrees with the child is saying that they agree their body is wrong. Teachers need to be aware that they're actually making a clinical judgment by saying yes.

Even if a child does have the PC of gender reassignment, for treatment of that child to be discriminatory requires:

• that the treatment results in detriment to the child
• that there is not a good reason for it.

Is there any evidence that not supporting social transition is detrimental?

Isn't "not forcing all the other children to lie" a good reason? Isn't "not making a serious psychological intervention" a good reason?

How long has this been assumed in schools?

A local secondary school was completed 7 years ago, with mixed sex single cubicle loos (floor to ceiling, off corridors) and gender queer symbols on those doors. Which means it was planned to be like that then.

The single sex facilities will still remain in schools and no one will be compelled to use pronouns

Plus sports will remain as per guidance

We have this for adults already in some cases and it stands

It has still not been defined what the proposal or process should be for children, merely that it should be rare.

Is it really credible that an 11 year old who says that he thinks he might be trans and wants to change his pronouns in class is actually proposing to undergo a process to reassign his sex at that point?

@noblegiraffe

Yes, it requires a proposal to undergo a process, but that "process" is not necessarily satisfied by a child walking into school and telling them they want to adopt a new name or pronouns.

Does it though?

The Eq Act guidance says: In the Equality Act, gender reassignment means proposing to undergo, undergoing or having undergone a process to reassign your sex.

Do you need a clinical assessment if you’re at the “proposing to undergo” stage?

@noblegiraffe

I don't think that anyone without an agenda can say that the government guidance would absolutely not stand up in court. It is definitely unclear that it would, but that's not the same as the government being very likely to lose. If that is what the DfE lawyers actually said in their advice, then I think they have an agenda.

Except it doesn’t, it requires a proposal to undergo a process.

This is one of the areas of the new guidance highlighted as a potential legal issue - the Equality Act doesn’t require a level of distress before its protections kick in.

Some of the appalling SRE materials outed as being used in some schools are testament to senior staff in schools not having the necessary oversight.

Yes yes yes. At my school, no one in the PSHE line of responsibility had even READ the materials which were simply dumped on teachers to deliver.

gender reassignment relies on clinical assessments. And is a process. That's what's protected.

Conversation has moved on but need to come back to this point;

"gender questioning" is not a protected characteristic.

This should (ideally) take a "gender questioning" child back to diagnosis and only those who've been given a diagnosis get a potential title of "trans child" and so the protected characteristic, in the most extreme circumstances and with huge amounts of professional involvement.

The term "trans child" as a common term needs to both be challenged and be phased out.

That's the label, the diagnosis and affirmation. Not self diagnosis.

Schools, teachers and the media need to be extremely clear who they're talking about here.

It's really significant that the term is "gender questioning" and not "trans children." It also means charities have to change their language.

Again, Deprogramming is going to take a while.

How long has this been assumed in schools?

Did headteachers read the EqA in 2010 and start referring to children with preferred pronouns?

Did headteacher question this in 2010, or have they let children with gender identity always use the incorrect facilities and not informed parents?

There was nothing in the guidance preventing us from teaching "some people believe..." and "it's not possible to change sex".

Some of the appalling SRE materials outed as being used in some schools are testament to senior staff in schools not having the necessary oversight. The same with the depressing list of both individuals and organisations welcomed into some schools to gaslight children despite their evident unfitness for the job.
Too many adults - politicians, civil servants, teachers, unions and the rest - have failed their responsibilities to keep children safe and protected. Their willingness to accuse the (mainly women) who have raised concerns of being bigots calls into question their fitness for their roles.

I’ve pushed back on some horrendous PSHE resources (from a well known supplier) in my school. But it should also be acknowledged that schools are very wary of challenging the government or going against guidance that might see them falling foul of Ofsted.

And the indoctrination in PSHE is largely the government's fault for issuing statutory guidance saying that children have to be taught about gender identity and then signposting Stonewall as a useful source of resources.

The government were not prescriptive about what should be taught. More of us should have taken one look at the resources, acted like responsible adults, and said "No, this is dangerous nonsense".

I also want to say that my DDs school is a state comprehensive. I don't know if the fact that there are a range of religious faiths and economic backgrounds among children in the school has acted as a bit of a shield against the crazier excesses of GI but I think the fact the school has to balance such a range of different circumstances - and in some cases quite hard realities - among their students perhaps does.

They do an amazing job, the Headteacher in particular is a wonderful woman. They should put her in charge of DfE, she'd sort it all out in no time, to the benefit of children's wellbeing.